Taxes Like This Should Be A Crime
- April 14, 2005
- 11 comments
Unlike Paul’s tax situation, which at least appeared better than the previous year, my taxes were considerably worse this year. Last year I got back some money. This year, I needed to pay 5x what I got back last year! And that’s not counting state taxes. Add to that all my other bills including quarterly car insurance, and I feel like I got mugged.
What really pisses me off is that all that money I paid into Social Security I will never see again. SS will be bankrupt by the time I’m old enough to begin collecting. Congress knows SS is a crock of **** that’s why they don’t pay into it. Bastards. Let me invest at least part of that money into a retirement fund.
I better stop writing now, or I’ll lose it.
Russ
April 17, 2005
Hey Bob, Russ, thanks for the feedback. Yeah, I think SS is a crock, and I thought it was before Bush ever started talking about it going “bankrupt” and making it a political agenda. I find it offensive, Bob, that you think I’m simply “responding” to Republican stimulus. I hope that’s not your opinion of all right-leaning people. In case you forgot the date, it’s tax time, hence my post.
My main point of contention is that I think it’s very wrong for the government to force me into paying SS, when I should have the right to invest my OWN money into a retirement plan of my choosing. That I am forced into giving money that I won’t be seeing ever again is a crime. Even if I do get to collect something, it won’t be near what I put in. How is that smart investment? How is that smart at all? Obviously Congress knows it’s not smart, since they don’t contribute to it.
I don’t think carrying a deficit is a good thing. Like you said, we’re already in a deficit now in other areas of government. Adding one more (large) government system into the deficit is NOT smart. I am not a fan of big government, which you probably already knew. I think the government has its fingers into too many aspects of its citizens’ lives as it is, and SS is one of the bigger crocks.
There ARE other ways of maintaining a SS-like system. Doing nothing about our current system is not an option. Something must be changed.
Yeah, maybe a bit over the top to accuse you of not thinking for yourself; I don’t really know that. But your use of the word “bankrupt” does suggest that you’ve bought into their claims more than an independent thinker would.
You said “there ARE other ways of maintaining a SS-like system.” I’d be interested in what those are, but bear in mind, again, the essence of the current SS program, which is to provide a means of living for all retired people, no matter how long they live past retirement, including those who have not been able to save up enough for it in their working lives. Retirement accounts, while not without value, are NOT SS-like.
It’s not just Bush and the Republicans claiming SS is “bankrupt”.
Did you read the articles I linked to in my earlier post on SS? The last two (especially the last one) are what you might be interested in reading.
Also, check out these: – IT’S TIME TO END SOCIAL SECURITY – Social Security Page: A page with links to lots of articles about SS. – Social Insecurity: Kind of a conversation between scholars at the Hoover Institution
Do a search for “social security bankrupt” on Yahoo or Google. You’ll see a crapload of articles on both sides of the issue.
I hate to sound like I’m not doing my part, but, well, I just don’t feel like reading those articles you linked to 
I guess I thought we could discuss things from first principles, so to speak, but that’s not always possible when there are widely divergent views. I will say that I am certainly not going to read an article entitled “IT’S TIME TO END SOCIAL SECURITY” for an objective view on whether SS is bankrupt, though.
I lied: I took a quick look at the Hoover thing, and I learned something surprising: it’s not that the system is going to run out of money, it’s only the checks that are going to run out. I don’t know if it’s a paper supply problem, or whether FDR wrote out all the checks himself when he first kicked it off, and those checks with his signature are about to run out (maybe if he had lived long enough to complete his term, we wouldn’t be having this problem), but I didn’t read the article carefully.
I’m surprised that you’re turned away from an article simply by its title, especially when you’re wanting to know where I’m coming from.
You very obviously didn’t read the Hoover Institution page, only the first paragraph. Surely you didn’t really think he was talking about a paper supply shortage? Please say you didn’t.
Re paper supply: a joke. Based on the following careless (but not irresponsibly so) statement from Robinson: ”... older Americans won’t be able to go out to their mail boxes to get their Social Security check because Social Security will have run out of checks to send out.”
Re the other part, this is only a partial answer, but: if you read my statement again, what I addressed was the issue of whether the word “bankrupt” is a reasonable, objective description of the situation. When one has a limited amount of time to read about an issue, one needs a filter, and I think it’s pretty fair to make the assumption that that particular article, based on the title, won’t give me bias-free info (nor would I expect it to lay out a plan for another way to maintain an SS-like system, using my definition of “SS-like”).
Yeah, I knew where you got the “no checks” part, I just couldn’t tell whether you were joking or not.
You’re expectations of that article are incorrect. It does point out an alternative approach to SS in Chile that works and is being adopted and/or studied by other countries. Granted, the author is a libertarian and would like to see SS abolished completely, but he does point out how the Chilean syste (or something like it) could be an alternative.
The term “bankrupt” is over the top. “Broken” would be a better term for it. SS will have a major financial problem in the future. The problem will be large enough to put a drag on the economy, which no one wants. Small changes such as a tax hike or raising the age limit won’t help and are flat out wrong. The system is broken and needs a major overhaul.
From what I’ve read, the system I’m most interested in is Chile’s. There’s also an interesting proposal here, which has similarities to the Chilean system.
OK, so I’ll take your word for now that my assumption on that article was incorrect; perhaps I’ll read the article a bit later to confirm. But I still maintain that, given the fact that one has a limited amount of time and must make potentially incorrect decisions on whether or not to read certain articles, that I had made a reasonable assumption for this article.
The fact that a presumably conservative thinker is using a foreign country as a model is certainly interesting. Hope I remember to check that out.
1. Social Security was always effectively a welfare-cum-insurance program. It was designed primarily as a way to keep the elderly out of poverty, not as a savings program where you get out what you put in. Putting aside the impending, uh, “bankruptcy” of the system, you still would not get back as much as you put in unless you fell somewhere in the lower half in terms of lifetime earnings. You are free to object to this idea (and I’ve read your earlier post on the subject, so it seems you do), but this is the way it was designed and has always been. Why grouse about it just now? (My guess: because the Republicans have finally found an opening, and are pushing the message, and you’re responding.)
2. Looks like you really bought into the Bush brainwashing where he used that word, “bankrupt”. If nothing were to be done about SS, then when the trust fund is exhausted, there will still be a constant flow of money into SS, enough to pay a considerable portion of SS entitlements (last I heard, 75% or so). Just because the inflow and cash reserves aren’t sufficient to pay 100% doesn’t mean they would stop cutting checks entirely. They would probably just run it at a deficit, like Medicare and the Federal Budget are already doing today. Whatever they do, you WILL get Social Security, unless Bush finds a way to deep-six the entire system. It will never be “bankrupt” in any sense that does not already apply to the federal budget (yet the Army is still getting paid). I’m NOT saying it’s fine if we do nothing; there are consequences to creating yet another area of debt. I’m just saying that the alarmist line of the administration is … deceitful, to use the nice word.
3. Oops, 2 got so long I forgot what 3 was supposed to be. oh well.