Frayed Ends: Business, Economics, and Tax Policy 3.0

[FreshFish]

Re: Frayed Ends: Business, Economics, and Tax Policy 3.0

Trying to put my finger on what seemed off...and that's it. There seems to be a mischaracterization of what fiscally conservative means there.

For example, someone who is both socially liberal and fiscally conservative believes (a) we should have a societal "safety net," and (b) the safety net is to provide temporary assistance to those going through a difficult patch, and (c) to recognize each person's self-worth and human dignity, we help them learn to be self-reliant (in an interdependent society) for their own growth and development, and (d) there will be a small group of those unfortunate few who will always need some assistance, and that's okay.

Beyond that, the overhead to use government to deliver safety net services is too high. If you really want to help people, do you want to dilute the money intended to help them by supporting such a large bureaucracy to administer the help? It's like, before you donate to a charity, you first research how much of the money they raise goes toward their cause. If 10% of the money they raise goes toward the cause they espouse, do you really want to donate? Maybe you want 75% or 80% of the money they raise go toward the cause they espouse? Same reasoning here: a government safety net diverts too much money away from the safety net function.

That's another way of saying we can help a lot more people with the money we raise than we are currently helping, which is exactly the opposite of cutting people off. The current safety net cares not at all about the self-worth and dignity of the recipients, and is incredibly wasteful. That comes from people totally on board with the safety net concept and is merely a conversation about how to make it work better and more effectively.

 

[unofan]

For example, someone who is both socially liberal and fiscally conservative believes (a) we should have a societal "safety net," and (b) the safety net is to provide temporary assistance to those going through a difficult patch, and (c) to recognize each person's self-worth and human dignity, we help them learn to be self-reliant (in an interdependent society) for their own growth and development, and (d) there will be a small group of those unfortunate few who will always need some assistance, and that's okay.

Beyond that, the overhead to use government to deliver safety net services is too high. If you really want to help people, do you want to dilute the money intended to help them by supporting such a large bureaucracy to administer the help? It's like, before you donate to a charity, you first research how much of the money they raise goes toward their cause. If 10% of the money they raise goes toward the cause they espouse, do you really want to donate? Maybe you want 75% or 80% of the money they raise go toward the cause they espouse? Same reasoning here: a government safety net diverts too much money away from the safety net function.

That's another way of saying we can help a lot more people with the money we raise than we are currently helping, which is exactly the opposite of cutting people off. The current safety net cares not at all about the self-worth and dignity of the recipients, and is incredibly wasteful. That comes from people totally on board with the safety net concept and is merely a conversation about how to make it work better and more effectively.

The administrative costs for social security is something like 1%. Welfare could be similarly low except for all the punishment...err...regulations placed upon it by fiscal conservatives such as you to weed out the mythical welfare queen; the prime example being drug testing that costs far more to implement than it "saves" in denied benefits.

Medicaid has administrative costs about half of what the typical private insurer has, and Medicare's is about a third of the private industry average.

Try again.

 

[ScoobyDoo]

Re: Frayed Ends: Business, Economics, and Tax Policy 3.0

The administrative costs for social security is something like 1%. Welfare could be similarly low except for all the punishment...err...regulations placed upon it by fiscal conservatives such as you to weed out the mythical welfare queen. Medicaid has administrative costs about half of what the typical private insurer has, and Medicare's is about a third of the private industry average.

Try again.

They always fail on that question. Next he'll be saying the private sector could do it for less than that which is impossible.

 

[FlagDUDE08]

Re: Frayed Ends: Business, Economics, and Tax Policy 3.0

Champion administrative costs all you want; funding to expenditures for Social Security and Medicare (both of which are funded through FICA taxes) is at a ratio of almost 1:2, based upon the Debt Clock site. For every $1 coming in, they spend about $2. Any private person who tried to do that would be thrown in the slammer for 150 years (read: Bernie Madoff).

 

[ScoobyDoo]

Re: Frayed Ends: Business, Economics, and Tax Policy 3.0

Champion administrative costs all you want; funding to expenditures for Social Security and Medicare (both of which are funded through FICA taxes) is at a ratio of almost 1:2, based upon the Debt Clock site. For every $1 coming in, they spend about $2. Any private person who tried to do that would be thrown in the slammer for 150 years (read: Bernie Madoff).

It's not our fault that the accounting for it was slapped into the general fund. Everyone who has paid into i saved for a rainy day. Washington didn't care and blew the whole freaking wad.

