How to fix Social Security the "Old Democratic Party" way:

1)Raise or Remove the Cap.
There are many arguments being offered in opposition to this.
None of these arguments are valid.
Raising the Cap will NOT hurt the Working Class. The majority of Americans in the Working Class are already well below the cap.
Those Americans who are in the Upper Middle Class, and the RICH will simply have to pay a fairer share.

2)Expand the Working Class by Liberalizing and Facilitating Immigration
If the problem is not enough workers to support the retiring "Boomers",
the answer is NOT cutting benefits.
The answer is More WORKERS!
Open America's doors to people who want to WORK for a living, and focus our national effort at creating GOOD jobs with real BENEFITS that will attract the cream of workers from around the World.
I've driven across America, and it is a BIG place. America is no where near Filled Up. There is still plenty of space for WORKERS.
All we need is the jobs.

3) Index the tax on Capital Gains to the rate paid by the highest Income Tax rate paid by the Working Class.
Isn't this simply FAIR?
Why should a member of the Working Class, punching a clock, living by the sweat of his/her brow, pay more than double the taxes on his/her income than a member of the Ownership Class pays on money made from their Capital Gains which accrue while they sit by their swimming pool drinking Boat Drinks?

Use this money plus a 50% reduction in Military Spending (Peace Dividend) to fund a MASSIVE National Works/Jobs Program to employ the unemployed/underemployed AmericanWorkers and the influx of Immigrant Workers.

Do things like:
Build a World Class National Rapid Transit System using ONLY American made components.
At least we would have something to show after spending the money...unlike financing useless WARS, building expensive weapons which are mostly useless, and bailing out Wall Street Billionaires.

4)Government Jobs are only a stop gap...End "Free Trade" and bring GOOD jobs back to America.
Folks, the proof is IN. Ross Perot was right.
"Free Trade" has been a disaster for LABOR and all Americans who Work for a Living.
The first step to a real National Recovery is to end these scam trade agreements, and start protecting and growing American Jobs.

There is no such thing as a "Free Market".
There is no Giant Invisible Hand that magically reaches down and "corrects" markets.
The Ownership Class made that shit up, and sold it to a gullible America.

I cringe every time I hear a so-called "Democrat" hype the fantasy of "Free Markets".

5)Break Up the Big Boxes and enact "Fair Competition" legislation that lets Mom & Pop and Family Farms compete with Big Corpo on a level playing field.
Radically De-Centralize and limit Corporate Power. Make THEM compete.
This would do more to create jobs than a government Jobs Program.
Reverse the WalMartization of America, and begin to restore LOCAL economies where money stays in local circulation sustaining local jobs instead of being immediately sucked out to Corporate HQ.

These are just a few things that an Old Style, Pro-Working Class, Pro-LABOR "Democratic Party" could do the "save" Social Security.
Unfortunately, none of these things are even open for discussion in today's "New Democrat" led Party.
They are going to "save" Social Security the "New Democrat" way.
God help the Working Class.


"There are forces within the Democratic Party who want us to sound like kinder, gentler Republicans. I want us to compete for that great mass of voters that want a party that will stand up for working Americans, family farmers, and people who haven't felt the benefits of the economic upturn."---Paul Wellstone

...did ya?

The majority of the post was about creating good jobs for an expanding Working Class.
You know, the USA has successfully done this in the past.

The political right sees the owners and the wealthy as the source of prosperity. The political left sees workers as the source of wealth and prosperity.

What the right wingers fail to see is that every worker is also a consumer. Adding workers adds consumers and demands for services. You are making the same error.

I remember the cap on SS beingraised on a reguolar basis. I was always unde the cap so I always paid into SS on my total earnings. What the hell is wrong with doing that same thing now? It's really no big deal and NOBODY would be hurt by doing so. Yea, I know. All the Pubs would scream because TAXES would be being raised1!!! Well, BFD! Get the hell over it!

from 2000 to the present, it was raised 9 times, from $76K in 2000 to $106.8K today.

1)Raise or Remove the Cap.

This is a Trojan Horse that is touted as the "solution" (to a non-existent problem) because it contains the seeds for the eventual destruction of SS.

"Old-Style" Democrats *invented* Social Security, & there's a reason they chose to cap SS taxes at 90% of all wages: it's because without a cap, the top 10% of workers wind up financing more than half of all benefits without receiving anything near commensurate benefits themselves.

The 90% cap is part of the reason that nearly all workers support Social Security. The "raise the cap" folks want to peel off that top 10%'s worth of support & divide workers against the program.

In addition, raising the cap = giving the government even *more* money to borrow into the general fund. There's already 3 trillion in the Trust Fund, about 6 years worth of payments all by itself, not including each years' tax collections. Raising the cap now = increasing the Trust Fund reserve, which means borrowing the increased collections into the general fund.



2)Expand the Working Class by Liberalizing and Facilitating Immigration: If the problem is not enough workers to support the retiring "Boomers"...

But the "problem" *isn't* "not enough workers". There are plenty of workers, & will continue to be. There's a shortage of jobs paying decent wages.

