Every policy position,
every court judgement,
every item in every budget
is a statement
of the decision-maker's morality.
To be clear, I think the Republicans (at least the Plutocrats, and of course their MAGA jerk supporters) are going to jump on this with both feet.
They don't want to save Social Security - they want to kill it, and spike it, and bury so deep that people 30 or 40 years from now won't remember when those monthly deposits kept their grandma from having to live in her car.
And I'm absolutely sure they're going to try to sell it as a great opportunity for people to "invest in your future - control your own destiny - make sound fiscal judgement the basis of securing the best possible life for yourself in your golden years."
They want to hand it over to the sharks on Wall Street. Imagine the gang of smarmy fucks who're practically knee-deep in their own saliva, willing to crawl over a mountain of dead rotting corpses covered in shards of glass just to get a shot at "managing" 5 trillion dollars of your money.
YOUR MONEY
Every dollar is a Power Coupon.
If I have a million coupons, I have some decent power.
A billion is a thousand times more than a million.
A trillion is a thousand times more than a billion.
Fuck 'em.
I'll share my toothbrush with a leper
before I give those assholes
that kinda power.
William G. Gale and Samuel I. Thorpe
We live in a world of trade-offs, and a looming debate in Washington will decide how trillions of dollars in government cash is spent.
Republican lawmakers and President Donald Trump are eager to make permanent the provisions of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) of 2017 that expire at the end of this year. This would prove quite expensive—according to the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office, it would raise deficits by more than $5 trillion through 2035. As Republicans finalize their tax proposals, it is worth asking what else could be done with those trillions.
The answer is “a lot.” With $5 trillion, we could bolster national defense, expand the child tax credit and reduce child poverty, fix our infrastructure, pay down the deficit … the list goes on.
There is no better example of how much revenue is at stake, however, than the following fact: For the amount of money it would take to extend the temporary provisions of the TCJA (not just over the next 10 years but permanently) policymakers could instead use the funds to keep Social Security solvent for generations.
Why are there temporary provisions? In 2017, Senate Republicans lacked the 60 votes needed to overcome a filibuster, so they passed the TCJA through the “reconciliation” process, which prohibits policies that raise the deficit after 10 years. To meet this requirement, Republicans opted to let almost all the individual income tax and estate tax provisions expire at the end of 2025. Extending those provisions and repealing some business tax increases that TCJA mandated would reduce revenues by about 1.2% of GDP per year by the end of the decade—and in subsequent years if the tax cuts are made permanent. Remember that number: 1.2% of GDP.
With a clear look at the cost of TCJA extension, the trade-offs become more obvious. Social Security is one of the nation’s most popular and successful programs, but it is in financial trouble.
Revenues that would otherwise go to making the provisions of TCJA permanent could be used instead to make Social Security solvent for at least the next 75 years.
The program relies on payroll taxes, income taxes on social security benefits, and the principal and interest on previous surpluses in the Social Security trust fund. Since 2010, however, payroll and income tax revenues have been smaller than benefit payments to retirees.
The trust fund has dwindled and is projected to be totally depleted by 2035 under Social Security’s intermediate assumptions, at which point the other revenue sources will only cover about 83% of benefit payments. Over time, those sources would cover even less of scheduled payments. Addressing this shortfall will require either spending cuts, payroll tax increases, or increased federal borrowing that equals—that’s right—a little less than 1.2% of GDP.
Revenues that would otherwise go to making the provisions of TCJA permanent could be used instead to make Social Security solvent for at least the next 75 years. In fact, it might keep it in the black for even longer, as revenues that would have gone to TCJA through 2034 could replenish the Social Security trust fund and extend solvency further into the future.
Choosing to keep Social Security on solid ground versus making the TCJA provisions permanent would have several advantages. First, it would avoid cuts to Social Security benefits, which 42% of retirees depend on for at least half of their income. It would also be progressive relative to extending the TCJA, which would cut taxes by more than $70,000 per household for those in the top 1% of the income distribution, compared to just $130 on average for households in the bottom 20%.
We live in a world of trade-offs, and a looming debate in Washington will decide how trillions of dollars in government cash is spent.
Republican lawmakers and President Donald Trump are eager to make permanent the provisions of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) of 2017 that expire at the end of this year. This would prove quite expensive—according to the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office, it would raise deficits by more than $5 trillion through 2035. As Republicans finalize their tax proposals, it is worth asking what else could be done with those trillions.
The answer is “a lot.” With $5 trillion, we could bolster national defense, expand the child tax credit and reduce child poverty, fix our infrastructure, pay down the deficit … the list goes on.
There is no better example of how much revenue is at stake, however, than the following fact: For the amount of money it would take to extend the temporary provisions of the TCJA (not just over the next 10 years but permanently) policymakers could instead use the funds to keep Social Security solvent for generations.
Why are there temporary provisions? In 2017, Senate Republicans lacked the 60 votes needed to overcome a filibuster, so they passed the TCJA through the “reconciliation” process, which prohibits policies that raise the deficit after 10 years. To meet this requirement, Republicans opted to let almost all the individual income tax and estate tax provisions expire at the end of 2025. Extending those provisions and repealing some business tax increases that TCJA mandated would reduce revenues by about 1.2% of GDP per year by the end of the decade—and in subsequent years if the tax cuts are made permanent. Remember that number: 1.2% of GDP.
With a clear look at the cost of TCJA extension, the trade-offs become more obvious. Social Security is one of the nation’s most popular and successful programs, but it is in financial trouble.
Revenues that would otherwise go to making the provisions of TCJA permanent could be used instead to make Social Security solvent for at least the next 75 years.
The program relies on payroll taxes, income taxes on social security benefits, and the principal and interest on previous surpluses in the Social Security trust fund. Since 2010, however, payroll and income tax revenues have been smaller than benefit payments to retirees.
The trust fund has dwindled and is projected to be totally depleted by 2035 under Social Security’s intermediate assumptions, at which point the other revenue sources will only cover about 83% of benefit payments. Over time, those sources would cover even less of scheduled payments. Addressing this shortfall will require either spending cuts, payroll tax increases, or increased federal borrowing that equals—that’s right—a little less than 1.2% of GDP.
Revenues that would otherwise go to making the provisions of TCJA permanent could be used instead to make Social Security solvent for at least the next 75 years. In fact, it might keep it in the black for even longer, as revenues that would have gone to TCJA through 2034 could replenish the Social Security trust fund and extend solvency further into the future.
Choosing to keep Social Security on solid ground versus making the TCJA provisions permanent would have several advantages. First, it would avoid cuts to Social Security benefits, which 42% of retirees depend on for at least half of their income. It would also be progressive relative to extending the TCJA, which would cut taxes by more than $70,000 per household for those in the top 1% of the income distribution, compared to just $130 on average for households in the bottom 20%.
And unlike extending the TCJA provisions, it would not hurt economic growth: A recent CBO analysis finds that extending TCJA would have a slightly negative effect on growth within four years.
Public policy is about making choices, and lawmakers stand at a crossroads. If they choose to extend tax cuts that favor the rich while calling for cuts in “entitlements” (aka Social Security) that favor low- and moderate-income families, they will help those who don’t need it while penalizing those who do.
At best, that option is short-sighted and inequitable. Bluntly, it is a bad choice. Instead, maintaining Social Security benefits is the more appropriate option. Avoiding a massive and regressive tax cut would make it possible.
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