And, on a similar note, all the actuaries who worked on any of the public pension programs should be drowned in a bathtub for the fraud that they committed.

 

[FlagDUDE08]

Re: Frayed Ends: Business, Economics, and Tax Policy 3.0

It's not our fault that the accounting for it was slapped into the general fund. Everyone who has paid into i saved for a rainy day. Washington didn't care and blew the whole freaking wad.

And, on a similar note, all the actuaries who worked on any of the public pension programs should be drowned in a bathtub for the fraud that they committed.

Good to see you're reasonable enough to understand that one generation paying for another is a craptastic plan.

 

[ScoobyDoo]

Re: Frayed Ends: Business, Economics, and Tax Policy 3.0

Good to see you're reasonable enough to understand that one generation paying for another is a craptastic plan.

Oh, it's not only craptastic it's BS of the highest order. Just like public pensions. Like I said, any actuary who worked on them should be drowned in a bathtub.

 

[FlagDUDE08]

Re: Frayed Ends: Business, Economics, and Tax Policy 3.0

Oh, it's not only craptastic it's BS of the highest order. Just like public pensions. Like I said, any actuary who worked on them should be drowned in a bathtub.

Given that they're mostly from the FDR era, I'd have to assume they're dead by now. Now the only question is: How do we get the public union bosses to give them up...

 

[ScoobyDoo]

Re: Frayed Ends: Business, Economics, and Tax Policy 3.0

Given that they're mostly from the FDR era, I'd have to assume they're dead by now. Now the only question is: How do we get the public union bosses to give them up...

I would imagine there has been someone giving calculations to the Congress over the entire history of SS. The politicians didn't listen. Public Pensions and the folks that ran those scams is another matter.

 

[Kepler]

Re: Frayed Ends: Business, Economics, and Tax Policy 3.0

I would imagine there has been someone giving calculations to the Congress over the entire history of SS. The politicians didn't listen.

There have been dozens of tweaks to SS over the years, based on that accounting. The politicians don't really mean anything -- it's the bureaucrats who run the plans and (cover your ears, this is the height of political incorrectness) they do a good job.

SS has two problems, one solvable and one systemic. The solvable one is an overall revenue shortfall, because of the capping of payroll tax. Uncap it and you solve that problem. The systemic one is we educated women and they started doing other things with their lives than being incubators. The demographics no longer support inter-generational transfer in the form SS does it. We need a better way, but the right's not offering anything but their answer to everything: "ef the poors, they're lazy and Jebus is coming any day now anyway."

 

[unofan]

Re: Frayed Ends: Business, Economics, and Tax Policy 3.0

I would imagine there has been someone giving calculations to the Congress over the entire history of SS. The politicians didn't listen. Public Pensions and the folks that ran those scams is another matter.

People were warning of the impending SS demographic bubble as early as the 80s (maybe even before that, but I wasn't alive then and don't know). The boomers responded by sticking their fingers in their ears and cutting taxes.

Which makes it hilarious when they pull out the "we've been paying into it our whole lives" card. Sure they have, but they've only been paying $.80 on the dollar or so (and less for medicare).

 

[joecct]

Re: Frayed Ends: Business, Economics, and Tax Policy 3.0

People were warning of the impending SS demographic bubble as early as the 80s (maybe even before that, but I wasn't alive then and don't know). The boomers responded by sticking their fingers in their ears and cutting taxes.

Which makes it hilarious when they pull out the "we've been paying into it our whole lives" card. Sure they have, but they've only been paying $.80 on the dollar or so (and less for medicare).

I don't believe SS taxes were cut. In fact, they were raised. IIRC, the OASDI fund was in good shape, but it got raided (by the GOP, IIRC) to make the general fund numbers look good.

Why do Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, and the Clintons need to collect SS when they are eligible? They don't need it.

 

[LynahFan]

"Social liberal / economic conservative" is a phase young males pass through on their way to either being full grown liberals or full grown conservatives.

Whoo-hoo - I'm still young!

 

[Kepler]

Re: Frayed Ends: Business, Economics, and Tax Policy 3.0

Which makes it hilarious when they pull out the "we've been paying into it our whole lives" card. Sure they have, but they've only been paying $.80 on the dollar or so (and less for medicare).

The other d*mning statistic is even if you imagined the fund as an actual investment with the stock market's average (7%) ROI, the typical recipient makes back all he "invested" in 5 years, and the average period of collection is 15.

