Washington Post columnist Robert Samuelson really doesn’t like Social Security and Medicare. And he’ll go a long way to argue that they’re wasteful, inefficient forms of welfare. (See Extra!, 10/11.) But his arguments rarely hold up. His most recent column (4/9/12) is no exception; in fact, it recycles a totally misleading factoid from a column he wrote last year.
Samuelson’s column has problems from top to bottom–you can read Dean Baker’s dismantling of it at his Beat the Press blog: There is no trust fund, benefits cuts are necessary and inevitable, there are too many retirees supported by not very many workers.
And, Samuelson writes, beneficiaries get more than they put in:
Although new recipients have paid payroll taxes higher and longer than their predecessors, their benefits still exceed taxes paid even assuming (again, fictitiously) that they had been invested. A two-earner couple with average wages retiring in 2010 would receive lifetime Social Security and Medicare benefits worth $906,000 compared with taxes of $704,000, estimate Steuerle and Rennane.
See that? The whole column is about Social Security, but when it comes to calculating benefits, it becomes the dreaded, budget-wrecking SocialSecurityandMedicare.
Why? Because when you do these calculations just for Social Security, the answer is unhelpful. According to the very same study, this average two-earner couple, it turns out, gets slightly less in benefits that they paid in taxes.
This is almost exactly the same trick Samuelson tried last year (1/27/11), which he used to challenge the supposed myth that “the elderly have ‘earned’ their Social Security and Medicare by their lifelong payroll taxes.”
The truth, as Baker pointed out, is that Medicare’s problems are the problems with the healthcare system overall:
If our per person costs for healthcare were comparable to costs in Germany, Canada, the UK or any other wealthy country, then workers would be paying far more for their Medicare benefits than the cost of what they are getting in care.
But then what would Robert Samuelson write about? Underpaid doctors?
at some point the real question becomes why does the wapo keep giving samuelson a forum to recycle the same columns with the same lies?
corporate media, anyone?
Krugman didn’t help either.
Social Security was designed to be a pay-as-you-go system. Surplus Social Security revenue goes into general revenue and enables other income tax reductions. The Bush tax cuts, extended by Obama, resulted in a lesser government debt increase due to the over TWO TRILLION DOLLAR surplus legislated allegedly to “save” Social Security from its projected shortfalls.
The repayment of this surplus will, at some time in the future, require a tax to enable repayment, according to this system’s economic model. This tax, if collected from those who pay the largest per cent of their income into Social Security—those whose income does not exceed the Social Security cap—will result in DOUBLE TAXATION of lower income wage earners whose income provided the very surplus that facilitated the Bush-Obama tax cuts for the wealthy.
Fairness requires that those—the very wealthy few percent—whose incomes are so large that Social Security deductions result in only a small percent of their income being paid into the Social Security system, pay the taxes that they evaded by the Bush-Obama tax cuts when the time comes to draw down the Social Security surplus. This surplus has allowed the wealthy to retain more of their income through tax cuts made at the expense of poorer working people, who paid a surplus amount of trillions of dollars into the general revenue through Social Security deductions from their income.
The wealthy, whose income tax cuts were enabled, in part, by the Social Security surplus, fear they may be required to repay the some portion of the taxes they avoided while the government’s general revenue was fed by surplus Social Security deductions taken from working people, this being a most regressive tax.
Fairness is precisely that which the 1% objects to most vociferously.
The Government withdrawing money from the Social Security Fund, and not paying it back, has been going on for a very long time. It’s stupid for them to be able to take money out of a taxpayer fund and NOT HAVE to pay it back.
I think that Dawn is right on this. I read about a bank in Ohio, and the sole job is to keep I.O.Us which show what amounts the government has borrowed from social security, and never paid back.
I have an idea. Mr. Samuelson: You know how the government is manking the Post Office put forward TEN years of funds to cover retorement benefits ( and nobody else in government has to do this) so here’s the plan:
BEFORE the government can touch any part of SS, then that bank in Ohio has to have AT LEAST TEN years of ” borrowed” money redeposited, right now, to catch them up.
You see, I am always complaining about the military never being able to account for any budget or money, so put them on this plan too. Find all the money that you lost, Pentagon, and that will do for the next 10 years for any more money that you get.
