Why Do Deficit Hawks Hate Social Security

Social Security advocates fear payroll tax cut
WASHINGTON (AP) - President Barack Obama's plan to cut Payroll taxes for a year would provide big savings for many workers. But Social Security advocates are nervous that it could jeopardize the Retirement program's finances. The plan is part of a Tax Cut and extended Unemployment Benefits package that Obama negotiated with Senate Republican leaders. It would trim workers' share of Social Security taxes by nearly one-third for 2011. Workers making $50,000 in wages would get a $1,000 tax cut; th...

Social Security Advocates Fear Payroll Tax Cut
Like this Story? Share it: (AP) President Barack Obama's plan to cut Payroll taxes for a year would provide big savings for many workers but makes Social Security advocates nervous that it could jeopardize the Retirement program's finances. The plan is part of a package of Tax Cuts and extended Unemployment Benefits that Mr. Obama negotiated with Senate Republican leaders. It would cut workers' share of Social Security taxes by nearly one-third for 2011. Workers making $50,000 in wages would ge...

Social Security advocates fear payroll tax cut
WASHINGTON— President Barack Obama’s plan to cut Payroll taxes for a year would provide big savings for many workers but makes Social Security advocates nervous that it could jeopardize the Retirement program’s finances. The plan is part of a package of Tax Cuts and extended Unemployment Benefits that Obama negotiated with Senate Republican leaders. It would cut workers’ share of Social Security taxes by nearly one-third for 2011. Workers making $50,000 in wages woul...

OK -- YOU trim the budget!
It wasn't easy for the co-chairmen of President Obama's fiscal commission, Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson, to win support from most of the panel's 18 members last week for their tough Bipartisan plan to shrink the federal Deficit. They ran through several drafts, made compromises, extended the deadline, twisted arms -- and even then fell short of the 14 votes they needed to compel Congress to take a look. But I can sympathize. I tried cutting the federal Budget myself last week, and failed mise...

Building It Up, Not Tearing It Down A Progressive Plan To Modernize Social Security
Building It Up, Not Tearing It Down — A Progressive Plan To Modernize Social Security The final report of President Obama’s Debt commission — which failed to receive the required number of votes to actually move forward — included an unfair and regressive cut in Social Security benefits via raising the Retirement Age. When the commission was crafting its proposal, many of its members relied on false characterizations about Social Security’s financial stability in...

Social Security advocates fear payroll tax cut (AP)
WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama's plan to cut Payroll taxes for a year would provide big savings for many workers but makes Social Security advocates nervous that it could jeopardize the Retirement program's finances. The plan is part of a package of Tax Cuts and extended Unemployment Benefits that Obama negotiated with Senate Republican leaders. It would cut workers' share of Social Security taxes by nearly one-third for 2011. Workers making $50,000 in wages would get a $1,000 tax c...

Obama gets Social Security facts wrong
Here's a book that needs to be on President Obama's immediate reading list: Nancy Altman's excellent The Battle for Social Security: From FDR's Vision To Bush's Gamble. In it, Altman dispels the kind of Zombie Social Security lies that have been showing up in President Obama's talking points. Dan Froomkin has the details on how he got its history wrong. At the Press Conference (see the transcript), Obama defended his Controversial decision to give in to Republican demands for a massive Tax Cut ...

Low Taxes Are the Problem, Not the Solution
Sen. Bernard Sanders speaks against Tax Cuts on the floor of the Senate on Friday. “Every Economist that I’ve talked to … acknowledges that this [tax] agreement would boost Economic Growth in the coming years and has the potential to create millions of jobs,” President Barack Obama said this week. But if low taxes are the solution, this must mean that high taxes are the problem. Yet the Bush Tax Cuts are already in effect; taxes are therefore low already, and the unemplo...