But it was someone like Bill Maher who said it best: "social security is the price we are willing to pay so that our elderly relatives don't live with us." As a quality of life issue, for all concerned, I'd say it more than pays for itself.

 

[unofan]

Re: Frayed Ends: Business, Economics, and Tax Policy 3.0

I don't believe SS taxes were cut. In fact, they were raised. IIRC, the OASDI fund was in good shape, but it got raided (by the GOP, IIRC) to make the general fund numbers look good.

Why do Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, and the Clintons need to collect SS when they are eligible? They don't need it.

It's all the general fund at the end of the day. And overall, taxes were cut but spending was not. And now you want my and my brothers generations to pay for it.

 

[St. Clown]

Re: Frayed Ends: Business, Economics, and Tax Policy 3.0

I don't believe SS taxes were cut. In fact, they were raised. IIRC, the OASDI fund was in good shape, but it got raided (by the GOP, IIRC) to make the general fund numbers look good.

Why do Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, and the Clintons need to collect SS when they are eligible? They don't need it.

They were and they weren't. We received a two-year "tax holiday" on our payroll taxes where they were dropped by 2% as part of the 2008/9 stimulus package.

Even with that, when all of the money gets dumped into the general fund, it doesn't really matter about the semantics of how it's paid for when the "Social Security Lockbox" that was created in the 90's gets continually raided and IOUs are left in place of the actual funds. Though, that's a great debate because it comes down to an ethics question of interest rate risks and how or if governments should face them with regards to separated funds and overall deficit spending.

 

[LynahFan]

They were and they weren't. We received a two-year "tax holiday" on our payroll taxes where they were dropped by 2% as part of the 2008/9 stimulus package.

Even with that, when all of the money gets dumped into the general fund, it doesn't really matter about the semantics of how it's paid for when the "Social Security Lockbox" that was created in the 90's gets continually raided and IOUs are left in place of the actual funds. Though, that's a great debate because it comes down to an ethics question of interest rate risks and how or if governments should face them with regards to separated funds and overall deficit spending.

Your attempted explanation brings to mind Lewis Black's comment regarding Enron, "If you can't explain what your company does in two sentences, it's illegal. Period." Kenny Lay should have gone to work for SSA - he'd have gotten away with it then...

 

[Rover]

Re: Frayed Ends: Business, Economics, and Tax Policy 3.0

I have a solution. Any righty who thinks SoS is a ponzi scheme can decline to participate in the program, thus giving back their money to the rest of us. Voila! The program is all set.

In reality Social Security, funded for like the next 25 years or so, is the least of the country's budget problems. I'd be happy with a means test for the very high end, as well as raising the payroll cap. Do that and its pretty much all set as The Annoying Generation (aka the Boomers) continue to attempt to drain the Treasury dry.

 

[FlagDUDE08]

Re: Frayed Ends: Business, Economics, and Tax Policy 3.0

I don't believe SS taxes were cut. In fact, they were raised. IIRC, the OASDI fund was in good shape, but it got raided (by the GOP, IIRC) to make the general fund numbers look good.

Why do Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, and the Clintons need to collect SS when they are eligible? They don't need it.

They can still collect social security, but only based upon the limit of contribution. Also, it is a federal requirement to sign up for Medicare before you are able to collect social security, and not only are you not able to get off Medicare once you get on, and is it more expensive to get on the later from 65 you go, but it is a felony to use anything else that your Medicare plan would ordinarily cover. I wouldn't be shocked, though, if there was an exception built in for the Clintons because of federal government service.

I don't suspect they will be making poor financial decisions any time soon, especially considering that is how they got to the position where they currently are.

 

[FlagDUDE08]

Re: Frayed Ends: Business, Economics, and Tax Policy 3.0

They were and they weren't. We received a two-year "tax holiday" on our payroll taxes where they were dropped by 2% as part of the 2008/9 stimulus package.

Even with that, when all of the money gets dumped into the general fund, it doesn't really matter about the semantics of how it's paid for when the "Social Security Lockbox" that was created in the 90's gets continually raided and IOUs are left in place of the actual funds. Though, that's a great debate because it comes down to an ethics question of interest rate risks and how or if governments should face them with regards to separated funds and overall deficit spending.

Even if you create separate accounts, it's still the same numbskulls dealing with them, and I'm sure they will create a provision to transfer money.