And, Mr. Samuelson, what you want to do sounds like you would be killing off all kinds of seniors who helped to build this nation. That would make you a serial killer, Mr. Samuelson, and really, “Samuelson” translates into “Son of Sam,” and we don’t want to go there.
Glenn, you say “Surplus Social Security revenue goes into general revenue and enables other income tax reductions.” That is NOT the way Social Security was designed and is legally supposed to work. Any surplus is supposed to remain in the trust fund. But the light-fingers in Congress have made a profession out of taking as much as they could.
Social Security was not meant to have a trust fund. In effect, it has been a theft from everyone who has paying into or benefitting from the program since the creation of the fund. With the huge size of the fund, retirees are effectively paying for massive tax benefits for the wealthiest. This is a scam to try to gradually convert the system from social insurance to individual accounts in stages.
The whole medicare/social security is on par with saying that the budget needs to be cut because civilian and military spending are out of control when the civilian spending is okay and runaway military spending and insuffiencent revenue are the problem.
Robert Samuelson has the gall to ask us to believe by FDR would be appalled by the current state of Social Security Program. That is ridiculous. Although it is representative of the hatred that Samuelson has repeated demonstrated towards those seniors who depend on Social Security as their life line. I am certain if FDR were alive today he would justifiably proud of the SSA-the crown jewel of the New Deal.Because of SSA millions of seniors have been lifted out of poverty.. This program has been scandal free in is 72 years of operation with administrative costs of less that one per cent.It has a has a self sustaining trust fund and it does not contribute one cent to the deficit..It is the most successful social program in US history.Contrary to what Samuelson writes SSA is not welfare and SSA funds have been segregated that is the point of the SSA trust fund and the SSA trustees report. Under the SSA law no money can be paid in SSA benefits unless the Trust fund has the money to pay for them..
Samuelson mentions pending SSA fiscal problems because we are going from 5 workers per retiree in the 1960s to a roughly 2 workers per retiree in 2025. However that problem was addressed in the 1983 Greenspan SSA Commission which increased the FICA tax in order to create a larger surplus. That is the reason there is 2.6 trillion dollars in the SSA trust fund and the SSA is fully funded thru 2038.
Samuelson would like to means test SSA because he regards it as a welfare program-which it is not. It is an insurance program.Over 75 years ago a promise made was made to working people in America-if they contributed to Social Security, the United States would make sure they could retire with dignity. That promise must be kept..
The only change that needs to be made to SSA is to lift the wage cap on the SSA payroll tax. Currently wages are only taxed on the first $110, 000 of income. Therefore someone who earns a million dollars a year only pays FICA tax on 10 per cent of their income.If that change was made the SSA trust fund would be overflowing with revenue and solvent until the end of this century.
I am frankly amazed at the amount of disinformation about Social Security. The Social Security Trust Fund was established in order to hold excess payments — a kind of bank account. In 1983 the structure of Social Security was changed to account for the shortfall that was foreseen by the Greenspan Commission. The size of this fund is currently about $2.6 trillion. By law, the fund is required to invested in the safest interest-bearing securities available — these are non-marketable government bonds bearing the same interest as T-bonds. And they are backed by the full faith and credit of the US.
If you had 2.6 trillion where would you invest it? Greek bonds, perhaps?
So saying that it becomes part of the general fund is quite misleading. It has loaned money to the government which in turn borrows less from foreign investors.
Furthermore, actuarial projections show that the fund is capable of supporting claims at 100% for the next 25 years. Beyond that, Social Security will be able to redeem claims at 75%. What is to be done? Social Secuity taxes are based on the first $110,000 of earnings, so multi-millionaires pay the same as a surgeon earning $300,00, which is the same as an IT professional earning $110,00. There is a simple solution. Scrap the cap. Apply the Social Security tax to all income.
The ruse of co-mingling of funds is dangerous because it fraudulently posits that Social Security is a cause of the deficit. Remember: the trust fund has $2.6 trillion. Deficits were the result of Bush era tax cuts, two ill-advised wars, and the passage of Medicare part D (a gift to the pharmaceutical houses).
