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Aug 01, 2016ravernon rated this title 1.5 out of 5 stars
Steven Hill in Expand Social Security NOW!, has a good point, in that expanding the benefits paid by Social Security WOULD help many Americans have a more secure retirement. However, his only solution (like most liberals) is to raise taxes, “on the rich, not paying their fair share”. I will give him this though; at least he says what “their fair share” IS, in this case 12.4% (total) of ALL their income. Math, and facts in general, is not really his thing however, as he shows throughout his book. He says (correctly) that Social Security has a $2.8 TRILLION surplus in the “Trust Fund”, ALL of which is invested in special Treasury Bonds, or iou’s from the general budget, money Congress and the President s since the 1960’s have ALREADY spent and that will have to be paid back through general taxes, which will (of course) have to be raised (see a pattern here?). He also says that “Social Security has not one dedicated revenue stream, but three.”(Page 79) He lists payroll taxes, income from the US Treasuries in the Trust Fund and the “revenue that comes from levying income tax on Social Security recipients”, which he says “brought in $756 billion to the Trust Fund in 2014.”(Page 79) This is incorrect, in that “income taxes” go to the general fund, NOT the Social Security Trust Fund, and is a very good trick, since “it currently costs about $662 billion annually to provide benefits to those retires”. (Page 5 and 105) Now, how you can PAY $662 BILLION in benefits and COLLECT $756 BILLION in taxes on those benefits, well it’s beyond me, but it sounds like a great deal, for the GOVERNMENT. Politicians, of ALL stripes, have already shown they can’t be trusted with large sums of money, having run up over a $19TRILLION Debit and several annual $1TRILLION plus Deficits, in the last few years, despite having revenues of $2 TRILLION to $3 TRILLION plus each year.