In a few minutes I’m going to deliver Meals on Wheels. Most of my “clients” are disabled and would probably be homeless without SSI or SSD. Back a few years I had a different route which was mostly old folks, and most of them lived solely on Social Security. Most of them couldn’t have worked any more either.

My mother, who’s in Assisted Living with Alzheimers, is working class and had a full time office job until she was 82. Social Security pays about half of her rent. She’s in a wheelchair and couldn’t live with us unless we moved into a one level house and had full time live-in help. I suppose she could have invested the same amount of money herself, but she never really understood what a stock was.

When Social Security came into being in the ’30’s, most people had no retirement and to be old mostly meant to be poor. Of course, much of the middle class had been wiped out by the Depression.

My understanding is that Social Security isn’t really in trouble, Medicare is, and they get lumped together. When Lyndon Johnson lumped Social Security into the general fund he did the country a great disservice. (No, I don’t believe everything bad started with Reagan).

So I think focusing on Social Security solely in terms of taxes is way too narrow a point of view.

Does that result in you paying 28% of your income in federal income taxes? I don’t know. I’ll have to run the numbers and see.

Regarding payroll taxes, one reason that Socialist Insecurity has been so popular for so long is that it had maintained the veneer of an “earned benefit”. Your benefit is based on how much you paid in, like a pension.

Now, if we uncap the tax and make benefits completely unrelated to what was paid in (which is what is required to make it solvent), then it becomes undistinguishable from welfare, and support for it will undoubtedly drop.

I mean, is the People’s Republic of China for the people or a Republic? In any sense of the word? No.

But that’s basically Goldberg’s entire premise. Like Cramer, he’s a fool, and figures if he repeats something stupid long enough, he’ll get enough people to believe it.

The von Mises school is not the answer to everything, Troy. Neither is any other economist or philosophy. Seriously, it would be great if we could debate the relative merits of various plans (as Buzzcut and others are doing) without resorting to ideological arguments.

Your “facts” do not impress me as they have already been tested and found wanting. Sorry.

Fascism is a kind of socialism. It is right-socialism, but socialism all the same. National socialism even announces it right there in the name. The only difference between fascism and communism is that more people died under communism. When it comes to socialism, right and left don’t mean much except in relation to social ideology — and even then, the outcome is essentially the same. Political correctness is a leftist ideology, but it’s developed out of the philosophy of the Nazi philosopher Heidegger. You should read your Wolin — The Seduction of Unreason and Heidegger’s CHildren.

First, Jonah Goldberg is not a historian. He is, to put it very mildly, a hack. He is not even a responsible journalist, although in this day and age, that isn’t even hard. I have two degrees in history, Mr. Goldberg majored in English. He has never had a real job but has used his mother’s name to get ahead. This is a man who equated Hitler with Stalin because both are dictators obviously both must be Leftist. In Goldberg’s insane mind, there is no fascism on the right. Franco, Mussolini, Tojo, etc were all Leftists, despite themselves proclaiming they were conservatives, all being in league with conservative elements, and doing everything they could to fight Communists and Leftists.

Second, your link to “economists” is the same study that my previously posted link demolished and debunked.

Please try reading my links more thoroughly before attempting to refute them.

Third, I am not a Marxist. As far as I know, I’ve not read any Marxist economist literature. I did read Marx back in college, but also read Proudhon and Blanc, two people you probably have never heard of, and in the meantime have read Friedman, Rand, and Hayek, which I guess makes me an objectivist, if who I read is a determining factor in my ideology.

What does that mean? You’re advocating a wealth tax?[/i]

I wasn’t when I said that, but I certainly will if you want. I think a wealth tax would be far better than an income tax. After all, we WANT people to work, after all.

No, I was obliquely referencing an untruthful meme that pops up from time to time about how the rich pay xx% amount and oh-my-gosh-isn’t-this-amazing-they-do-so-much-for-us, but in reality the rich own xx+xx% of the economy, so they are getting off light. I don’t have the actual percentages in front of me, but the argument (and the response) goes something like this:

“Oh, wow, the rich pay 69% of all taxes in the entire country.”

“Yeah, since the bracket you reference actually owns about 85% of the actual income in the country, they’re getting off light.”

State income taxes are not regressive, true. Well, according to this chart I have, actually some of them ARE. But they’re a minority. Property taxes and Payroll taxes ARE regressive in my book, because the average poor guy or lower middle class guy pays a higher percentage of his overall wealth towards them. And that’s really what we’re talking about here – no one actually thinks that both Bill Gates and Dustin Diamond should both pay $500.00 in taxes for 2008. Even the Fair Tax people (and goodness, let’s NOT get sidetracked there) would say that both Gates and Diamond should pay an equal PERCENTAGE, not an equal AMOUNT. So it is a game of percentages.

Buzzcut, explain to me though how a top marginal tax rate of 35% equates to a HIGHER tax rate for ANYONE. That’s the highest tax rate. As far as I know, period. I agree there are fewer deductions now than there were, but that just means that the 35% aren’t paying 25% or 30% on that final amount. Furthermore, the 35% tax bracket doesn’t kick in until you make an income of over $350,000. 33% doesn’t kick in until you make an income of over $164,000.

I will submit that there are marginal brackets as there always are and always have been, in other words that you get extra-hammered if you JUST BARELY make it over the hump into that bracket. Yes, if that happens, you’re pretty much screwed. But that’s also true if you make $32,551 since the 25% bracket starts there. And somehow, I’m not crying for the guy making over $350,000 a year anyhow. He should try making it on $15,000.

Not safe for work, children, and probably any carbon based life forms.

People’s initial impulse to give may be charitable, religious, recognition, status, social obligation or whatever, but it’s not to make money. BUT once the decision is made, most upper income people will look at the tax consequences of a large gift and this may impact their decision of how much to give, rarely whether to give. Without a tax deduction, they may decide to give what their actual cost would have been and give $65 instead of $100.