Newt's mind-boggling tax plan

[Vorticity]

Well. . .since Newt now promises to remain faithful to his wife, and he blamed his past infidelities on his overpowering love of country,

If he really said that, it's a splendid Shakespearean pun.

"Do you think I meant country matters?"

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

I am sure that most people view it as a system that they have been paying into all of their life that is a forced retirement savings account.
How much you recieve is dependent upon how much you have earned. If you have never earned wages or payed any social security tax you generally do not receive any payments (there are exceptions).

The very first month that Social Security taxes were collected, benefit checks went out. Those checks did not go out to the people who paid in right then. It has always been a tax and a benefit. There are disabled people who will draw out much more than they ever put in.

As for financial planning, there is no immediate, short-term problem. Any solution can be phased in over years so that no one is caught off guard.

Do you think it is ok for people who have been paying in all of their life to now not receive social security because they do not "need" it.

Please be clear that "paying in" is actually paying a tax. Do you think it's fair that most of us who "pay in" for Medicaid may never receive any Medicaid benefits? I think it is. I also think it's fair that childless people like myself have to pay taxes to support public schools. That's the way taxation works.

I see no reason to pretend that our hands are tied such that while we can consider benefit reductions, we can't consider reducing benefits in an equitable manner rather than flat across the board reductions.

And yes, I have no problem denying Social Security benefits to people who are already socially secure. I also have no problem denying food stamps to people who can afford to buy their own groceries.

 

[Robrob]

Obvious politics. He presents a fantasy he knows has zero chance of ever working. It will garner votes from the wingnut base and if by some freak of chance he becomes President, he can always blame Congress for not implementing his "plan."

 

[mhaze]

Yeah. For some reason, they think Congress doesn't have the authority to modify Social Security (even relatively slightly) to guarantee its long-term solvency, but they do think they have the authority to sabotage it so that it goes away (or actually becomes simply a government-administered IRA of some sort).

Of course, there's more than a little bit of a problem with this rationalization of stealing glossed over with rhetoric.

Right now, a large part of the population in part, is expecting a part of their retirement to be the contribution from social security --- they have been made to believe they are partly dependent on socialistic policy.

Go ahead. Make my day. Take that away. See how many of them currently on your team stay on your team as far as their future votes go. Actions have consequences.

 

[tyr_13]

Of course, there's more than a little bit of a problem with this rationalization of stealing glossed over with rhetoric.

Right now, a large part of the population in part, is expecting a part of their retirement to be the contribution from social security --- they have been made to believe they are partly dependent on socialistic policy.

Go ahead. Make my day. Take that away. See how many of them currently on your team stay on your team as far as their future votes go. Actions have consequences.

Taxation isn't theft. No one suggested taking away Social Security. Policy discussions are not a 'team sport'. There are more errors in your short post, but I'll not be taking away everyone else's fun.

 

[Bri]

I'm curious as to why there is so little discussion in the mainstream media of how completely wacky Newt's tax plan is since he's the clear frontrunner when there was plenty of talk about Cain's tax plan. Newt's plan puts Cain's to shame in its utter craziness.

If nobody's posted it yet, there are some nice graphs of the results of Newt's plan here:

The Top 10 Most Shocking Aspects of Newt Gingrich’s Tax Plan—in Pictures: It’s So Radical and Regressive, You Have to See It to Believe It

ETA: According to the above site, Mitt Romney would pay zero federal income tax under Newt's plan since he receives all of his approximately $40 million annual income from capital gains, dividends, and interest.

-Bri

 

[BenBurch]

I'm curious as to why there is so little discussion in the mainstream media of how completely wacky Newt's tax plan is since he's the clear frontrunner when there was plenty of talk about Cain's tax plan. Newt's plan puts Cain's to shame in its utter craziness.

If nobody's posted it yet, there are some nice graphs of the results of Newt's plan here:

The Top 10 Most Shocking Aspects of Newt Gingrich’s Tax Plan—in Pictures: It’s So Radical and Regressive, You Have to See It to Believe It

ETA: According to the above site, Mitt Romney would pay zero federal income tax under Newt's plan since he receives all of his approximately $40 million annual income from capital gains, dividends, and interest.