But ultimately, the "problem" with social security is that there's a powerful interest group that's never given up trying to destroy it. There is no other "crisis".

http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=there_is_no_social_security_crisis



3) Index the tax on Capital Gains to the rate paid by the highest Income Tax rate paid by the Working Class.

Agreed. It's a crime that Bill Gates' cap gains are taxed at 15%, 5% or even 0% (read David Cay Johnson's book), while a worker making $50K gets taxed at a marginal rate of 25% - plus 6.2% social security tax -- which gates doesn't pay now that he no longer draws a paycheck.

It's also a crime that exxon paid no income taxes last year, like a number of other big corporations -- corporations which actually receive money from the government at tax time, in fact.

And I think your post is more realistic. Thank you.

"Old-Style" Democrats *invented* Social Security, & there's a reason they chose to cap SS taxes at 90% of all wages: it's because without a cap, the top 10% of workers wind up financing more than half of all benefits without receiving anything near commensurate benefits themselves.

I know you probably do not mean it this way, but you do realize that is one of the main GOP argument against SS, that the top earners are unfairly taxed for something they do not need.

Also, keep in mind, there is a HUGE gap between what the top ten percent made in the days of FDR and now. These days the top ten percent is nowhere near the working class, or even the upper middle class. In the old days, FDR might not have wanted the top ten percent to fight against the other 90, these days, they will by default, even though, should these folks end up broke, they will be the very first to apply for SS and food stamps, and stand a much better chance of getting them. I say this as someone in Florida who saw many formerly "upper middle class" people who thought their 401k was gold take a hard tumble. Many of this top ten percent can simply have to watch horror stories of the formerly rich gone broke, and they will see that SS is a good thing to have.

the attack on social security has been constant, & was going on in the days of fdr.

of course those folks, if they go broke, will be quite happy to get social security; this is no reason to destroy the original design of its financing. the top tier doesn't get off scot-free; they pay up to (currently) $106.8K, and they pay the largest share of SS taxes of any decile. If the cap were raised to cover 100% of wages, they'd be paying more than half of all SS taxes.

the cap was put in place to keep it politically invulnerable from attacks that would style it as "welfare," so that a reasonably accurate claim could be made that workers finance their own SS. it's worked for 70 years. why fix what's not broken?

SS is not broken.

Yes, it was the Democrats who created Social Security and the "cap".
If we are not vigilant, it will be the "Centrist" Democrats who will succeed where the Republicans failed..."Privatizing" (destroying) Social Security....one of the very few pieces left from FDRs New Deal which created the largest and most prosperous Middle/Working Class the World has ever seen.


The cap on FICA taxes has been raised numerous times throughout the history of Social Security.
This is not a new concept.

The RICH have always wailed as if they were being nailed to a cross, trotting out all the same arguments we are hearing today. The only difference is that in the past, it was primarily the Republicans crying about Redistribution of Wealth and Raising Taxes....now it is the "Centrist" Democrats joining the chorus with their economic ideological twins...the Republicans.

To be fair, in 2008, Obama DID say he favored Raising the Cap, and I believe that he still supports this as well as an Income Tax Increase on the Wealthy to help bridge up the forecasted deficits in SS.
At this stage of his Presidency, I have some trust issues around what Obama said he supported in 2008, and what he is willing to STAND UP for today.


"But the "problem" *isn't* "not enough workers"....
The ratio of workers "paying in" to those receiving benefits has sharply declined....in excess of the unemployment rate.
The birth rate in America also declined after the "Boomers".
The difference will have to be made up somewhere.
Unless we start cloning Americans, the difference will have to be made up through immigration.


You and I absolutely agree that the REAL problem is the decline of GOOD Jobs which would need to (and CAN be) be fixed through Pro-Working Class Trade Policies and Working Class Friendly legislation.
Maybe I'm just an old fuddy-duddy, but I LIKED the USA that welcomed immigrants, and provided a political and economic system that protected (sort of protected...) the Working Class.

I absolutely agree that we need to return to the Tax Rate of the JFK era.
But if you think Raising the Cap would be hard, try setting the top rate back to 71%.

The connection between "Pay In-Pay Out" Social Security has never been absolutely direct.
The original SS program was marketed as "insurance", but it has never really functioned as purely insurance.



I am a proud Working Class American. My parents were Working Class Americans.
I've always viewed FICA deductions as taxes....
Taxes I paid to ensure that my parents would not have to move in with me after they were too old to earn a living. For this reason, I was always more comfortable paying FICA than the other taxes that (AFIAC) were mostly wasted on things I opposed...like the WAR machine.

You and others may hold on to the idea that SS is an "insurance" program, and I understand but disagree with that argument.
The truth is that the Government takes MONEY out of my earnings to finance it. In my book, that makes it a tax, but a tax that is directed to the Common Welfare of the citizens of our nation.
In that respect, I believe that Raising the Cap would be much easier to market than raising Income Taxes,
like this:




I couldn't agree more.
It is time for the American People and our elected representatives in the Democratic Party to start calling it what is is..."A CRIME".

just labor pays.

but the cap is raised regularly, to cover 90% of wages - as per the original design, put in place by those old style democrats -- to protect it from being attacked as "welfare" paid mostly by the top tier of wage earners.

it was last raised in 2008, from $102K to $106.8K in 2009. it will continue to be raised in this way.

