Social Security was never intended to be an open-ended redistribution program. Its popularity and success depend on a different goal: insuring persons against disability, the death of the family breadwinner, or entering retirement without savings.
The cap on the payroll tax arouses plenty of enmity among some lefts who would use the program to agitate for redistribution via cash transfers. This is not smart.
Fact is that even in social-democratic systems, we do not see a proliferation of cash-based redistribution programs (nor in Cuba, for that matter). We do see social insurance, where the basic concept is some variation of you get what you pay for, not that we are robbing Peter to pay Paul. This is what has worked, both politically and economically, not incoherent screaming for more redistribution.
As noted before, the program is already progressive and requires defense. To defend is not to compromise. Sometimes the best defense is more offense. It would not be unreasonable or unfruitful to propose ways to strengthen the program, but lifting the cap is not a high priority. There are issues, for instance, pertaining to the 'gendered' nature of the program that are more pressing, in my view. I am also more interested in creating a 'step' in the payroll tax at the bottom than in removing the cap altogether.
The bigger priority, if we're talking about cash-based redistribution, is to address the welfare mess. Not to try to make Social Security the be-all of radical change.
PHR says, not unreasonably:
>I KNOW there's no lack of money. But that basic fact seems to have played
ZERO role in the policy debate so far. In fact, if that fact were fully
recognized, there would BE NO POLICY DEBATE AT ALL!>
I would say greater than zero, but this is true enough.
>The point is, it's strategy 101 to take every possible advantage. Take
every opportunity to put the other side on the defensive.>
To take real advantages, yes. But first you have to see where these are, and where they are not.
We are doing that by explaining how privatization means higher taxes, lower benefits, and less security; by defending the basic program; by showing how easy it is to fix it; and in a few cases (incl me), saying nothing really needs to be done now anyway.
I've changed my line on this a bit over the past six months. As the debate has progressed, there is now more space for the do-nothing position. That's my estimate of the right distance between defense and offense. That makes me a minority in the liberal movement(s), albeit a 'rightist' to a few on this list. But the latter is just another sign of how many light-years these people are from actual political practice.
>If talk about a mythical shortfall becomes distasteful enough as a result,
and they retreat, then have RAISED THE POSSIBILITY of removing the cap will
remain as a residual idea attacking the sanctity of wealth--hardly a bad
kind of resiudue to leave behind.>
This sounds elliptical to me. Talking about raising the cap seems more like a concession to the 'we need money' position.
Then there's Carroll, who admits:
<<Max, I don't have the slightest idea how those numbers would add up,>>
Then you shouldn't indulge in them. Any more than you should delude people in other ways by proposing things of whose feasibilty you have no clue. This smacks of Trotskyist 'transitional program.' We urge people to demand things they cannot get because it will educate them. The first educational lesson of this is not to trust such radicals.
<< because I was not crafting a concrete proposal for legislative and bureaucratic chomping, but attempting to image the kind of *practical* politics that HAVE ALWAYS WORKED, on any level from household squabbles to global confrontations.>>
I don't think it's practical to spew out random numbers. If you were really involved in this debate, the other side could easily demonstrate that you have no idea what you're talking about. Of course, if you admitted you are just "imaging" that would not be very practical either.
Then you advance the idea that the only way social change proceeds is when workers scare the hell out of the capitalists. I've gone around on this before so I won't rehash, except to say it betrays gross ignorance of history.
> . . .
It is *not* a short battle. Attacks on social security began in the late 70s
. . . >>
Really? What, exactly? Or is this more "imagery"?
<<(Jimmy Carter, as usual, being the actual initiator for programs then attached to Reagan's name) and have been continual. . . .>>
John Taber said:
<<My understanding is that one of Ball's proposals is to raise the cap so that the amount of wages covered again approaches 90%, which is what it used to be. . . .
The Libertarian riposte is "Ponzi scheme". That is, the system will bring in high income earners, then have to pay them social security some day in the future.>>
Eliminating the cap doesn't 'bring in' any new people. It does expose more high-earners' wages to tax. There is no automatic change in benefits because of that. There is a political concern of excessive redistributive effects which I discuss above which is not unique to libertarians but covers most of the political spectrum, excluding some lefts.
Cheers to all, from under the bridge
Max