Essentially this is the prefunding con job. Since FICA revenues will cease to support general expenditures in the near future what we must do is... increase the FICA tax so it continues to support general expenditures. In other words, we need to increase the regressive payroll tax so that we don't need to raise other taxes. And we're doing it to "save" social security.It's even more insidious and dishonest than that. We have 9 trillion in debt. Only a fraction of that is owed to SS. How is it we can't honor the portion of the debt owed to SS but the majority of the debt is manageable? That makes no sense. We'll do what we always do, just roll it over. The debt stays the same and SS gets paid.
But isn't it time to take the offensive on this whole tax fairness issue? Let's eliminate the payroll tax altogether and do away with the fiction of a trust fund. Let's pay for all of our social programs with an increase in the income tax that offsets the elimination of the payroll tax, no net tax increase, just a simpler, fairer system.
And let's attack this fiction of progressivity. I saw Fred Thompson say the other night, "5% of the people are paying 60% of the taxes, "how much more progressive do you want it to be?" Let's compare that to the wealth distribution in this country and then see how "progressive" our tax code is.
Mr. Motes
