| Social Security - 2 The Democrats DO have a plan to save Social Security. |
| The Republicans have charged that Social Security will run out of money in 2018 unless radical changes are made. The Democrats counter that Social Security is solvent until 2042 or 2052 (depending on which experts you believe) and that the problem is not urgent. Which date is right? The Social Security system will take in more than it pays out until 2018. After that, it will rely on a surplus it has saved in order to meet the shortfall. Those savings will keep the system solvent for around 50 more years. The problem is that the savings aren't really there. Because of the irresponsible fiscal policies of the Republicans running the government, we as a nation are living on borrowed money. One of the first places they "borrowed" money from was the Social Security trust fund. The savings aren't there anymore. The Republicans spent the Social Security trust fund in order to grant huge tax cuts to the wealthy. So…which date is right? It depends on whether or not you have faith in the U.S. government to pay its debts. It took President Clinton 8 years to clean up the fiscal mess left by Reagan. By the time Clinton's second term ended, the government had balanced its spending to tax revenues collected. It was working on a "pay-as-you-go" basis. As a matter of fact, we were poised to make the first payment in decades on the principle of our loan. This would have included putting the money back into the Social Security trust fund. Then Bush and the Republicans took over. Within 6 months, irresponsible tax cuts for the wealthy had driven the nation back into borrowing to pay its bills. So what's the solution? Bush proposes radical benefit cuts in Social Security. Under his plan, workers (except for the very poorest Americans) who paid into the system during their working years would see their returns substantially reduced during their retirement years. A better solution would be to rescind the Bush tax cuts, rebalance the budget and begin to put the money that we've borrowed back into the Social Security trust fund where it belongs. Another part of the solution is to gradually eliminate the earnings cap on Social Security taxes. Currently, earnings over $90,000 are not taxed for Social Security. This makes the tax structure for Social Security regressive…that is, people who make less than $90,000 per year pay a larger percentage of their income in Social Security taxes than to people who make over $90,000 per year. Eliminating this earnings cap would make the tax structure more fair while at the same time fixing the near term fiscal imbalance in the Social Security financing system. That is the Democratic plan. |
No one has submitted a comment on this statement yet.
Be the first and submit your feedback below.
Submit your comment below |