Americans again talking out of both sides of their mouths on taxes
American Taxpayers are up to their old tricks: Don't tax you, don't tax me; tax that fellow behind the tree," as Louisiana Sen Russell Long famously said. In a new Bloomberg News poll, participants say they want to cut the Deficit because they believe it to be "dangerously out of control," but don't cut anything from Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security --the nation's three largest entitlement programs (and where almost half our Tax Dollars go). They also "oppose cuts in most other major domes...

Rep. Bachmann Admits Tax Cuts Will Increase Deficit, Wants New Definition Of "Deficit"
A few weeks back, far-right Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) decided that she wanted a "redefinition" of Earmarks after learning that "roads and bridges" in her district would be considered congressional pork. Now, as Bachmann struggles to justify Deficit-increasing Tax Cuts while denouncing Deficit-increasing Unemployment Benefits, the conservative firebrand has found a new target in the political dictionary. This morning on NBC's Today Show, host Meredith Viera asked Bachmann how spending almost $...

Robert J. Samuelson - What the Bowles-Simpson plan left out
People who wonder what America's Budget problem is ultimately about should look to Europe. In the streets of Dublin, Athens and London, angry citizens are protesting government plans to cut programs and raise taxes. The social contract is being broken. People are furious; they feel betrayed. Modern democracies have created a new Morality. Government benefits, once conferred, cannot be revoked. People expect them and consider them property rights. Just as government cannot randomly confiscate ...

Examining Larry Fink
Paul Kedrosky loves playing around with word clouds, and generated this one from the new Bloomberg Businessweek profile of Larry Fink. It’s cute, as Paul notes, that Goldman and government seem to intersect. But it’s also interesting to see how prominent Goldman Sachs is — it’s the only bank in the cloud. That made me want to read the profile, because the tense relationship between Fink and Goldman is something I’d love to see much more written about. But weirdly, ...

Come Saturday Morning: Reasons to Fight the Obama/GOP Poor Tax
Why should we be melting down our phones telling our Senators and Congresscritters “Hell NO!” on this turkey? Let us count the reasons: - The poorer you are, the more of your disposable income you’re prone to spend. The richer you are, the more likely you are to sock it away somewhere. This is why a stimulus that mainly benefits the poor is far better for The Economy as a whole than one that mainly benefits the rich. Yet the Tax Cut framework actually forces poor people...

Australia unveils sweeping banking reforms
Australia unveiled tough changes to finance laws Sunday, banning unpopular Mortgage fees and cracking down on price collusion between major banks in a bid to boost competition in the sector. Targeting Australia's "big four" banks, the reforms ban exit fees on new home loans and allow the competition regulator to prosecute lenders for colluding on rates, after large hikes sparked an angry consumer backlash. An additional four billion US dollars would also be injected into the mortgage-backed secu...

Nadler: On Taxes GOP Are a Bunch of Gangsters
Like this Story? Share it: Congressman Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) and former Governor Howard Dean (D-VT) gave Bob Schieffer their stance on the nature in Washington, D.C. as President Obama's tax deal approaches reform. Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., on "Face the Nation," Sunday, Dec. 12, 2010. (CBS) (CBS) Progressive Democrats today blasted the framework of a tax agreement negotiated between President Barack Obama and Republican congressional leaders, calling it the product of "Republican Blackmail."...

Bloomie Talks Up Econ Initiatives
“Good Morning. This is Mayor Mike Bloomberg. “Last week, the White House and Congressional Republicans reached a Compromise that extends Tax Cuts and Unemployment Insurance for Americans. It’s a sign that bi-partisanship really is possible in Washington. And that’s a very good thing - because as long as our leaders spend more energy on partisan attacks than getting things done, our nation will only fall further and further behind our international competitors. We de...

Obama skips debt commission meeting
WASHINGTON (CNN) - President Obama did not attend a White House meeting Thursday with members of his own Debt commission, irking some of the Democrats on the panel who were expecting a high-level push from the commander-in-chief to show that its comprehensive Deficit reduction plan is being taken seriously by the White House. "He should have at least dropped by," one Democratic member of the Debt commission told CNN, speaking on the condition of anonymity because he wanted to speak mor...

