December 11, 2010
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What
are we doing now?
The Tax Deal: Why I hate it
Margie Metzler Wednesday, December 08, 2010 President Obama has announced a “deal”
with Republican leaders that leaves Republicans gloating and Democrats
demoralized and depressed. It has been presented in the press as
a two-year extension of tax cuts for the wealthy and for the middle
class, in return for a one year extension of unemployment benefits.
First, keep in mind that this conversation is not over. There is yet no bill, and plenty of people are still fighting it. But critically for seniors on Social Security, there is a one year “holiday” of the payroll tax, from 6.2% to 4.2%. The payroll tax is the tax that workers pay that goes to support people currently on Social Security. As soon as a worker earns $106,800, she has reached the “cap,” and the payroll tax is no longer levied until the next year. We have always advocated that raising this cap when necessary is the best way to keep Social Security solvent. When I first read about the cut in payroll taxes its importance slipped right by me. A 2% cut; so what? But a 2% cut amounts to a 16% cut in the money going into the system to support seniors currently in the system, and those entering this year. This will be catastrophic. People hostile to Social Security have long known that it is hard to kill it because—surprise! —people like it. So their strategy has been twofold:
The 16% cut in Social Security income would be a huge hit in the next year. And is it likely the cut will be reinstated in a year? No. It will be framed as a tax increase, especially with the current Congress, making it virtually impossible to return to sustainable levels. Other important concerns include:
We MUST fight back!
******************************************************************* Randy Block of Gray Panthers (MI) wrote
the following. Under that is the Heritage blog article to which
he refers.
To Vice President Joe Biden/Staff of the Vice President: I'm am unemployed American who just started getting unemployment compensation. I am grateful that this safety net will probably be there for me and others struggling to find a job within the next 12 months. However, I'm angry that a Payroll Tax "Holiday" could become a poison pill for the future solvency of the Social Security Trust fund. 1. Withholding 2% of payroll deductions that would normally go into the Social Security "Trust" fund results in a 16% reduction ($120 billion) in the amount of the REAL MONEY going in to the Social Security "Trust" fund. 2. If we are not again held hostage by the Republicans on this issue, you will be allowed to replace the borrowed $120 billion with government IOU's from the general fund. Republicans (see Heritage Foundation position on Payroll Tax Holidays from February 2010: http://blog.heritage.org/?p=26386) are likely to oppose repayment from the general fund in the SS Trust Fund as more deficit spending. 3. When the one year Payroll Tax Holiday expires, Republicans will argue that stopping this diversion from the SS Trust Fund will represent "raising taxes". If the economy still needs priming, your administration may be pressured to say yes again to extending the Payroll Tax Holiday. 4. Of course, undermining the solvency of the Trust Fund by diverting funds from it, sets the stage for the privatizers who want to argue that we should allow payroll deductions into private investments in lieu of SS/FICA payments. There are MANY people who feel exactly as I do about this issue. Please work to restore my trust that the Social Security Trust Fund will keep solvent. Find another way to help workers than undermining their future retirement benefits under Social Security. Randy Block ************************************************************************* http://blog.heritage.org/?p=26386 Posted February 15th, 2010 at 1:00pm in Enterprise and Free Markets Despite efforts by Senator Baucus (D-MT) and Senator Grassley (R-IA) to draft a broad and bi-partisan federal legislation as part of another round of federal “stimulus” Senator Reid (D-NV) has now derailed the endeavor. After eliminating most of the tax cuts in the bi-partisan effort put forward by Senators Baucus and Grassley, one of the few “tax cuts” Senator Reid has retained is the payroll tax holiday plan. How Is It Financed? The payroll tax holiday program will be financed with money from general revenues. Specifically, those funds otherwise used from the Treasury—amounting to lost revenue in the Federal Social Security OASDI Trust Fund—will be “replenished” with equal amounts from the federal general revenue account. Implications to Social Security. The Social Security system is effectively drained of real money. Read more… **************************************************************************
