The only place payroll taxes paid in have anything to do with benefits paid out is on accounting reports that belong in the fiction section of the library.
There are no "trust funds," and there never were. The federal government has been happily spending excess funds and putting worthless IOUs into a "lockbox" that never existed.
FDR's satanic trick was to mislead otherwise rational people into believing that their benefits are linked to their contributions. I can go on SSA's website and see how much they've taken from me each year for nearly four decades and what I can expect to get each month after I retire. While it is all laid out in black and white, the level of detail is a distraction from the fact that the money is not there and will need to be raised or borrowed.
The only way out of this disaster is to grow the economy.
Cutting tax rates almost invariably results in increased government revenue. The "Laffer Curve" argument is that there is some sweet spot of a min-max that provides the greatest government revenues from the least tax burden.
I think Laffer was only half right. The real problem is that taxing productivity is downright retarded.
Why?
The only place payroll taxes paid in have anything to do with benefits paid out is on accounting reports that belong in the fiction section of the library.
There are no "trust funds," and there never were. The federal government has been happily spending excess funds and putting worthless IOUs into a "lockbox" that never existed.
FDR's satanic trick was to mislead otherwise rational people into believing that their benefits are linked to their contributions. I can go on SSA's website and see how much they've taken from me each year for nearly four decades and what I can expect to get each month after I retire. While it is all laid out in black and white, the level of detail is a distraction from the fact that the money is not there and will need to be raised or borrowed.
The only way out of this disaster is to grow the economy.
Cutting tax rates almost invariably results in increased government revenue. The "Laffer Curve" argument is that there is some sweet spot of a min-max that provides the greatest government revenues from the least tax burden.
I think Laffer was only half right. The real problem is that taxing productivity is downright retarded.