2008 Libertarian Party Vice Presidential nominee Wayne Root on Larry King Live yesterday. Excerpts:
There’s an entitlement class, and a taxpayer class. We’re standing up for the people that pay the taxes and create the jobs. You can’t keep raping us and give it to the entitlement class and think that the country will go on.
Would you do away with Social Security, Wayne? I’d certainly like to. At best I’d do away with it because I can find better ways to spend and save my own $15,000 a year. I’d like it to be mine, so I could leave it to my kids and grandkids.
Brian,
You write:
“Did you suddenly become pro-stealing? Given your position on debt repudiation, it doesn’t seem like an ethical stretch for you to want to repudiate government obligations for restitution.”
I am not pro-stealing, but I realize that the stealing is not going to stop instantly unless there’s a general governmental collapse.
I’m not opposed to a “wind-down” plan of the type you’ve described (I’ve described something not entirely dissimilar myself in the past), but we should be up-front about the fact that such a plan is a “best bad thing” based on continued (but reduced) theft, not genuine honest restitution.
The closest we could come to genuine honest restitution would be to shut the government down, auction off its assets, put liens and garnishments on the property and future wages of its employees, etc. That’s not likely to happen even in a cataclysm/revolution scenario, and certainly isn’t going to happen in a normal political scenario.
In answer to your second question, I favor canceling all “government obligations” to everyone. Favoring something and believing that it’s likely to happen are two different things.
Knapp @189: The only way they can pay “restitution” for what they’ve stolen from you is to steal more from someone else.
Did you suddenly become pro-stealing? Given your position on debt repudiation, it doesn’t seem like an ethical stretch for you to want to repudiate government obligations for restitution.
Which reminds me: can you try to give a straight answer on the ethics of the following question I asked you a while back, instead of hiding behind your calculus of what’s politically practical?
It still seems inconsistent that you would cancel all government obligations to those who lent money to the state “on the notion that all us serfs are either willing, or can be forced, to pick up the check”, but aren’t willing to cancel all such government obligations to those who TOOK UP ARMS for the state on a very similar notion. If it’s good for the state’s creditors to think twice about enabling its depradations, isn’t it even better for the state’s armed henchmen to have second thoughts? Shouldn’t you thus favor canceling all government obligations to all soldiers, sailors, airmen, marines, police, prison guards, border patrolmen, DEA agents, FBI agents, Secret Service agents, BATF agents, Marshals — anybody who’s ever carried a gun or a nightstick for the state? Indeed, shouldn’t you also favor cancelling all obligations to so-called civil servants who in any way helped manage the “serfs” or received money stolen from them?
Brian,
You write:
“I just can’t agree with your apparent position that someone retiring tomorrow after 40 years of FICA theft should be put in the category of creditors who get zero cents on the dollar.”
“apparent: Capable of being seen, or easily seen; open to view; visible to the eye; within sight or view.” [Webster’s 1913 edition]
If that position is “apparent,” you should be able to point to at least one place where I’ve stated it.
Blanton projects onto me his own documented redistributionist impulses: “Apparently, those who are among the top 5% and their children should be exempt from any responsibility for the debts of the government”
Blanton is again hearing voices in his head. He already quoted @132 my actual position: “Any system shortfalls should be financed from general tax revenues (which are already heavily progressive), and not by increasing the progressivity of the tax system by imposing some new tax only on high earners (or blacks or seniors or favorite victim you might have).” Apparently the existing American tax system isn’t progressive/redistributionist enough for Blanton, and so he questions @130 why Social Security shortfalls aren’t financed by selectively increasing taxes on high earners. From each according to his ability…
I supported the “type of war” in Afghanistan that Ron Paul and the Libertarian National Committee supported — the one that toppled the Taliban in less than two months. I supported the “type of war” in Iraq that toppled Saddam in three weeks. I never said “nobody dies” in war. Instead, I said I “advocated for deadly-force policies that the evidence suggested would minimize the number of innocent lives killed”. Blanton doesn’t dare argue against my actual position, so he argues with the voices in his head. Blaming me for every death caused by Iraqi sectarianism or Bush/Obama nation-building is as silly as saying that war opponents wanted Saddam and his sons to stay in power indefinitely. But it’s the only argument Blanton has, so…
No wait, he has one other: Holtz is not an anarchist! Until Blanton explains how a minarchist can oppose socialism without the anarchist Blanton being able to chant “hypocrisy!”, his desperate red herring about the tax-financing of the military cannot distract from his redistributionist impulses to 1) selectively cancel restitution to the “wealthy” and 2) question why taxes aren’t raised on high earners.
Tom Knapp writes that the only way the SSA and federal government “can pay restitution for what they’ve stolen from you is to steal more from someone else”.
1) I’ve never said this is about restitution for me. I would gladly forfeit all my claims for FICA restitution if the system were otherwise unwound as I propose.
2) The government has assets and revenues, and will continue to have them no matter how many times we shout “theft!”. The federal government is indeed bankrupt in the sense of having more real (i.e. justly measured) liabilities than it has assets and just revenue streams. The proper libertarian response to bankruptcy is to try to ensure that all creditors are treated equitably. I just can’t agree with your apparent position that someone retiring tomorrow after 40 years of FICA theft should be put in the category of creditors who get zero cents on the dollar.
