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Fix it or lose it: social security will go if Dems don't help
By: William Mulgrew
Issue date: 3/4/05 Section: Ed-Op
Originally published: 3/3/05 at 11:55 PM EST
Last update: 3/3/05 at 11:58 PM EST
Originally published: 3/3/05 at 11:55 PM EST
Last update: 3/3/05 at 11:58 PM EST
Mr. Santorum showed students in his presentation what the cost of doing nothing will do. By as early as 2020, social security will ring in a projected $57 billion deficit. Michael Tanner from the Cato Institute seconds this by adding that this deficit will increase at that point anywhere from $150 to $600 billion for each year that we put off reforming the system. Even if the Democrats dismiss Santorum and Tanner as partisan hacks, how would they respond to the Social Security's trustees? They have testified on the record repeatedly that Social Security will start running a debt by 2018.
While Bob Kerrey doesn't delve into projections, he does concede how doing nothing will cost us dearly, "Liberals, who have silently watched the share of state and federal spending apportioned to the elderly grow at the expense of education, training, child care and research, will be appalled to discover how much their silence has cost them."
President Clinton summed up our options very clearly; we must raise taxes, cut benefits, or privatize.
If we keep the status quo, we'll have to do one of two things (or both): raise taxes or cut benefits. At the Democrat protest, one protestor held a sign that read, "TAX THE RICH," but can Democrats honestly believe that taxing the rich will compensate for deficit shortfalls of $150 to $600 billion each year?
Under our tax code, many small business owners have to list their company's assets as personal income. Forcing them to pay more taxes will force them to cut jobs. This is critical since their entrepreneurship and incentive is the fastest growing facet of the economy.
But it is a burden they cannot share alone. A Cato Institute figure reveals that 80% of American families pay more in the social security payroll tax than the federal income tax. That means that if we raise payroll taxes, it will significantly hurt them just as well.
Tanner, however, forces us to look at the big picture: "But the larger crisis is not about the system's finances. It is about workers forced to pay 12.4% of their wages into a system that cannot pay them the promised level of benefits. It is about a system where workers have no real ownership of their benefits, and where low- and middle-income workers cannot accumulate wealth that they can use in retirement and pass along to their heirs.
While Bob Kerrey doesn't delve into projections, he does concede how doing nothing will cost us dearly, "Liberals, who have silently watched the share of state and federal spending apportioned to the elderly grow at the expense of education, training, child care and research, will be appalled to discover how much their silence has cost them."
President Clinton summed up our options very clearly; we must raise taxes, cut benefits, or privatize.
If we keep the status quo, we'll have to do one of two things (or both): raise taxes or cut benefits. At the Democrat protest, one protestor held a sign that read, "TAX THE RICH," but can Democrats honestly believe that taxing the rich will compensate for deficit shortfalls of $150 to $600 billion each year?
Under our tax code, many small business owners have to list their company's assets as personal income. Forcing them to pay more taxes will force them to cut jobs. This is critical since their entrepreneurship and incentive is the fastest growing facet of the economy.
But it is a burden they cannot share alone. A Cato Institute figure reveals that 80% of American families pay more in the social security payroll tax than the federal income tax. That means that if we raise payroll taxes, it will significantly hurt them just as well.
Tanner, however, forces us to look at the big picture: "But the larger crisis is not about the system's finances. It is about workers forced to pay 12.4% of their wages into a system that cannot pay them the promised level of benefits. It is about a system where workers have no real ownership of their benefits, and where low- and middle-income workers cannot accumulate wealth that they can use in retirement and pass along to their heirs.
