Sure, they get it back, in some form, if they make it as far as the qualification age.
What happens if you have an emergency need for that sequestered money before that time, or you just simply expire with credit in the books?
(emphasis mine)
I think you’re past caring about cash imbalances or injustices then. No one’s come back to complain anyway.
What is disingenuous are right-wingers who insist on treating Social Security and Medicare as part of the general budget, so that they can project out several generations, claim a future shortfall of many trillions of dollars, and use that as a an excuse to cut government, or to pretend that the trillions gained by restoring Reagan-era tax rates would be just “a rounding error.”
What makes these right-wingers disingenuous is when they then turn around and separate entitlements so they can pretend that these payroll taxes are not taxes, so they can denounce working people as moochers with “no skin in the game.”
Mr. Stone implies that participation in Social Security shouldn’t necessarily convey the right to vote, “because the amount you pay is determined by actuaries to fund the retirement system.” Wrong for two reasons. (1) Rates are set by Congress, not “actuaries;” (2) Benefits are also set by Congress and, if workers were denied the vote, George W. Bush’s plan to turn the whole program into a boondoggle for Wall St. would prevail.
Payroll taxes are mandatory deductions from one’s payroll. As anyone who’s self-employed knows, the tax is computed on a schedule attached to Form 1040, added to income tax, and both taxes are paid via a single check. It smells like a tax, walks like a tax, and quacks like a tax.
As I pointed out, there is a fair case to separate payroll taxes from income taxes. But what is truly weird, and causes one to doubt the clarity of “right-wing thought,” is to be unable to see the words. Warren Buffett wrote “and payroll taxes” in his famous quote, yet a right-wing economics professor (and his disciple, a Doper) managed to completely ignore that Buffett referred to more than income taxes. (Even in this thread “and payroll taxes” appeared two dozen time with various emphasis and varying font sizes, without being perceived.)
I do not argue that inclusion of payroll taxes is clearcut. But the topic of this thread is “class warfare” and any pedantic insistence that payroll taxes should never never never be considered taxes is class warfare in spades.
Looking from the other side, it could be said that I stated many times that I was talking about income taxes ONLY and left wingers include SS and medicare despite being told and ridiculed MANY times that I was only talking about income taxes. I apologized for not seeing where you included payroll taxes, but NOT that I believe the income taxes should be the same rate for everyone. Seems like you think you won that part too and it is just wrong to tax some people more on their income than others.
It seems that you think that the payroll taxes are levied unfairly and that instead of fixing that problem, the better solution is to unfairly apply the income taxes to balance out the amount taken. I understand why you want to do it this way. There is a lot more money to be had by socking to the rich with a progressive income tax than by correcting the SS/MC mess. This is where all the confusion comes in.
I’m not a right winger, but I would like to keep all those accounts seperate from the general fund. No looting the SS fund to pay for XYZ and leaving an IOU in the bucket.
The fact that the government allows businesses to pay multiple bills with a single check doesn’t mean it is one tax. Walmart lets me pay for my sporting goods with my groceries. Doesn’t mean you can eat shirts.
It isn’t that payroll taxes should not be considered taxes, it is that the progressive INCOME TAX system is used as a weapon to take money from one group of people and give it to another group of people.
If all taxes were applied fairly, meaning the same for everyone, it wouldn’t matter what kind of tax we were talking about. We (all of us) would be against the government instead of arguing amongst ourselves. See how we are having the wrong discussion?
Try to understand this test of fairness: If you get to cut the pie in half, then I get to choose which half I want. So, if you get to say that one group must pay more than another group, then I get to choose which rate I want applied to me. That is why a single rate is the ONLY fair way to apply a tax. It is the reason the founders warned not to have a tiered tax system.
If you want to discuss how the other taxes are applied incorrectly, I am ready to get on board with you there. I agree they are. They should be around .5% with no cap and you only get out enough to make some poverty level, say $20,000. If you have more than that already, you don’t get anything back. It would be like a mandatory insurance safety net. It is the price we pay not to have to see old people under the overpass eating dogfood.
But, the way to fix one screwed up system is NOT to screw up another system to try to balance out the pain. That is ridiculous.