David Yepsen, the dean of the Iowa press corp, today
smacked down Hillary Clinton over Social Security.
Yepsen wrote:
In last week's debate among the Democratic presidential candidates, Hillary Clinton and Bill Richardson gave weak answers to the question of what they'd do to keep Social Security sound.
John Edwards, Barack Obama, Joe Biden and Chris Dodd gave us better.
Given that so many Iowans are dependent on Social Security - or soon will be - Democrats would do well to keep those observations in mind as they head to their caucuses next year. The frontrunner for their party's nomination basically won't tell us what she'd do to keep the system strong. Amazing.
Amazing, indeed.
In case you're not up on the details, Social Security taxes only apply to the first $97,500 of your income. That means a firefighter or a school teacher pays Social Security taxes on 100% of their income. But a rich guy like Bill Clinton only pays Social Security taxes on about 1% of his income. And a super-rich guy like Bill Gates only pays Social Security taxes on something like 0.01% of his income.
Sound fair to you?
The solution is to raise the cap on how much income is taxable. This is standard progressive economics. But not for Hillary Clinton.
When asked about raising the payroll tax above that cap in order to raise more revenue to cover all the added benefits that are going to be owed, Clinton ducked.
She fumbled around talking about "fiscal responsibility" and how she wasn't going to put anything on the table until she got into negotiations as president.
Other Dems have no problem standing up for a more fair tax system.
Obama said "lifting the cap is probably going to be the best option" and "everything should be on the table." Dodd said he'd increase the cap but that it wouldn't be an unlimited one.
Edwards offered the most innovative answer. He would keep the cap at $97,500 but start imposing the tax again on incomes above $200,000. In other words, income between those two figures would be in a "protective zone" that wouldn't be taxed. He said this would protect middle-income taxpayers, such as small business people, yet start collecting more revenue from the wealthy.
Edwards also said America can't grow it's way out of this problem and "the single most important thing for anybody running for president is to be willing to be honest with America. You cannot solve this problem just by setting up a bipartisan commission. You cannot solve this program by growing the economy ... the honest truth is there are hard choices to me made here."
Well said, Senator.
John Edwards has made a fairer tax system one of the cornerstones of his Presidential campaign. As he's said before, it's not right for a CEO to be paying a lower tax rate than his secretary. Reforming the Social Security tax is an important way to make the whole tax system fairer. Most Democrats are on board. Why isn't Hillary Clinton on board?