Thanks for that. Paul. You might want to stick around for the inevitable troll lies that are soon to come.
i love gloriana casey. i now live in france and i wish americans could see that the way social security is managed in the states is not people friendly compared to other rich countries. until americans get rid of their right-wing government system, there won’t be much positive change and the people will continue to get the short end. my suggestion is to occupy, occupy , occupy.
To say America is in a state of decline would be an understatement. Corporate and military rule, corporate looting, political corruption, a militarized police force, falling wages, lack of opporotunity, extreme concentration of wealth, growing poverty and on and on.
And here comes Paul Ryan to shower millionaies and billionaires with more tax cuts paid for by ending many programs that benefit ordinary Americans. Everyone (except the rich) should fend for themselves. It’s called the ‘ownership’ or the
‘your on your own’ society. And here comes the Samuelsons of the country to reinforce that.
To paraphrase George Carlin, They call it the American dream because you have to be asleep to believe it.
Lot of good comments here.My favorite is for government to keep your hands off of SS.The worst is a Frenchie chopping in on how much better life is in France than here(lived there Ajamu and that is a load of crap).And of course Elaine segways into a shot against American rugged individualism, and personal responsibility, with maximum personal freedoms- over the collective, and a massively empowered Fed.Libs do believe we are in decline.Their whole concept of America is based on it.I choose not to participate in any decline
George Carlin had that shinning house on the hill by the way.
We can not afford to fund a slew of new social programs ,but we should be able to do better on the SS fund and Medicare.Tim I think Paul has a lot of good points.Some I think run the old problem that the Devil is in the details.SS has been run like a ponzi scheme.And although tales of its demise are greatly exaggerate, tales that it is fully funded and doing well are troubling.The part where he talks about the rich paying more(and I suppose taking far more out)is open to mathematical debate as to all the pros and cons but…….Remember every failing can not be met by taxing the rich.They aint that rich.Once you tax them out of existence what then?On the left- it is all about eating the rich.OK eat em.What then?If it is a question of fairness and lowering everyone to a level playing field like Cuba(where everyone is basically poor)What then?
Troll alert.
“although tales of its demise are greatly exaggerate, tales that it is fully funded and doing well are troubling.”
i don’t think anyone is saying that. the reality is that social security is fully funded through the mid 2030’s. at that point, it won’t be broke, it just won’t be able to pay recipients 100 cents on the dollar. that’s a problem that could be fixed without much effort.
medicare is the real problem…but america won’t get serious about getting health care spending under control.
Chaminuka above is right on. Social Security and Medicare are in trouble because Americans
voted for it. What do you expect if you elect Republicans and right wingers to office who have fought
Social Security and Medicare since enactment? Do you think Republicans would be mouthing off if
they didn’t think stupid Americans, particularly Medicare and Social Security recipients, wouldn’t
back them up? How do you explain election of the likes of Paul Ryan? Paul Ryan has never said
anything other than what he currently says and Ditto Head stupids in southeastern Wisconsin voted
him into office. Ditto Head stupids packed the Congress with Tea Party wing nuts. They can’t
remember who drove the economy over a cliff a short time ago or remember who the vice president is.
They whoop and cheer to history manufactured on the spot by Mitt Romney’s mouth. Brain
transplants are impossible so its iffy if Social Security and Medicare survive.
John your whole rant could fall into one sentence. When Americans(stupids) vote for conservative values they deserve what they get,because those values have destroyed the country.Ummmmmm yeah……BULLSHIT!Sounds like you don’t like the house cleaning going on helped by tea party values.Oh well.Better get used to it.It is just the beginning.
Woodward//// I agree medicare is the bad nut.Much harder to crack than SS.We need to address it.Obama has failed at that as well.And next up to bat is……..
Medicare costs can be brought down immediately if Medicare were allowed to negotiate drug prices. If I lived in a sane country, not run by corporations, this would have happened years ago. Big Pharma won’t allow lower drug prices so we keep paying the highest drug prices in the world.
