General Discussion

yurbud

(39,405 posts) Wed Nov 28, 2012, 12:44 PM Nov 2012

How Obama could destroy decades of GOP work to undermine Social Security

The GOP keeps insisting Social Security is part of the deficit even though it has it's own separate tax and an accumulated surplus that will last until 2037.

Obama's Social Security tax cut seemed to play into the Republicans hands by making that depletion of the trust fund date sooner.

But he could turn that apparent weakness into a strength by keeping the low rate and raising the cap on income subject to Social Security tax (currently $110,000) so that the program remains solvent for the next 100 years, and require that the cap be indexed so that the tax rate NEVER has to be raised again.

How exactly could the Republicans oppose permanent NO TAX INCREASES on Social Security? Even Grover Norquist would have a hard time pretending there's a problem with that.

7 replies

= new reply since forum marked as read

Highlight:

How Obama could destroy decades of GOP work to undermine Social Security (Original Post) yurbud Nov 2012 OP

Why not just eliminate the cap? If the trust fund gets too large raise the payout and lower the age. Vincardog Nov 2012 #1

I would favor that too--lowering the age actually makes sense when there's unemployment yurbud Nov 2012 #2

All GOP proposals make matters worse, by design, they do not work for us. Too Vincardog Nov 2012 #3

The problem is that the government has borrowed against the trust fund for the last 30 or 40 years MiniMe Nov 2012 #4

and the only way it can subtract from the debt is if they don't pay it back yurbud Nov 2012 #5

Shh! Don't tell. If too many people find out, they might ask inconvenient questions. n/t Egalitarian Thug Nov 2012 #6

no kidding. yurbud Nov 2012 #7

Vincardog

(20,234 posts)

1. Why not just eliminate the cap? If the trust fund gets too large raise the payout and lower the age.

Reply to yurbud (Original post)

Wed Nov 28, 2012, 12:53 PM

Nov 2012

yurbud

(39,405 posts)

2. I would favor that too--lowering the age actually makes sense when there's unemployment

Reply to Vincardog (Reply #1)

Wed Nov 28, 2012, 01:07 PM

Nov 2012

like a lot of GOP proposals, raising the retirement age when there's unemployment will make the problem worse by keeping old folks in the workforce instead of giving them an incentive to make room for young folks.