Here is an article on the surplus and how they want to spend it for us. My feelings are that once they have a surplus in the SS budget, they will use the already enabled foreign aid program to give it away like they did last time. I am very concerned with this whole thing. Most of us between the 40's and 50's got told that we should not count on SS for anything and that we should go out and earn our own retirement, so now that we have been working very hard to earn money in stocks, they want us to keep giving to a system which alot of us already factored out.
If they cut the tax rate to 10% it would make alot more sense as there would be more people retiring wihtout SS that with it.
In my case with Fed tax, State tax, SS tax, Medicare tax, local tax, property tax, gas tax, food tax, sales tax, I am paying around 65% of my income to taxes per year. Then if I try to take that other 35% and invest it and make money, I get hit at either the 48% rate if I make it in under a year or at the 29% if I hold it for a year.
Anyone want to go out to Boston and dump some Tea?
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Budget Surplus May Be Even Bigger
By ALAN FRAM
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Clinton today proposed buttressing Social Security and Medicare, using new White House projections that budget surpluses will be more than $1 trillion bigger over the next 15 years than were envisioned earlier.
"Now we have a chance to do even more to use the fruits of our prosperity today to strengthen our prospects for tomorrow -- indeed for tomorrows well into the 21st century,'' the president said.
His plan included no dramatic increases in the targeted tax cuts he proposed earlier this year. But the president did not rule out considering deeper tax reductions in discussions with congressional Republicans later this year.
"Within the framework of achieving these objectives, obviously I'll be working with the Congress to achieve them,'' Clinton said before departing for political fund-raisers in New York and Connecticut.
Clinton's proposal was expected to add new fuel to his budget fight with Republicans on Capitol Hill, who want to use surpluses for far bigger tax cuts than he has offered. Initial GOP reaction was upbeat.
"If he means what he says, he's reversing Democratic plans to spend the Social Security trust fund on more Washington programs and following the congressional Republicans' lead in locking away Americans' retirement security,'' said John Czwartacki, spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, R-Miss.
The new administration numbers were released days before the Congressional Budget Office plans to unveil its own projections. Those CBO numbers are expected to show somewhat higher surpluses than the administration.
Clinton proposed setting aside $794 billion over the next 15 years to strengthen Medicare, including providing new prescription drug benefits for the elderly. That is $108 billion more than he proposed in February, when he released his fiscal 2000 budget.
"By taking additional measures to increase competition, combat fraud and reduce costs, we can provide a new prescription drug benefit and still pay down our national debt,'' Clinton said.
The president plans to offer on Tuesday the details about how he would change Medicare.
Clinton proposed setting aside an additional $543 billion for Social Security over the next 15 years, which he said would assure the program's solvency until 2053.
To strengthen the massive pension program for the elderly and disabled, Clinton said he would use all Social Security payroll taxes for reducing the national debt, making them off-limits for other spending.
"Social Security taxes should be saved for Social Security. Period,'' Clinton said.
After a decade, he would also credit the interest savings from the debt reduction to Social Security, which a senior administration official said would further lengthen Social Security's solvency.
Standing beside an oversized graph showing a plunging national debt, Clinton declared: "We have now cut up Washington's credit card.''
"By 2015, this country can be entirely out of debt ... if we do not squander the surplus by choosing short-term gain over long-term national goals,'' he said.
Clinton's reference was apparently to debt held by the public, which currently represents more than half of the $5.7 trillion total debt. The rest is debt the government owes itself, such as money it has already spent from Social Security trust funds that must be repaid.
For fiscal 2000, which begins Oct. 1, Clinton will project a $5 billion surplus on the non-Social Security side of the budget, the first such surplus in four decades. Over the next 15 years, surpluses will be $1.08 trillion bigger than he projected in February, including $715 billion more from the non-Social Security side of the budget.
That is significant because it is the non-Social Security side of the budget that Republicans want to use for tax cuts -- and that Clinton has so far resisted using for such purposes.
Clinton will also propose increasing spending for defense and domestic programs such as veterans affairs, environmental protection, medical research and agriculture. The increase will be $41 billion over 15 years above his February proposal.
In addition, the president proposed a "children and education trust fund,'' designed to ensure healthy financing for programs such as Head Start and school construction.
For the current fiscal year, the administration now expects an overall budget surplus of $99 billion, the biggest ever and $20 billion more than it projected in February.
The improvements are due to a stronger performance by the economy than the administration projected in February, when Clinton released his budget.
28-Jun-99 09:54 EDT
Copyright 1999 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. The information contained In this news report may not be published, broadcast or otherwise distributed without the prior written authority of the Associated Press.
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