I have no problem with sticking to the original design. i have a problem with lifing the cap altogether, as this destroys the original design, which is sound.

that's why SS has survived for 70 years -- the longest-lived & most successful such program in the world.

..and using the money to fund MASSIVE Jobs Programs would greatly increase the FICA tax base.
More Workers Paying In...

4. Make social security universal by bringing in those workers that are currently not in the system, mostly public schoolteachers.

I've never had it explained to me why so many teachers aren't in the system to begin with.

WHY ARE CONNECTICUT TEACHERS EXCLUDED FROM SOCIAL SECURITY FOR PUBLIC SCHOOL TEACHING SERVICE?

When Congress passed the Social Security Act in 1935, it excluded federal, state, and local government employees from mandatory coverage. The exclusion for state and local public employees was based on constitutional concerns about whether the federal government could impose taxes on state governments. In the early 1950s, Congress passed a law that allowed state and local government employees to be covered if they voluntarily chose coverage in a referendum. The then-members of the Teachers' Retirement System voted against joining the Social Security system. In 1959, at the request of the Connecticut Education Association, the General Assembly prohibited TRS members from holding another referendum (CGS § 5-158(d)). The ban on Social Security coverage for Connecticut teachers remains in place.

http://www.cga.ct.gov/2006/rpt/2006-R-0547.htm

as no one else gets to hold referrenda on whether they want to be in social security or not.

I bet doctors would love to set up their own system to cover only themselves, or stockbrokers or lawyers.

The idea that only teachers should enjoy that right should be an easy problem to solve.

Make the universal program universal -- it would ease much of the pressure off the system too besiades being basic fairness in the first place.

But I agree and K an R with this..allow me to offer soemthing EVEN SIMPLER.

Just raise the Taxes on the rich to the JFK rates, before Reagan. 90 percent of our budget crisis is due to the tax bleeding done under reagan, and sadly, continued by Clinton.

I am old enough to remember that period.
People still got RICH through Free Enterprise...just not the obscene RICH of today's Wall Street Predators and Sociopath CEOs.

We also need to cut Military Spending by 50% and give up the useless Crusade in the Middle East.
We can be a STRONG, healthy Working Class nation once again if we return to using our resources wisely to benefit the Common Good of our Nation.

Ike was right about the destructive nature of the military industrial complex, and the disaster it would bring to this country.

Ike was right to tax the uber-rich at 91%.

And Ike was right that the party that dared to fuck with Social Security would cease to exist soon after that mistake.


How sad is it that the "Democratic" :eyes: DLC is so horribly far to the right of that Republican president?

For a mind blowing read, try this:

advised to run as a Republican because there was a better chance of him winning than either as an Independent or a Democrat, where his primary challenger would have been Adlai Stevenson, who was very popular among the Democrats.

The DLC are just old Republicans who have left the looney Republican Party of today and taken over our Party. Hillary Clinton was once a young Republican who came over to the Democratic side when she hooked up with Bill Clinton.

...they own 93% of the country. Just ask them to get by with a 180 foot yacht instead of a 200 footer, and nine homes instead of 10 and WE CAN DOUBLE THE STANDARD OF LIVING OF EVERYONE ELSE !!!!!!

:yourock:

:hi:

:kick:

put right in to the trust so that Capital starts paying for the Labor it exploits, for once.

You write: "I've driven across America, and it is a BIG place. America is no where near Filled Up. There is still plenty of space for WORKERS."

Excuse me, are you under the impression that the only limiting factor on the number of humans is whether they can find enough wilderness to destroy, to obtain acreage that can accommodate their houses and roads and shopping malls?

Those workers you want to bring in will probably drive cars to work. They'll want their houses heated or cooled or maybe both. They'll want a reliable supply of drinking water -- many of those empty spaces you've driven past are pretty dry.

The unpleasant facts are that the world is overpopulated, and the United States is overpopulated.

As Edward Abbey said, "Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell."

These people are already on planet Earth.
Lets put them to work making Earth a better place.
There is a correlation between raising the standard of living and a reduction in the birth rate.

1)Building a State of the Art (Green)Rapid Transit System

or

2)Replacing the horribly inefficient suburbs with Thousands of De-centralized, environment friendly, multi-crop organic farms to replace the Factory Farm nightmares....40 organic acres and a mule!

or

3)Designing and building high density/energy efficient Urban enclaves that provide everything a family needs within walking distance.

What happened to, "YES We Can!" :shrug:

As for the "general fund" nonsense...yes, the government removes the contributions from the Social Security Trust Fund and, as the right wingers love to say, replaces the money with IOUs. These IOUs have an official name: Treasury Bills. Which pay interest. So...the difference between "putting Social Security in a lockbox" like all the pukes campaign on (the ones who aren't campaigning on the dire need to privatize Social Security, that is) and Al Gore tried campaigning on, and what they do now, is what they do now actually makes Social Security more solvent than it would otherwise be.

You're absolutely right about the absence of a free market.

Nicely done .. :thumbsup:

Wish I'd have seen this earlier:-(