Medicare is now means tested. Anyone senior who makes more than $85,000 a year is considered rich and pays not only for a Medicare approved (or HMO) supplemental insurance (to pick up what Medicare doesn’t cover) but must pay more than the minimum everybody pays for Medicare, Part B (doctors). In addition, a new drug tax has been added for rich seniors, making more than $85,000 a year. This new drug tax has absolutely nothing to do with the drug company a senior pays for drug coverage. It’s another add-0n so that we can continue to pay the highest drug prices in the world.
Take it from the 99%. The 1% need it all. If anyone doesn’t believe Amerika is corporate run and controlled, take off your rose colored glasses and use this as but one example of what could be done to control costs but isn’t.
I believe that the goal with Social Security is not to end it but to privatize it. In this way, companies can add start-up fees, redemption fees, administrative fees and any other special fee–an XYZ fee, an ABC fee??– they can come up with. All this will be deducted from your S.S. check to enrich CEOs and, perhaps, shareholders.
Think this can’t add up? I’ll never forget when I left my career job and got a part-time job. Without my knowledge and consent, I was enrolled in a 401(k) company plan. When I discovered this, I immediately demanded to be withdrawn from this but not before $40 had accrued in the account–not much, to be sure. I kept it there till I left the company and then requested the money. I was sent all of SEVENTY-FIVE cents. Why? The other $39.25 was an administrative fee! Virtually the entire amount was an administrative fee and even if this was standard procedure, I had no way of knowing since I had been put in the plan without my knowledge. If this happened to me, it happened to other part-timers. How much did this amount to for the company?
Another 99%er, robbed by the 1%. Hey, that $39.25 bought somebody a nice bottle of wine, courtesy of the little guy. Welcome to Amerika.
When comparing what we put in to what we take out, one ought to consider that the dollars we paid in (back in the 60s, 70s, etc.) were worth much much more than a dollar now (the ones we take out).
Shame on the little guy if he takes out more than he put in, in today’s dollars (as Jim pointed out). No shame on the military/industrial/congressional war machine. No shame on corporations that pay no taxes or few. No shame on the companies that get tax breaks to outsource jobs. No shame on the oil companies and other corporations that we subsidize with tax dollars, despite hefty profits. No shame on the banks whose lending practices practically brought down this economy or for the Congress that enabled that list to go on No shame for the 1% that had two huge tax cuts over the past 10 years and want those tax cuts extended by cutting programs that help ordinary Americans.
The shame is on the retiree or the working stiff or anybody else that isn’t one of the uber rich or has policies written by Congress to make them richer.
Michael E claims “Remember every failing can not be met by taxing the rich.They aint that rich”. REALLY???
Headlines for October 26, 2011
Study: Income of Wealthiest 1 Percent Tripled over Last Three Decades
A new congressional study has found the incomes for the wealthiest one percent of Americans nearly tripled over the last three decades, far outpacing income growth for all other groups. Between 1979 and 2007, the average real after-tax household income grew by 275 percent for the wealthiest Americans. The study also found the wealthiest 20 percent of Americans made more money in 2007 than the rest of the country combined.
Inequality In America Is Worse Than In Egypt, Tunisia Or Yemen
By Washington’s Blog
January 29, 2011 “Washington’s Blog” – – Egyptian, Tunisian and Yemeni protesters all say that inequality is one of the main reasons they’re protesting.
However, the U.S. actually has much greater inequality than in any of those countries.
Specifically, the “Gini Coefficient” – the figure economists use to measure inequality – is higher in the U.S.
From a Michael Moore email:
The richest 400 Americans having more than 150 million Americans combined is not only immoral and undemocratic, it is an act of violence. It kills people, here and abroad. Whether it’s the $2 billion a week we throw away on the U.S. war in Afghanistan, or the 45,000 Americans who die every year because they lack adequate health insurance, the days of Greed are going to come to an end because The People have had it.
Headlines for April 19, 2011
Income for Nation’s Wealthy Soars as Tax Rate Falls
Newly released tax data shows the tax rate for the wealthiest Americans has been effectively cut in half since the mid-1990s. In 1995, the richest 400 Americans paid on average 30 percent of their income in federal taxes. In 2007, the richest Americans paid less than 17 percent. During that same period, the combined annual income of the richest 400 Americans soared from $6 billion to $23 billion.
