Come on, Nathan. Payroll taxes are completely separate from income taxes and the social security surplus (which has been spent, btw) will soon go into the red. We have two choices: cut SS bennies or increase payroll taxes.

If Bush were to increase income taxes ten-fold, it would not affect the ~14% payroll tax inlays from each employee.

You're comparing apples and dumptrucks.

Ricky-- Excess payroll taxes are now being used to reduce the deficit overall-- otherwise, the official deficit would be far larger. Conversely, general revenue will no doubt be used in the future to make up for the money not being saved today. Overal longterm deficit projections combine payroll and income taxes, so they are very much apples and apples.

Also the simple solution is not to increase payroll taxes but broaden who pays them-- extend the payroll tax to high income earners and income from financial assets and we have all the money needed for social security.

to me it is as much comment on green ( scondrel ) span(m) as anything else . he was the head of commision which set up this seriously regressive fica tax increases in early 80s . the moneys have been use to hide / neutralise general deficits . then he supported bush2 tax cuts for rich ( and continues to do that even now ) . and to complete the cycle now he wants cuts in future benefits . showing his true colors in moving money from working people to rich and wealthy . will the any one but bush liberals and dems have courage and insight to take the side of ordinary folks ? or more likely it will be same old ..???

Alan Greenspan said he would prefer that the tax cuts remain and spending should be reduced.

Ricky above is right but I will not bore you with dissecting your lack of Govt. Fund accounting knowledge. Stick to a subject that you can argue logically or understand.

Nathan, the excess payroll inlays have been spent, which I'm sure I don't need to tell you about. To say that deficits of ON BUDGET outlays in the future will be caused by lowered inlays due to tax cuts that will then cause social security OFF BUDGET outlays to be hampered is selectivity. Off budget (social security) is not - NOT - affected by "on budget" inlays. If we were $500 billion in surplus instead of deficit, it would still not affect payroll tax inlays. Social security is going to reach insolvency in the future and if we were a trillion in the black (on budget) or a trillion in the red makes no difference - on-budget inlays do not pay for social security.

As far as extending payroll taxes --- do you really want Bill Gates getting six-figure social security checks when he retires? Or are you willing to entirely change the crediting procedure of social security so that it is no longer depended upon income?

I said it when I first started blogging back in '02 ---- get ready for your payroll tax hike. It's gonna happen.

Everyone -- on both sides of the Atlantic -- understands the necessity to index a FICA cap for inflation: or collect full rate from an ever dwindling percentage of tax payers -- reverse bracket creep and lower collections.

Everyone on the OTHER side of the Atlantic, where populations tend to shrink while ours grows, understands the need to index a FICA cap for growth, as well, or face reverse bracket creep -- and in our case STAGNANT collections -- even as America's baby boomers swell our retirement population out of proportion to collections.

Our FICA cap, at $86,000 is at just about the 90 percentile income level.

a) Do NOT index for growth and FICA rates must rise for all tax payers: gouging those below the cap -- catching up to earners just passing the cap and taking back the savings they were about to enjoy -- costing millionaires a tad more.
b) Do index for growth: taxpayers below $86,000 pay the same -- earners between the old inflation-only index and the new inflation/growth-index pay out more dollars (at the same old rates) -- millionaires pay a tad more.
c) Remove the FICA cap altogether: 90 percent of payroll taxpayers enjoy a sharp dive in rates -- the top 10% of earners get to pay the same reduced rate as everybody else.

And everybody retires happily forever after. Removing the cap connects enough growth to FICA collections to insure that social security retirement will never be hungry again -- especially since the top 1% of earners have been scooping in something over 30% of all growth for themselves, for at least the last 20 years.

Sounds like a legislator's no-brainer to me -- especially one who wants to get reelected.

Denis Drew
Chicago
ddrew4u@aol.com

Ricky-- Because I don't buy the fiction of "ON BUDGET" and "OFF BUDGET" budgetting tricks doesn't mean I have to pretend that payroll taxes are not used to mask the present deficit, or that general revenues won't or can't be used in the future to cover social security deficits.

As for Gates, who says his social security tax should increase just because he pays payroll taxes on his whole income. You can cap payments without capping taxes. People don't get higher school spending for their kids just because they pay higher property taxes.

this is a way to redistrbute the wealth tax cuts for the rich the poor pay off the deficit it created simple...

or that general revenues won't or can't be used in the future to cover social security deficits.
I won't attempt to argue because I'll sprout wings and fly before that scenario becomes a fact. :)

You can cap payments without capping taxes.
Find me a politician who'll run on the platform of "I'll tax your payroll but I'll let you get a fraction of it back, no matter how long you live, since I don't think you deserve it because you're too rich" and I'll show you a loser.

Seriously, this country isn't acceptable to outright income redistribution.

BTW, I don't know what changes you made to your site but it loads MUCH faster than it used to. Kudos!