Gary Johnson: Mellowest 2012 Hopeful?
By Neil King Jr. It’s a rare Presidential Candidate who makes it clear, right up front, that if he doesn’t succeed, he’ll be just as happy chilling on the ski slopes back home. But such is Gary Johnson , the laidback, 57-year-old Libertarian former Governor of New Mexico, who is now crisscrossing the country as he weighs a potential run for the Republican nomination in 2012. Mr. Johnson, in an interview, pitches himself as a fierce small-government Deficit hawk with a quirky ...

Embracing and protecting the villains
Wall Street Bankers create some economic value. But do they create enough of it to justify the rewards they reap? In the first nine months of 2010, the big six banks cleared more than thirty-five billion dollars in profits. “The cataclysmic events took place in the fall of 2008 and the early months of 2009,” Roger Altman, the chairman of Evercore, said to me. “In this industry, that’s a long time ago.” Despite all the criticism that President Obama has received lately from W

Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders is on C-Span blasting the tax deal right now. The independent from Vermont is leading...
Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders is on C-Span blasting the tax deal right now . The independent from Vermont is leading the charge to torpedo the deal, aiming his fury at the Payroll Tax cuts, and the lack of stimulative effect of Tax Cuts for the rich. To embed this post, copy the code below and paste into your website or blog. Receive email updates on new comments! Got a tip? Let us know! Q: How can you make your name on BI be linkable? 1 Answer 10 hours ago Q: Why are so many people who beli...

President Obama is one Shrewd Negotiator -- NOT!
President Obama set off a lively week for a Lame Duck Congress when he announced a tentative Tax Cut deal on Monday. Meeting without Democratic representation, the President carved out a hostage-release deal with Republicans that would give them the cuts they want for the top 2% in exchange for the extension of Unemployment Benefits and tax cuts for 98% of Americans. The President says this is the best deal that could be made, but many Democrats disagree. Sadly, while the issue of tax cuts for t...

Sherrod Brown: An Open Letter To President Obama
Sen. Sherrod Brown writes an Open Letter to President Obama about the tax deal he worked out with the GOP: With our economy struggling, our Working Families hurting, and our Deficit crisis worsening every year, we need to take action to create jobs, bolster the Middle Class, and bring our Budget into balance. But the agreement you’ve struck with Senate Republicans is a bad deal. It doubles down on a failed strategy of Tax Cuts for the super-wealthy that would explode our Deficit without st...

Americans want it all a cut in the deficit and no reduction in programs, poll finds
WASHINGTON - Americans want Congress to bring down a federal Budget Deficit that many believe is “dangerously out of control,” only under two conditions: minimize the pain and make the rich pay. The public wants Congress to keep its hands off entitlements such as Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security, a Bloomberg National Poll shows. They oppose cuts in most other major domestic programs and defense. They want to maintain subsidies for farmers and Tax Breaks like the Mortgage-int...

Social Security tax cut: A deal breaker
The extension of President Bush’s Tax Break for the Richest 2 percent of Taxpayers is the least popular part of the deal between President Obama and the Republican congressional Leadership. However, the plan for a temporary reduction of 2 percentage points in the Social Security Payroll Tax is by far the most dangerous. There are positive aspects to the proposed reduction in the Payroll tax. First, it would be progressive. The Tax Cut would only go to those with wage income, as opposed to ca...

CAP Social Security Proposal
This is a fraught subject that’s worthy of a more detailed post than I have the time to do while traveling, but I thought I should mention that today CAP is ">releasing a Social Security reform proposal by my colleague Christian Weller. The goals of the plan are twofold. One is to make Social Security actuarially sound on a long-term basis through Tax Increases and benefit cuts. The other is to address adequacy issues with the existing Social Security system by offering higher benefits t...