[lbo-talk] Kuchinich explains backing Obama over Edwards

[Max B. Sawicky]

>> he proposed to lift the payroll tax cap.  This position, which I
>> do not support, is better than Hillary's and no worse than Edwards.
>
>Why don't you support it?  Lifting it higher at this point (it's already about $100k) would be close to removing it altogether ... which would be even better as it should make the net percentage needed go down and thus make it less regressive.  Unless you mean: FICA should go away completely and SS should appear "on budget" ... in which case I'm right there with ya, but as a first step, isn't it better than not lifting it?>

First the context for this is "fixing" the long-run actuarial gap, which means pre-funding -- running more Trust Fund surpluses now to make the gap in the projections go away.  I'm against pre-funding of any type.

Given the lack of a need to pre-fund, I would rather use income tax revenue when it is actually needed, if ever, to supplement payroll tax revenue.

If President Hillary or any Republican gets does a commission, the "remedy" will be prefunding with benefit cuts.