Republicans planning major cuts to Social Security
Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo:
…this bill is being introduced by Rep. Sam Johnson, Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee’s Social Security Subcommittee, the committee with jurisdiction over Social Security….
Unlike the Bush-era plan to partially phase out Social Security and replace it with private investment accounts, this plan takes a different approach. Through a variety of mechanisms, this plan simply cuts benefits and introduces means testing. To look at specific cuts, changes in eligibility and so forth look at pages 2 and 3 on this official Social Security Administration scoring document analyzing the plan. The benefit cuts appear to hit everyone but are weighted toward more affluent recipients.
The big picture is that the current Social Security Trust Fund is predicted to be exhausted in the mid-late 2030s. So roughly in 20 years. People often refer to this as ‘bankruptcy’. But that’s not really accurate. At that point Social Security would only be able to pay 79% of benefits recipients will be entitled to in those years.
Now there are a number of ways to cover that shortfall – the most obvious is to remove or alter the so-called ‘cap’ on Social Security taxes. Once you get over $118,500 of income per year you stop paying Social Security taxes. So your Social Security tax rate is much higher if you make $50,000 a year than if you make $500,000 a year. Change that and most of the problem disappears. You could also combine ditching the ‘cap’ with much milder cuts than the one envisioned here. You could also rejigger the cap in ways that allowed you to increase benefits.
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5 responses to Republicans planning major cuts to Social Security
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mea_mark December 9th, 2016 at 15:13
Republicans planning … must be something bad.
anothertoothpick December 9th, 2016 at 15:21
Once you are too old to help billionaires richer, you are worthless to the Ayn Randians
SteveD December 9th, 2016 at 21:18
‘…the current Social Security Trust Fund is predicted to be exhausted in the mid-late 2030s.’
1. Wanna guess which of the over 1,000 Federal Agencies will not “run out of money” by the mid-late 2030s? That’s right, NONE.
2. FICA taxes do not fund SS/Medicare. The federal government spends simply by crediting accounts.
3. Federal taxes are just one of many devices the federal government uses to control the amount of US dollars in the economy. Lowering the amount of dollars in the economy (via taxes, via federal borrowing, the setting of the interest rate floor by the Fed) simply affords the federal government the ability to prevent an unacceptable level of inflation.
3. The federal government can never run out of dollars…(R) plan = just another scam to make the rich richer (who don’t even need SS/Medicare) and everyone else poorer.
4. This week SS Administration mailed out new benefit amount letters…cuts are already in effect…the fake CPI inflation level (0.3%) determination is about 2% below the true figures published by the Fed…The so-called increase was fully absorbed via a staggered increase in Medicare withholding-hence no dollar increase in benefit amounts for anyone-thanks Uncle Sam!
oldfart December 10th, 2016 at 01:03
Don’t make me bus in the geriatrics.
I hate busses.
whatthe46 December 10th, 2016 at 01:29
i’m having to explain common sense to a fk’n tard. the asswipe doesn’t believe that the elderly receive medicare only medicaid. seriously. i don’t understand stupid. and that the RWNJ’s are planning on privatizing it or gutting it along with SS. geez.