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To: GraceZ who wrote (12853)	8/21/2003 4:45:28 PM
From: Wyätt Gwyön	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 306849

the fact that you think there is a difference between federal income tax and payroll/FICA taxes makes me wonder if you are a Rush Limbaugh fan. this is a very confused notion which is implanted in the heads of middle class fans of Limbaugh and WSJ op-ed pieces by the lackeys of the elite rentier class. they laugh all the way to the bank while the middle class argues their talking points for them. surely the most dangerous thing in America is a middle class taxpayer with a library card. Are you suggesting that these same poor people be excluded from the program which frequently is the only income they have in old age and the only health coverage they might have or are you suggesting that after paying for my own healthcare I then pay for theirs as well? no, i am suggesting that the approximate 15% payroll (or self-employment tax for the self-employed)/FICA/Medicaid tax be applicable to all dollars of earned income, as well as unearned income. as it stands, there is a cutoff point around 80K for payroll/FICA, and higher (or maybe they eliminated it, i forget) for the lower-percentage Medicaid. this is a huge gift to high income earners, who avoid paying this 15% tax on the vast majority of their income (and on all of it for the rentier class with unearned income), while unfairly burdening the middle class and poor. it is of course also an enormous gift to the rentier class which relies on unearned income. the ability of the WSJ lackeys to convince the semi-educated middle class that the rich should not pay the same 15% tax that the middle class does is perhaps the greatest stroke of political genius in modern times. and not to forget, Social Security is itself a great theft by the older generations from the younger generations. all the money i ever put into Social Security will be gone in a decade or two, and Social Security will be bankrupt by the time anybody my age or younger needs it. so since it is a pure theft by the old from the young, it is ridiculous to argue that the theft should be limited to the middle and lower class income brackets. but that is the argument which obtains among fans of Rush and CNBC. there is furthermore the political benefit that payroll/FICA is characterized as a "transfer tax" and thus those with limited knowledge are easily confused into thinking the headline tax brackets (federal income tax rates) are a true representation of a progressive tax system in this country. whereas the reality is that the poor and middle class pay effective tax rates equal to or greater than those of the rich scumbags who are unwittingly supported by the fans of sound-bite news programs.

To: GraceZ who wrote (12853)	8/21/2003 5:35:59 PM
From: Don Lloyd	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 306849

Grace, If you don't know the difference maybe you spend some time going over the history around the time when SS was set up and how it was purposely set up to be separate from general revenues. It's run a surplus since it's inception. The surplus goes into a trust fund which invests that money into a special Treasury bond. (they're worth about 1.4 trillion right about now) This is all technically correct, but the economic reality at the end of the day is nuanced. The surplus that is invested in the special Treasury bond is then immediately spent in the same way and in parallel with general revenues. When it eventually becomes time to make payouts from the Trust Fund, the money must come from then current taxing or new borrowing to redeem the special Treasury bonds. Thus the special Treasury bonds are nothing more than a bookkeeping device. The money borrowed or taxed to redeem them could just have easily been paid out directly. The government buys things on the market with money in its left pocket and makes SS payouts with money in its right pocket. The special Treasury bonds are held in the right pocket until they are exchanged for money from the left pocket. No actual economic investment of any kind is involved. Regards, Don