Posted on Feb 11, 2012
As if there were any doubt, a two-hour Senate Budget Committee hearing on Thursday reported some alarming trends in income inequality, Mother Jones reported.
Among the realities shown were the 2010 CEO-to-worker pay ratio of 325 to 1; the steep rise of the 1 percent’s share in the national income over recent decades; and the declining tax rate on America’s top earners since the early 1960s.
Mother Jones published another series of inequality charts in April, showing, among other things, that the mega-rich have taken the lion’s share of wealth produced over the last three decades while the income and wages of American workers who were boosting productivity stood still. One of the most striking facts was this: “If the median household income had kept pace with the economy since 1970, it would now be nearly $92,000, not $50,000.” —ARK
Corporate America, whose lobbyists and political lapdogs plugged these loopholes into our taxcode, have been frequent fliers to tax havens all over the world. Of the 100 largest U.S. corporations, 83 have created subsidiaries to stash profits in these havens, located in such places as the Caribbean, Liechtenstein, the Philippines, Uruguay, and Labuan – wherever that is.
Citigroup, for example, has created 427 of these tax-avoidance subsidiaries! In the past six years, it has more than quadrupled the amount of profits it tucks into the havens, presently stashing nearly $23 billion in them. This is, of course, the same Citigroup that has taken a $45-billion bailout from us taxpayers.
Baker recommends a piece in today’s New York Times (9/21/11) that was more factual than AP’s factcheck:
In 2009, 238,000 households filed returns with adjusted gross incomes of at least $1 million. One-quarter of them paid an effective federal income tax rate of less than 15 percent, the data shows, and 1,470 paid no federal income tax at all….
Though the group is small, the dollars are large. For the top 400 taxpayers, the effective federal income tax rate has dropped from 29 percent in 1993 to 18 percent in 2008. The average adjusted gross income of those 400 households was $271 million. By comparison, households with $50,000 to $75,000 in income paid an effective rate of 15 percent, according to the Congressional Budget Office.
Just like the corporations they work for, multi-millionaire executives have become experts at accounting tricks to avoid paying taxes, according to a new study that builds on last month’s Government Accountability Office report.
The GAO said a majority of American and foreign companies doing business here pay no income tax. Now “Executive Excess 2008: How Average Taxpayers Subsidize Runaway Pay” shows how CEOs and other top executives shield huge portions of their income and stock options from tax obligations. The report was published this week by the Institute for Policy Studies and United for a Fair Economy.
For instance, unlimited deferred compensation accounts, a perk for CEOs at large companies, add up to $80.6 million a year in lost tax revenue. The median value of top executives’ deferred payments is $4.5 million, according to Equilar, a pay analysis firm. Most of the rest of us, however, are limited to a maximum of $15,500 a year we can shield in a tax-deferred 401(k) account.
The authors of the report say the tax loopholes make the huge and growing gap between worker and CEO pay even bigger. They say labor law reform, specifically the Employee Free Choice Act, is critical. “Without legislative action to allow more workers the right to organize, the divide between compensation for top executives and the rest of us will only continue to grow.”
The report can be downloaded at http://www.ips-dc.org/reports/#623
Thanks for all the information, Larry. The U.S. has the most unequal distribution of wealth when compared to other major industrialized nations. What has been happening in this country is beyond all words.
The Michael Moore e-mail about the days of greed coming to end? I’ll believe it when I see it. With Citizens United, the super rich have a superb opportunity to propagandize Americans into voting against their own best interests, yet again. I’m reminded of that every time I see old people, cheering for Mitt Romney who wants to voucherize Medicare which means that future generations won’t have it at all. In their old age, the young of the present will be fighting with private insurers and paying thousands in out of pocket expenses. Do you want to talk about death panels? Inability to pay for health care is the real death panel.
Further, the very top tier will not relinquish anything without a major battle. They like things just the way they are.
