The main difference now and then is that there is no such rate of inflation to-day. Some measure of indexing is probably needed of course (but the same should be the case for the minimum wage).
Why not? There are plenty of tax measures that are both broadly popular and would raise revenue such as reforming the corporate tax system, removing the payroll tax cap, and to a certain extent even raising the income tax on the higher brackets. Probably some sort of a national VAT is to be desired in the future, but that need not be advocated for immediately and can be portrayed as part of abolishing sales taxes-considering the Republicans have tried to sell a flat tax and a national sales tax as populist measures, I don’t see why it should be any different with this.
Something that should be speedily corrected of course, although say 50,000 Westside New Ager antivaxxer moms and gay San Franciscans changing their votes aren’t going to shift California when weighed against the enormous margins provided by the Hispanic and black vote.
Again, this is something that has to be corrected.
Um, Nancy Pelosi is from San Francisco, yeah? And quite well-off herself. I don’t take her as representative of the Democratic Party in general. I agree that the Clinton/Pelosi nest-featherer faction need to be overthrown by a more economically progressive caucus.
There’s no regional base for that. Pelosi still represents a rich state with rich constituents. Unless the Democrats have a plan for winning states like Kansas, they need states like New York and California to win. Which means being socially liberal and economically moderate.
Democrats think they have an electoral majority now. They are not going to risk coalition shuffling when they think they have things well in hand. That’s why I laugh at liberals who think that America’s changing demographics is good for them. No, it’s good for DEMOCRATS, not liberals.
Um, actually, California has a lot of poor blacks who feel neglected by the Democratic Party. So do many states. So, really, the Dems have to go “left” on some issues or alienate part of their base even more.
It’s a fractious coalition. Republicans have a similar problem. Ideologically they are against SS and Medicare. But in recent years they’ve been winning big margins among the elderly. That creates a problem for them.
So the Republicans can’t really cut spending, and the Democrats can’t really increase revenues. Eventually something will give and the coalitions will shuffle again.
Democrats raise taxes, though! They don’t raise them by huge amounts in middle of a depression, no, because they don’t think that’s helpful. That’s what kept the stupid Bush tax cuts alive, I think.
The Republicans are the ones who swore an illegal oath of fealty to Grover Norquist and can’t, ever.
There’s no need to. $3 trillion is plenty of money, and it rises substantially every year, faster than spending(since we’ve been controlling that too).
The budget is now on a path to balance in 2-4 years. I fail to see a problem, unless Democrats want to tack on more spending rather than use the coming surplus to save SS and Medicare. If Republicans are smart, that’s the choice they’ll present to the electorate.
Even now, the President wants to take money out of SS to fund disability.
Disability runs out of money next year. The President’s fix(which Sanders supports) is to just take money out of Social Security to fund disability. That should be an election issue.
Uh, the President wants to fund SSDI (which is part of Social Security) with a larger chunk of the Social Security fund, which would fund it for 18 years instead of for one year before benefits are cut (by 19%). And the money lost to the “retirement” fund would last 18 years instead of 19 years before benefits are cut (by maybe 25%).
If the retirement fund is ~340x the disability fund, that’s…a workable fix for now. And we have two census years before the deep cuts, so can presumably un- or re-gerrymander Congress so that progressives can finally lift the cap on the payroll tax and solve this problem permanently.
It only works permanently if the cap on payroll taxes isn’t accompanied by a cap on benefits. Then you fix the problem permanently, but now SS is a bigtime loser for the top 5% of taxpayers or so. It also changes the fundamental nature of the program. Instead of a social insurance plan that benefits all taxpayers, it becomes welfare.
Why? Transfers between the two funds have happened a number of times in the past, and they’ve always been regarded as bookkeeping, rather than an issue.
The GOP is making an issue of it now, because it’s this year’s version of the $36,000 welfare queen: the fund’s supposedly going bust because people are gaming it to use it as welfare. Just the latest (OK, not the latest anymore) bullshit GOP scare story.
Social insurance plans benefit the whole populace not by giving every single taxpayerr positive returns, but by benefiting those with more need at the expense of those who have less need and can afford to fund them.
I said lift the cap, you screwball. Raise it to a higher level of income or abolish it entirely. SS suffers because compensation is so disparate, and FICA is capped, so FICA doesn’t touch most money made in this country.
I mangled my language there. What I meant was that if you lift the cap on taxes but not the cap on benefits, then it solves the problem. But it also fundamentally changes the program.
THen there’s the fact that rich state Democrats want a donut hole, which means the problem is not solved and benefit cuts will still be required.
But you can cap pension payouts without having to cap payroll taxes.
Remember “means-testing”? Well, we don’t have to means-test you to realize that if we’re paying you $2 million a month in pension that that’s probably excessive. So we have a formula whereby the high end is brought down and the low end is brought up. We actually already do some of this.
Means testing is a sound way to save Social Security. But you do understand why Democrats have historically opposed it, right?
I just want you to know what you’re getting into here. My side is going to use the big change in SS to mount an offensive against the program, which will enjoy much weaker support once that change is made.
I don’t get this guy. Has he been inside a school since he graduated? Does he realize the teacher’s lounge is empty 98% of the time?
Does he have the same thought on break rooms in police stations, fire stations, and all goverment offices or does he just harbour special hatered of teachers?
If he were king he would take away their freedom to assembly, the irony.
Not only that, but teachers’ lounges aren’t just break rooms. In fact, they’re usually labeled as “work rooms”, and with good reason: That’s where the copier usually is, for instance, and other materials and equipment teachers need to prepare for their lessons.