Saturday, November 01, 2008

Obama's useless Social Security tax hike

Barack Obama has proposed raising the cap on Social Security taxes and forcing people with an income over $250,000 to pay more into the program. But here's something I never considered and clearly the Democratic candidate didn't either: most people earning a quarter-million a year aren't making it in wages subject to FICA taxes:

Most people earning more than $250,000 per year receive the vast majority of their income in forms other than wages or salary. In fact, according to the IRS, only a littlemore than $1 billion in wages were earned by people with more than $250,000 in wage income. Assuming standard wage growth in the future, Senator Obama’s tax would generate barely $50 million per year. That would not even push back Social Security’s cash-flow insolvency by an additional year.
$50 million a year? That's a rounding error. But, just like his position on capital gains taxes, it appears Obama's policies are geared to be punitive rather than revenue-generating.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Rounding error? Pshaw! John McCain says you could pay for 16 or 17 overhead projectors with that money. UNTESTED, MARXIST overhead projectors!

DavidH said...

I think this guy's math is wrong. The billion dollars in wages seems way too low. If you added up all the players salaries in the NBA, NFL and MLB, it would be over a billion dollars. Now add in everyone else. I think he is off by a factor of a thousand.

Anonymous said...

50 million, 50 billion, what's the diff? The point is Obama sucks. Kind of like when the McCain campaign pre-produced two ads for Obama's trip to Germany: the first denouncing Obama for ignoring our brave troops in favor of a photo op, the second denouncing Obama for visiting the troops, thereby making them mere props in his photo op.

Eric said...

Way to shoehorn in your talking point. Guess I could have written just about anything there.

Anonymous said...

Off-topic in subject matter, but not as it relates to philosophical attitude. When arguments begin with "Obama sucks" and proceed logically to "Obama sucks," there are bound to be a few rhetorical bumps along the way.