Guys lets take this into micro economics.And we will use one of YOUR closest group of supporters for the example,The Hollywood elite.How about Brad Pitt?The day he takes his 30 million dollar salary and diversifies it equally with the grips and the camera men and the guy who cleans the office as well as producers and directors I will listen to this swill.Till then the guy who takes all the chances and connects all the dots to succeed is still gonna do better(if he does succeed) than the guy that does not.Sometimes much better.When I was a kid I had an idea for what was in effect a computer.You know what i did about it….Nothing.Bill gates did a little better.If fairness is me getting his money on the back end for doing nothing about this great idea……well that is an interesting world you live in.
Larry: One other thing that could have been added (and I know we’re off topic) is the debilitating college loans that face young college graduates today. States are reducing subsidies to state colleges so that more tax breaks can be given to our job creators who are busy creating jobs in China, especially when Republicans refused to end tax breaks for companies outsourcing jobs.
Things could get worse in July, when interest rates on federal student loans for low-income students are set to rise to 6.8 percent from 3.4 percent. Pres. Obama is fighting the tax hike, while Republicans in the House, ever mindful of helping our job creators (or, in this case the banks or other lenders who take all the chances), are supporting a 6.8 percent increase.
Elaine we all have to know and understand what is the incentive to growth.The Republicans understand that it is one word…taxes.Raise taxes- cut growth.Lower taxes and you have real growth.Republicans will not raise taxes.They believe it hurts this country.
Strangely it was reported this week that more children are going to college than ever before.The skyrocketing rates have not slowed them down.Woman especially.I do think you will end up ruling the world.I am angered at the cost like everyone else.It is becoming out of all proportion to its return.I believe we are at a tipping point where the market wilI re-adjust.When I can not say.I would like to see the loans stay low.Credit cards etc.This is not the time for any raises.Any added burden on people must be fought down with diligence.Again this is not the time.And to you tax happy Dems …that goes for you too!Now Im gonna kick back and watch George Bush speak at the George W Bush presidential center.He is speaking well of our current president as we speak.He is loaded with confidence and hope for the future.Very different than the current “occupier” of the white house.
p.s He is speaking off prompter, off the cuff ,every once in a while referring to notes.He is ranging all over the place speaking with clarity and command on a great array of subjects.Now let me get this straight………This is the dumb president ,and the guy who can’t sneeze unless his prompter tells him to…. is the genius?Wow has the bar been lowered.
PPS
Please everyone google Christies speech.He spoke after Bush.Amazing.So positive so forth right.Talking and believing every word as he shows you the difference between right and left.Knocking it out of the ballpark.Not a slippery word to be heard.Listen at your own risk.You may change your party affiliation today.
Solution: Implement single-payer healthcare, dismantle the empire and all its military and security expenditure, revoke corporate personhood, remove the 1% influence by implementing public financing of elections, take back the airwave commons and force the media to speak truth to power and fact-check spin and propaganda instead of this false balance nonesense. This is the richest country in the world. There is no reason why its citizens should be so stressed out!
I second that, FreeSpirit. We know what needs to be done but are, indeed, stressed out and frustrated because it’s not and because elections are bought by the people who like the status quo.
The press has enabled hysterical, right wingers to frame a problem and then insist on taking a “pox on both of your houses,”attitude, when only one of those houses is truly at fault.
“Raise taxes- cut growth.Lower taxes and you have real growth.”
actually, the data over the last 30 years disproves that statement.
Freespirit and Elaine….. you dont think anybody is gonna be stressed out when the government rides in and takes over everything on your behalf…….for the betterment of us all of course.Wanna see the stress level?Watch the coming elections.
Woodward…..who are you talking to?If you are even going to try to prove to me that the government is a better steward of the peoples money than the people are themselves …..you are barking up the wrong tree.I worked for Clinton I know the game inside out and backwards.More taxation above a certain level helps spur only government growth.And that level was past a long time ago.Do you have any idea what the dollar is really worth?And how much it is worth after it has passed through the hall of taxation.It is not just the rich.We are all taxed on everything and anything that moves- breaths,or doesn’t move and doesn’t breath.It is cents on a dollar that is left over.Look at New Jersey before Christie took over.2nd highest state and completely broke.Among the highest taxed.Most government workers.150 tax raises in the previous administration.This year they will get a tax cut.I cant believe anyone can look at jersey as the liberal model and say “yeah that worked”.No what is working is Christie.Soon coming to a town near you.