-Bri

Insane. Cain made more sense.

 

[Random]

I'm curious as to why there is so little discussion in the mainstream media of how completely wacky Newt's tax plan is since he's the clear frontrunner when there was plenty of talk about Cain's tax plan. Newt's plan puts Cain's to shame in its utter craziness.

If nobody's posted it yet, there are some nice graphs of the results of Newt's plan here:

The Top 10 Most Shocking Aspects of Newt Gingrich’s Tax Plan—in Pictures: It’s So Radical and Regressive, You Have to See It to Believe It

ETA: According to the above site, Mitt Romney would pay zero federal income tax under Newt's plan since he receives all of his approximately $40 million annual income from capital gains, dividends, and interest.

-Bri

Cain’s tax plan sounded simple, so the press could talk about it without actually getting into specific details, like how much it sucked. You can’t get very far talking about the Gingrich plan without charts or figures, and once you start doing that it’s pretty hard to hide how much it sucks.

The media is working very hard to present a balanced view of the two parties, and things like Gingrich’s peyote-fueled policy ideas makes it much harder, since there is nothing as nutty on the liberal side to balance it out with.

The goal of US media political coverage is to present it as a sporting event between two teams, and show who is ahead, who is behind, who fumbled the ball, etc. Actually informing Americans how candidate policies might affect their lives might lead to accusations of “bias”. Far better to be balanced and uninformative than to be objective and “partisan”.

 

[IchabodPlain]

...snip..However, if we're going to discuss cutting benefits, we should discuss means testing....snip...

We did, remember?

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

Right now, a large part of the population in part, is expecting a part of their retirement to be the contribution from social security --- they have been made to believe they are partly dependent on socialistic policy.

If you define benefits paid for by taxation as "socialistic policy" then we are all dependent on socialistic policies.

It doesn't mean our hands are tied and we can't make modifications to existing programs in order to guarantee their long term solvency. I've said repeatedly that the long term solvency of Social Security can be guaranteed by raising the tax ceiling. My point is that if we are going to consider reducing benefits, there's no reason that they have to be done regressively (or that they cannot be done progressively).

And again, if we do implement benefit reductions of any kind, we have the luxury of time so that we can phase them in very gradually over a very long period of time so that no one's retirement plans are drastically harmed.

Contrary to all this false "Ponzi Scheme" rhetoric, there is no short term crisis that requires undoing Social Security (or modifications--such as making the tax voluntary--that would effectively end it).

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

We did, remember?

What I meant was that I think any time we consider benefit cuts, we should consider means testing. People were discussing Social Security benefit cuts (such as postponing retirement age)--on the thread I started about Gingrich's absurd tax proposal-- as if they had to be applied regressively regardless of how they might affect people.

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

Taxation isn't theft.

Mhaze believes Social Security is a Ponzi Scheme, so he doesn't understand that money paid in as taxes is not your own personal IRA. He seems to think it's a voluntary investment.

(After all, you can't commit investment fraud against someone by misleading them as to the value of the investment if there is no voluntary investment. The nature of the Ponzi Scheme fraud is to entice victims to purchase an investment by misleading them as to its value.)

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

I'm curious as to why there is so little discussion in the mainstream media of how completely wacky Newt's tax plan is since he's the clear frontrunner when there was plenty of talk about Cain's tax plan. Newt's plan puts Cain's to shame in its utter craziness.

Exactly. I expect the plan will start to get some attention as Gingrich continues to do well in the polls.

Most people acknowledge that Newt's long often controversial career means he comes with a lot of "baggage" that can provide opponents with campaign fodder, but so far few are ready to talk about the absurdity of his present plans for the country!

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

Obvious politics. He presents a fantasy he knows has zero chance of ever working. It will garner votes from the wingnut base and if by some freak of chance he becomes President, he can always blame Congress for not implementing his "plan."

But doesn't this approach pretty much depend on no one examining his proposal at all?

Hmmm. . . sounds similar to Mencken's observation that no one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public. I guess I'm not quite that cynical yet, to think that the mass of the people who vote are willing to ignore this tax proposal.