EVERY year, we rob and deplete social security (which runs a year to year surplus now for a few years until 2017) – $100s of billions of dollars each year –
to pay for
– OTHER government programs — agriculture subsidies, defense, education, Head Start,
PORK; the programs you favor the most; and, the ones you value the least.
– also, to fund the first, second, and next round of tax cuts
(today's is to repeal the estate tax).
– to offset the ballooning deficits we've run since 2001.
– and finally, to pay checks to social security retirees
Senators, make the case: removing the estate tax (pulling away $300B to $1 trillion in receipts in a decade) will suck all those billions more from the ss funds.
ROBBIng SS to pay for the estate tax's disappearance is Robin Hood-in-reverse.
Flip (a quick poll, too).
So can the Dems make the case? Can we pit tax cuts against longer solvency?
Can we make Santorum, Frist, Grassley, etc make the choice.
Kevin Drum points to a proposal, more reasonable than repeal, which has been put forward by Democratic congressman Earl Pomeroy that would exempt the first $3.5 million – leaving the tax only for the highest 0.3% "tippy top" citizens.
Here are the figures that the social security actuary came up with, reported in a cool article by E J Dionne (WaPo) on reforming (not scrapping) the estate tax :
In a little-noticed estimate confirmed by his office yesterday, Stephen Goss, the highly respected Social Security actuary, has studied
how much of the Social Security financing
gap could be filled by a reformed estate tax.
What would happen if, instead of repealing the tax, Congress left it in place at a 45 percent rate, and only on fortunes that exceeded $3.5 million -- which would be $7 million for couples? That, by the way, is well below where the estate tax stood when President Bush took office and would eliminate more than 99 percent of estates from the tax. . . . .
According to Goss, a tax at that level would cover one-quarter of (to one-1/2 of, see Dionne's next sentence remark) of the 75-year Social Security shortfall. .... if CBO is right, the reformed estate tax would cover one-half of the Social Security shortfall.
[Dionne's Tuesday column is here.]
Drum says -
I actually understand the gut appeal of estate tax repeal. ....And yet, Democrats' inability to make the counterargument stick is telling.
.... the cost of repeal is on the order of $1 trillion per decade.
Apply that to Social Security and the system would still be solvent when Captain Kirk retired.
So a few thousand indolent kids like Paris Hilton get to pay for their Roman bacchanalias tax free while a couple hundred million ordinary working folks get the shaft.
That's the party of moral values.
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2005_04/006095.php
Note - I don't know why Drum brings in Capt. Kirk as our future retiree, though I'm a fan of Boston Legal (same actor, William Shatner), myself.
ACTUALLY, there's an even bolder route to shore up social security. It's this.
Freeze the estate tax where it is in the year 2005. Don't bring it all the way down to where it would get to in 2009 [by present law] to exempt almost everyone. Pass a new law to implement a freeze (it's not an increase, it's a freeze in place).
That would allow SS to keep even more of its funds for, you know, social security expenses.
Such a proposal would require a bold Democrat (even a bold Republican). The savings from the freeze could be dedicated to Social security.
It should be easy to explain to the press and the people. Can the Dems explain any of this to their audience?