Could this be a ploy to get the fox in the hen house? Would Wall Street really play fair with all the extra money forced into the system from retirement accounts with no real regulations or government oversights?
“Lower taxes and you have real growth.”
in years when the top marginal rate was lower than 39.6 percent—the top rate during the 1990s—annual real growth averaged 2.1 percent. in years when the rate was 39.6 percent or higher, real growth averaged 3.8 percent.
the pattern is the same regardless of threshold. growth in years when the tax rate was less than 50 percent averaged 2.7 percent. years with tax rates at or more than 50 percent had growth of 3.7 percent.
these numbers conclusively show that history has not been kind to the theory that a lower top marginal tax rate will result in more growth.
over the past 100 years there is no discernible pattern between recessions and tax rates.
So you are saying that raising taxes(i.e giving your money to the gov)results in money being used in just as good a way as that that would result from those people who had earned it?This must be where the line came into being “Liars figure and figures lie”.Im flabbergasted that anyone could believe,on any level,that GOVERNMENT……that government….. is a good steward of your money.I don’t know a business man(and never have)who would not like to grow his business.Money being the key factor.If you are trying to say money infused into a business results in no growth…… than I am speaking English in a room of Martians.There is no way we can ever see eye to eye with this utter nonsense.
“So you are saying that raising taxes(i.e giving your money to the gov)results in money being used in just as good a way as that that would result from those people who had earned it?”
i’m not trying to say any such thing…
“If you are trying to say money infused into a business results in no growth……”
i’m not trying to say that either…
all i’m saying is that the data over the last 30 years does not support your basic contention:”Raise taxes- cut growth.Lower taxes and you have real growth.”
reality is far more complicated that that.
Reality is far more complicated than that….if your a snake oil salesman.People always do better with their own money than the rat hole that is the government.There are few….exceedingly few jobs government does better than the private sector.And it(gov) is not built that way anyway,so no shame on that.Government makes the morass of collecting taxes and redistributing it very complicated.So complicated that a few members of Obamas cabinet (some of whom wrote the actual tax laws )were guilty of tax evasion…because they were confused by the process.If anything shines light on the rat hole better than that- I can’t see it.So many things prove that the best government is the least government.Paul Ryan talked at the George W Bush library about tipping points coming soon if we don’t turn away from the Dem mandates.Things that will put our very economic freedom in the hands of those who would downgrade us and put us on a system of belt tightening measures that will make your head spin.Austerity measures.We are not far behind Europe.We still have time but the window is closing.That is why we on the right are getting angry that you on the left still believe in the things your standing up for.Listen to Paul Ryans speech.He speaks of it far better than I do.
as charles pierce points out: Paul Ryan is a lifelong adherent to the doctrines of Ayn Rand, which ought to disqualify anyone from ever being taken seriously enough to park cars by anyone over the age of fifteen.
But, look at how his nonsensical plan was received. The Right praised Ryan for the fortitude it takes to make life harder for the poor, the elderly, and the disabled while comforting plutocrats and corporations. Nobody laughed.
paul krugman looks at the numbers:
The Ryan budget purports to reduce the deficit — but the alleged deficit reduction depends on the completely unsupported assertion that trillions of dollars in revenue can be found by closing tax loopholes.
And we’re talking about a lot of loophole-closing. As Howard Gleckman of the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center points out, to make his numbers work Mr. Ryan would, by 2022, have to close enough loopholes to yield an extra $700 billion in revenue every year. That’s a lot of money, even in an economy as big as ours. So which specific loopholes has Mr. Ryan, who issued a 98-page manifesto on behalf of his budget, said he would close?
None. Not one. He has, however, categorically ruled out any move to close the major loophole that benefits the rich, namely the ultra-low tax rates on income from capital.
Mr. Ryan talks loudly about the evils of debt and deficits, but his plan would actually make the deficit bigger even as it inflicted huge pain in the name of deficit reduction.
