Mike McCarty wrote: > Mumia W wrote: > >> >> It's not Social Security that's failing. It's your Republican President >> and Congress that have failed. The entire problem with Social Security's >> funding is that the President cut taxes five times. > This is another one of those myths perpetrated in our wonderful public educational system (the bit about taxes, that is). Please understand, lower taxes *improves* the economy. Repeat that for a while until it makes sense. Now, if taxes are lowered across the board by 5% and you make $50,000/year (gross), you now have an extra $2500/year or about $200/month of disposable income. What do you do with that money? You spend it, of course! What does that mean? That means that goods and services are in greater demand and that their supply needs to increase. Well, what does *that* mean? That means that more companies start operating, existing companies expand and, either way, new jobs are created. So, you see, the government *increases* the tax base most effectively by *cutting* taxes. Now, here is the rub for a lot of people. This works best when you cut taxes for the wealthy, since they buy the bigger ticket items. The bigger ticket items usually require more manufacturing capacity/infrastructure/whatever and they usually result in more jobs created as their demand increases. For example, a small shoe company may be able to get away with hiring two new workers for the plant to increase their output by 10%. A small yacht-building company may need to hire 25 more workers to increas its output by 10%. Obviously there are exceptions to the rule, but that is generally how it works. So, want to improve the economy? Want to lower unemployment? Then lower taxes, or push for the FairTax, which lets people live tax free up to the poverty line and only charges tax after that. Thus, regardless of your income, you *directly* control the amount of tax you pay. > > Eh? People have been predicting the demise of SS for quite a few > decades, and every administration, bar none, has refused to take > effective action. Has nothing to do with Republicans, Democrats, > or whatever political leaning. > Personally, I think that the reports of social security's demise have been greatly exaggerated :-) The system has its warts and will be painful as the working population shrinks and the retired population grows, but I don't think it will collapse catastrophically. I think it will sort of peter out after a while. Though, I guess that is still a demise. -Roberto -- Roberto C. Sanchez http://familiasanchez.net/~roberto
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