From No Left Turns: "Acceptable and unacceptable ways to scam the rich"
Just because liberals never have paid a political price for Social Security taxes doesn't mean they never will, however. Abolishing the Social Security Wage Base would be a huge tax increase - a 12.4% surcharge on all income over $100,000. It would affect one in every six households. It would, additionally, be quite awkward, given that the liberal party line on entitlements is that Social Security is fundamentally sound, and entitlement reform really means health care cost controls to bail out Medicare and Medicaid. That’s a big tax increase to fix what we've been assured is a very small problem. If conservatives can’t turn such contradictions into a teaching moment, we deserve a long walk in the wilderness.This blog post has a problem. It assumes that the liberals will raise taxes on the "rich" but, somehow, the general American public will rise up in outrage at what would be one of the largest tax hikes in history. The Republicans have played "Whack-A-Mole" long enough on this issue. Let the Democrats do the dirty work or let them do nothing and watch the whole program slip into insolvency. More Americans than ever, through 401(k)s and IRAs, understand the long-term strategies of saving for retirement. When they're getting pennies on the dollar for their Social Security benefit, political support will wither away.
No comments:
Post a Comment