I dont believe that assertion, based on a very limited perspective of his ideas.Have you watched the speech or are you fishing through soundbites?.I believe the “rights” ideas that Ryan is one of the big voices of -regarding what will fire the economy is the correct one.And igniting this economy is the only way out of this mess.Simply taxing what exists now is not gonna do it.If Obama got every tax he wants in a wish list it will only pay a percentage of his increased spending.It has been said that you could sell everything in this country,confiscate all the wealth,times it by 5 and still not pay the bill of the hole we are in.New creation is the way up.And the left does not have any want or idea of how to do that.The Reagan explosion on the economy is completely mistifying to them.They see it, but for them it was a complete failure.I would say one side sees a bigger and better America.One sees smaller and less.Listen to Ryan.Not soundbites or bullshit analysis by the same people who voted Obama in and were wrong on everything they touched.Remember this….OBAMA,GOOD FOR THE ECONOMY!
Paul Ryan is a lot like St. Agustine. He was a sad and weird 3rd century man. After having a very exhaustive sex life, Mr. St. A. decided that no one else should do that, and dedicated his life to writing about all what he did and YET, what no one else should do. : )
Mr. Ryan, after benefitting from SS when his father died , as well as using many government programs to build his future, wants to cut those programs for those current and future people that would like an opportunity to have his choices in life too.
Both of these people are are an embarassment to the original concept of Christianity, which I keep hearing many say , is the foundation of this nation. Of course, I might have missed something. How much did JC charge for his “Prosperity Gospel Program,” and “Learning To Bet Against Fishers of Derivatives, in Your Spare Time” seminar ?
I know our money says” In GOD We Trust,” but really maybe many of the elected politicos are listening to that other guy.
Gloriana all that aside, and every other personal insight(right or wrong) lets realize this is just math.Are his figures correct or not?And are his projections sound?Lastly is his “vision”for this country in line with the constitution?They are the guideposts moving forward.
Please listen to Christies speech at the Bush library.He talks clearly of what he did to a liberal- run catastrophe in New Jersey to right that ship and turn it around.We all heard the liberals moan that he would destroy everything.They were wrong.Absolutely wrong.
He and Ryan agree on what must be done.It has worked wonders in New jersey.It will in this country as well.
looking at the “math” in the the ryan plan and it’s supposed outcomes , it’s all based on ridiculously unrealistic assumptions, as ezra klein points out.
Paul Ryan tells CBO to assume his tax plan will raise revenues to 19 percent of GDP and then hold them there. He tells them to assume his Medicare plan will hold cost growth in Medicare to GDP+0.5 percentage points. He tells them to assume that spending on Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program won’t grow any faster than inflation. He tells them to assume that all federal spending aside from Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security will fall from 12.5 percent of GDP in 2011 to 3.75 percent of GDP in 2050.
It’s that last assumption, perhaps, that shows most clearly how unlikely Ryan’s specified budget path is.
He’s saying that in 2050, spending on defense, on food stamps, on infrastructure, on education, on research and development, on the federal workforce, and everything other non-entitlement program combined will be less than four percentage points of GDP. Consider that defense spending has never fallen below three percentage points of GDP, and Mitt Romney has promised to keep it above four percentage points of GDP. Ryan has not outlined a realistic goal.
Ryan isn’t alone in directing the CBO to assume some level of success for his policies. Politicians from both parties routinely specify spending limits and then brag about the results. But Ryan’s budget is unusual in the numbers of rules it specifies, and the level of success it assumes for its policies.
And the savings he touts rely on the level of success he assumes. If he can’t bring all non-entitlement spending down to 3.75 percent of GDP, and he can’t keep Medicaid to inflation, then he can’t achieve the deficit reduction he’s promising.
Watching Paul Ryan and Chris Christie talk economics at a forum headed by George W. Bush is like watching Ted Bundy and Jeffrey Dahmer speak at Jack the Ripper’s conference on non-violence.
P ness we could say stupid things all day long.Tell me how much worse off New Jersey is now that Christie is in charge.
Woodward FINALLY we here what you on the left disagree on.No personal attacks.Bravo.You are right that the key to all Ryans plans are that the economy rebounds and grows as spending drops.Such a different concept than the left- trying to pick clean what is left of the corpse.Spending more and more even if they have to print it or borrow it.And happy to live that way.I will take the positivity of the right every time.I think you are wrong.I think in two years you will see you were wrong.We shall see.