Obama's Stealth Attack on Social Security http://www.timegoesby.net/weblog/2010/12/obamas-stealth-attack-on-social-security.html IMPORTANT UPDATE: Please read the post below
and then come back to read this update. "Far too many in Washington don’t understand
the fundamental threat of what’s being proposed and they need
to hear from seniors.” Read
more and take action… ********************************************************************************
The Effort to Claim That Economists Support
Obama's Capitulation on Tax Cuts for the Wealthy
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/william-k-black/the-effort-to-claim-that-_b_794862.html William K. Black, Huff Post Dec. 10, 2010 You know the administration is desperate when it creates a web page citing economists who support its capitulation on taxes. Read more… ******************************************************************************
Published on The Nation http://www.thenation.com/article/157022/obama-threatens-social-security
Obama Threatens Social Security William Greider | December 9, 2010 The most dangerous feature in the president's proposed compromise on taxes is not the $700 billion tax cut for billionaires. It is the Trojan horse provision that threatens to destroy Social Security by undermining the longterm solvency of the social insurance system. Barack Obama has proposed to knock two percent off the FICA deductions every worker regularly contributes to the Social Security Trust Fund, the money set aside for their future retirement benefits. Obama’s one-year tax relief sounds attractive and workers can surely use the money, but the consequences could prove deadly for the federal government’s most popular program. Read more…. Cutting contributions to Social Security Signals the Beginning of the End By NCPSSM | December 7, 2010 PAYROLL TAX “HOLIDAY” IS ANYTHING BUT “Even though Social Security contributed nothing to the current economic crisis, it has been bartered in a deal that provides deficit busting tax cuts for the wealthy. Diverting $120 billion in Social Security contributions for a so-called ‘tax holiday’ may sound like a good deal for workers now but it’s bad business for the program that a majority of middle-class seniors will rely upon in the future.”… Barbara B. Kennelly, President/CEO Read more… FDR, FRANCES PERKINS, PAYROLL TAX HOLIDAY, SOCIAL SECURITY http://bestpossiblelife.wordpress.com/2010/12/09/payroll-tax-holiday-another-idea-that-could-come-from-the-grinch/ Payroll tax holiday — another idea that could come from the Grinch In Uncategorized on December 9, 2010 at 3:04 pm During the Reagan era, an administration staffer came up with the term “starve the beast” when discussing his perceived solution of cutting taxes to force a reduction in government spending. Today, opponents of Social Security, who evidently consider the program a “beast,” are working overtime to cut its funding and thus force the pay-as-you-go program to reduce benefits — perhaps eventually leading to a far different program. Read more…. The Insider: Speier rips Obama, tax cut deal http://www.mercurynews.com/san-mateo-county/ci_16829980 Rep. Jackie Speier on Friday lambasted the tax cut deal President Barack Obama reached with Republicans this week, vowing not to support it unless key provisions are changed, and she questioned the president's political values. Speier said the package doesn't do enough to stimulate the economy, gives away far too much to the rich and threatens the existence of Social Security. "It's more than TARP, it's more than the stimulus, it's more than any of the interventions we have undertaken (to spur the economy)," she said of the estimated $900 billion deal.” Read more…. ***************************************************************************************************
Gray Panthers Fight
for Social Security!
Gray
Panthers Participates in 19 America Speaks Events
3,500 Americans gathered together at 57 sites across the country to deliberate about our nation’s fiscal future on Saturday, June 26, 2010. This event was largely sponsored by the Peter G. Peterson Foundation, whose founder has long been a foe of Social Security. Many of us in Gray Panthers, OWL, CARA, MoveOn and other organizations therefore felt it was important to attend and ensure that the voices of seniors would be heard. This was doubly important to us as we were assured that members of the Deficit Commission, which appears to be will to throw Social Security under the bus in the mistaken belief that doing so would help reduce the deficit. Luckily we did, because we had a real impact on the result. One of the ideas for reducing the deficit we were urged to consider was "fixing" Social Security in several ways; we rejected these ideas completely. Here are some of the results, as reported on their website.
