March 02, 2004

Paul Krugman On Alan Greenspan

And the reason Social Security is in fairly good shape is that during the 1980's the Greenspan commission persuaded Congress to increase the payroll tax, which supports the program. The payroll tax is regressive: it falls much more heavily on middle- and lower-income families than it does on the rich. In fact, according to Congressional Budget Office estimates, families near the middle of the income distribution pay almost twice as much in payroll taxes as in income taxes. Yet people were willing to accept a regressive tax increase to sustain Social Security. Now the joke's on them. Mr. Greenspan pushed through an increase in taxes on working Americans, generating a Social Security surplus. Then he used that surplus to argue for tax cuts that deliver very little relief to most people, but are worth a lot to those making more than $300,000 a year. And now that those tax cuts have contributed to a soaring deficit, he wants to cut Social Security benefits. The point, of course, is that if anyone had tried to sell this package honestly

  • Interesting article, but then again Krugman usually is. I'm sure that support can be given that shows the deomcrats act just as horrible as the republicans currently are. But I'll be damned if I can think of any real, recent events that would back that up. Mssr. Krugman points out that this current admin is quite willing to destroy anyone that isn't marching in lockstep with them. This bothers me. This admin bothers me. I'm bothered. Anyone else? Or am I just a whining, no good for nothing, piece of shit hippie liberal?
  • Welcome to the club damnitkage. Clubs rather, as we hippy liberals tend towards strife and splitting off into new groups. Fer instance, over here you have the bitter vegan lesbians fighting the bitter carnivore lesbians, occasionally teaming up to argue with the bisexuals.
  • Yeah, but I might pay to watch that. Not much mind, but a farthing or two for the um...keen techniques or something to that effect.
  • 1) Raise working-type payroll taxes, make surplus. 2) Note surplus, cut taxes for wealthy types, make deficit. 3) Convince public that government is broken. 4) Note deficit, cut social security benefits for working types. 5) Tell public that some brown people are working on the bomb. Spend money. Create deficit. 6) Cut benefits. 7) Convince public that government is broken. 8) Repeat as necessary until third-worlding of U.S. is complete and safe for privatization scheme. 9) Welcome new corporate overlords.
  • And I still have to prove Reaganomics doesn't work? Had a class on the Liberal Welfare Reforms in Britain in 1906-1914 and The Origins of the Welfare State(TM). Very interesting - and my instinct when I was 12 was right - the invention of social welfare was meant to prevent the socialist revolution. (Maybe I wasn't 12, but I was definately a young teen when I was trying to figure out possible reasons why class tensions were eased after Marx's mid-19th century.) But now the governments don't have to invent social security to appease the populace. Now they just rely on the fact that so many of us (more than just the US, but especially the US) are in denial of the fact that most of us do not really benefit from tax cuts (remember that poll where 19% of Americans believed they were in the top 1% of income? I laughed, while I was crying) - and we need that damn social security. Even if I never use social security (I am getting a good degree, with good planning, may be just fine for retirement), I will fight tooth and nail to keep it for everyone else, because my good fortune should be shared.