You continue to confuse personal remarks with thoughtful debate. So I am going to guess that you have no idea why Bernie's promises are coming in so rapidly.You were the poster that discounted Stigler and Krugman as bad economists. Good luck with your fringe attack against Social Security. You have no credibility.
This is your opinion, not a fact. It is an anti-Social Security opinion. As is the opinion that Social Security is an individual form of "old age insurance" and not a social anti-poverty program--regardless of whether you share that opinion with the people who (under pressure from the labor movement) designed the system.It would have to come from taxes, and frankly if that is the source I would rather pay down the debt.
I'm not following your distinctions between 3 kinds of Social Security revenue. You listed funded money, revenue financed contributions for benefits and taxes.Joe Economist wrote: ...If we are going to increase revenue, we have to understand that there are three kinds of revenue in Social Security. The Social Security Trust Fund is funded money. Contributions are revenue financed with the promise of future benefits. Finally there are taxes, or the part of the part of payroll taxes on which there is no economic return. In terms of a house, the word ‘funded’ means that you own the house. Financed revenue is the loan from the bank. Tax revenue means that the bank bought the house for you out of the goodness of its heart....
You have to ask what is the point of Social Security. If it has anything to do with alleviating poverty, taxing jobs has to be the dumbest idea in the history of man. If you look at Social Security as old-age insurance, it makes sense. I like the concept of insurance, but think that the way the government has implemented the system is one that will collapse.I'm getting the impression that you don't think FICA is a good way to fund Social Security. People tip toeing around the inadequacies of a FICA based pension usually want to privatize SS by permitting future retirees to invest their FICA taxes rather than pay them.
While all of the money is collected as a tax, the money is very different.I'm not following your distinctions between 3 kinds of Social Security revenue. You listed funded money, revenue financed contributions for benefits and taxes. Aren't these all just the same thing -- revenues produced by taxes?
Here is an example :Last, who is the author of the proposed social security fix, opined by the media as easy, that you deny is a fix?
You can't argue with success. The poverty rate in 1935 (including people of all ages) was 65%. Today, it's 16% ... that is, it's been cut by more than 75% of its 1935 value. Now, I agree that funding Social Security solely through income taxes and not payroll taxes would do even more to alleviate poverty, but that's a different argument.You have to ask what is the point of Social Security. If it has anything to do with alleviating poverty, taxing jobs has to be the dumbest idea in the history of man.
Here is another story where Social Security could be fixed in five minutes. http://articles.philly.com/2013-05-12/business/39205793_1_social-security-retirement-train-wreckLast, who is the author of the proposed social security fix, opined by the media as easy, that you deny is a fix?
Joe does not want the ss income increased, he says any tax money that could be generated is better to reduce the national debt than feed seniors. He is a Rand Cultist under a sheepskin.The fix is easy, raise the limits on taxable income and raise the average income of the middle class. The rest follows right along.
My guess is that you didn't read the original post. As you increase revenue, you increase the promises associated with the system. The only thing that you change is the day of collapse. Increasing the income of the middle class does not help because past contributions are indexed to wages. When wages increase, it makes the contributions of the past get higher weighting.The fix is easy, raise the limits on taxable income and raise the average income of the middle class. The rest follows right along.
It is a promise which isn't a legal obligation. You don't have a right to collect the promise. You may get paid, and you may not.When I said social security was a right, you said that no one had a "right" to social security benefits as per Flemming v. Nestor. But now you're saying that "contributions are revenue financed with the promise of future benefits." Which is it?
So your point about social security not being a legal right was totally irrelevant to the question I raised, which is whether it was a social right of the working class.
You're the one who wants to change the system to something it never was or was intended to be.I don't like the system? You're the one who keeps saying it needs to be "reformed."