Write the President, Senators,
Congresspeople
Contact
info: (Note: some Senators and Congressmembers accept
e-mails from consituents only and some accept from all. Just Google
any of them and click on Contact)
Contact President Obama White House website form: http://www.whitehouse.gov/CONTACT/ Write to the President: The White House, 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20500 Phone Numbers: Comments: 202-456-1111; Switchboard: 202-456-1414 Congressman Dan Lungren
2339 Gold Meadow Way, Suite 220 Gold River, CA 95670 e-mail: https://lungren.house.gov/?sectionid=91 Phone: (202) 225-5716 District Office Phone: (916) 859-9906 • Fax: (916) 859-9976 Congresswoman Doris Matsui
Washington, D.C. Office Phone: (202) 225-7163; Fax: (202) 225-0566 Sacramento Office Phone: (916) 498-5600 Fax: (916) 444-6117 501 I Street, Suite 12-600, Sacramento, CA 95814-7305 e-mail: http://www.matsui.house.gov/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=421&Itemid=92 Congressman Tom McClintock
Washington, D.C. Office: 508 Cannon HOB, Washington, D.C. 20515 Phone: (202) 225-2511; Fax: (202) 225-5444 District Office: 4230 Douglas Blvd. Suite 200, Granite Bay, Ca 95746 Phone: (916) 786-5560; Fax: (916) 786-6364 e-mail: http://mcclintock.house.gov/contact/ Senator Barbara Boxer
Email: http://boxer.senate.gov/en/contact/ Office: 501 I Street, Suite 7-600, Sacramento, CA 95814 (916) 448-2787; (202) 228-3865 fax; DC: (202) 224-3553 Senator Dianne Feinstein: e-mail: http://feinstein.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=ContactUs.EmailMe
San Francisco: One Post Street, Suite 2450, San Francisco, CA 94104 Main: (415) 393-0707; Fax: (415) 393-0710 Washington, D.C.: United States Senate, 331 Hart Senate Office Building 20510 Phone: (202) 224-3841 Fax: (202) 228-3954 Complete
toolkit produced by www.socialsecuritymatters.org
and repurposed for us
OWL-CA
and Gray Panthers Call
to action
Resources WEBSITES
FACT SHEETS
The Toolkit
• Children and Families Have a Stake in Social Security, April 2010 – Generations United. • Single Women’s Retirement Income Falls Short of the Elder Economic Security Standard™ Index, March 2009 – Wider Opportunities for Women (WOW). BLOGS • Social Security Isn’t In ‘Crisis’ - but Older Women Are, March 2010 - Stacy Sanders, WOW. • Doing Nothing Huffington Post, January 2010 - Ashley Carson, OWL. • Senators…Keep your hands off Social Security Pension News, November 2009 - Karen Friedman, the Pension Rights Center. • www.owlca.blogspot.com: A senior woman on Social Security (Margie Metzler) REPORTS AND PRESENTATIONS • Social Security and the Age of Retirement, June 2010 – Center for Economic Policy Research (CEPR). • Opposing View: Hands off Social Security, March 2010 - Josh Bivens. • Taming the Deficit - Saving Our Children from Themselves, December 2009 - Dean Baker and David Rosnick, CEPR. • Statement to the Senate Budget Committee, November 2009 - Nancy J. Altman, J.D., et al. • Fixing Social Security: Adequate Benefits, Adequate Financing, October 2009 – National Academy of Social Insurance (NASI). • Economic Crisis Fuels Support for Social Security, October 2009 – NASI. • Demystifying the Deficit, Social Security Finances and the Budget, August 2009 – Ashley Carson, OWL • Social Security Finances: Findings of the 2009 Trustees Report, May 2009 - Joni Lavery, NASI. • CEPR Statement on Social Security Trustees Report, May 2009 – CEPR. BOOKS
Bernie Sanders: Voice of Sanity on Social
Security
Nancy Altman testifying to the commission
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