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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Steve Dietrich who wrote (430399)	7/21/2003 5:04:45 PM
From: Peter O'Brien	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 769670

>>Just because the demographics have changed, why >>should today's younger workers have to face a much >>higher tax burden than previous generations of workers? >That was the point of this over $1 trillion in surpluses >SS has been running since the 80's, so the next generation >wouldn't have a higher tax burden. The fundamental unfairness is still there, IMO. Why do _today's_ workers have to fund existing retirees in addition to funding a surplus for their own retirement? Past generations of workers didn't have to fund a surplus. They only had to fund existing retirees. >Property taxes from childless property owners >fund the education of multi-children renters. >How is that fair? It is a lot fairer than SS. All property owners pay the same rate. The amount of taxation (and how it is spent) is determined locally and is influenced by local elections. You are not forced to pay the property tax in a given locality if you think it is too high. You can sell your property and move elsewhere. In fact, that "competitive" threat tends to keep most property taxes reasonable. >Being against social welfare and social insurance >wealth transfers is a legitimate point of view. >But considering how reluctant Republicans are to >argue it straightforwardly, i'd say it's a very >unpopular point of view with the voters. I'm not totally against the idea of a basic "safety net." But I think what this has evolved into today is ludicrous and counter-productive to the economy as a whole. >We've had this conversation before. But as long as the >nation is running deficits, which it has virturally the >whole time since SS started running surpluses in the 80's, >it makes more sense to borrow the money from ourselves >than it does to borrow that much more from the private >sector. You don't want to take any more money out of the >capital pool than you have to. Well, in an "ideal world", maybe that would be true! However, in an "ideal world" we wouldn't have a Supreme Court either. Congress and the state legislatures would simply have the good sense never to pass any unconstitutional laws, and we wouldn't have to deal with the "inefficiencies" of the judicial system ;-) But, fortunately, our framers considered the idea of "separation of powers". And, if there ever was a need for "separation of powers", I think there is a screaming need for it in managing the SS trust fund.

To: Steve Dietrich who wrote (430399)	7/21/2003 5:27:50 PM
From: Peter O'Brien	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769670

>It also pays widows, orphans and the disabled >who didn't pay in. I forgot to answer this point in my previous post. I really think it is a huge "stretch" to compare the beneficiaries of an insurance policy (e.g., widows and orphans) to an entire generation of retirees that just happened to be lucky enough to be of retirement age when the SS program began. The widows and orphans are being compensated for a loss. The early beneficiaries of the SS program received a windfall, pure and simple.