P.S. Does anyone have any references to an anarcholibertarian theory of bankruptcy? Or can we assume the usual hand-waving about competing armed interests amicably settling their differences according to right rather than might? 🙂
It appears that Holtz would restore America’s economic viability by placing the responsibility of debt on the backs of the children of the poor and middle-class. Apparently, those who are among the top 5% and their children should be exempt from any responsibility for the debts of the government Holtz clings to, in fact the wealthy should receive restitution – presumably from the poor and middle class. Default is also not an option for the neolibertarian crowd.
It would seem that Holtz has no problem with the redistribution of wealth – as long as it is upwards from low-income people to the wealthy and most politically powerful.
It is also ironic that someone who is apparently so isolated from ordinary people is so certain about what are politically viable options and the political solutions that will be accepted by “the people”.
Murder is the targeting of innocent lives for killing, and I’ve never in my life advocated for deadly-force policies other than what the evidence suggested would minimize the number of innocent lives killed.
Oh, I get it now. People don’t die in the type of wars Holtz advocates. Wars are merely cakewalks where tons of bombs and depleted uranium don’t kill innocent people, er uh produce collateral damage. The type of wars Holtz advocates don’t lead to debt and inflation or the loss of freedom and privacy. All of the bad things that happen during wars don’t happen and are totally unforeseeable in the kind of wars Holtz favors. I suppose Holtz has devised a magic algorithm that can determine how many people need to be killed in order to prevent a greater number from being killed – or maybe he just accepts the pro-war propaganda provided to him by neocon think tanks. My guess is the latter.
Of course, it isn’t hypocritical in Holtz’s fantasy world to whine about his taxes going for socialist welfare programs while insisting that others pay for the fantasy wars Holtz likes. Put aside the fact that one will not find a more socialist organization than the U.S. Army.
The most bizarre thing is that so many libertarians take him seriously. But then, they also take Wayne Root seriously. At the same time, anyone who is serious about any meaningful reduction in the size, scope and power of government is marginalized by Holtz and his cult of neolibertarians as kooks and idiots, ignorant as to what is politically possible and what “the people” want.
He knows what “the people” want – tax breaks and restitution for rich white guys. That’s an issue that resonates with everyone Holtz knows, so obviously all voters will embrace that issue.
Not quite, SS proper requires 40 quarters of on the books work in the US.
However, senior immigrants can get SSI/disability.
My grandparents did after they came over, and all their work years were in the USSR.
I found it particularly ironic that my grandfather and his fellow Russian Jewish immigrants living on SSI from a system they had never paid into spent much of their time sitting around the government-aided Jewish Community Housing for the Elderly in Boston complaining about allegedly lazy American blacks and hispanics getting welfare.
True, they had all worked many years in the Soviet Union, but not in the US, whereas many of the people who they were complaining about were past/future US workers.
Seconded.
I think Tom Knapp, Susan Hogarth and Brian Holtz would all be good if they are willing.
Just don’t make them a committee or nothing may make it out of committee, LOL…
Yes and no. I think a lot of states would be very happy to have more training, literature, etc. from national, such as we had during (at least most of) the 1990s and to some extent the very early 2000s.
Brian’s Libertarian Majority toolbox and a few other things like it are good resources, but most of the people who would most benefit from it do not know it exists. It would be great to have a mirror of those resources somewhere at LP.org, re-start something like the Success99 seminars, etc.
I don’t think you are asking the right person…Aaron is already doing a lot as treasurer.
This would be more of a staff issue, but when asked about it Wes said that staff have other demands on their time which are taking priority, but he would be interested in anything that is ready to post that people can send him in terms of literature, press releases, brochures, white papers, etc.
Interesting question. On one hand, anything that reduces taxes for anyone is good, but on the other I would prefer to see it done in a non-discriminatory manner.
If you are looking for politically viable proposals, I suspect a personal income tax exemption on the first $100,000 of income would be a lot easier to pass.
Brian,
You write:
“Restitution claims for FICA taxes fall on the Social Security Administration and its parent organization, the U.S. federal government.”
Those two institutions are indigent. The only way they can pay “restitution” for what they’ve stolen from you is to steal more from someone else.
Michael,
Yes, there are apparently some provisions for SSI (i.e. “disability”) benefits for people who haven’t met any minimum payroll tax threshold. I’m not sure what they are, though. But as far as regular retirement benefits, they are specifically tied to:
a) having paid the tax in at least 40 quarters; and
b) how much tax was paid.
So an alien moving to the US post-retirement would not be eligible for a Social Security retirement check.
Tom my misunderstanding was apparently because of the Supplemental Security Income program that is, I believe, also run by the Social Security Agency. Thanks for giving me cause to try to dig a bit.
Restitution claims for FICA taxes fall on the Social Security Administration and its parent organization, the U.S. federal government.
Brian,
Restitution claims against whom?
Blanton doesn’t “want government to simply go away”. No, Blanton also wants to cancel your restitution claim if you have more wealth than some Blanton-defined threshold, and he’ll question why your FICA contributions should not be increased (while severing the link to your benefits) if your income is too high.
Murder is the targeting of innocent lives for killing, and I’ve never in my life advocated for deadly-force policies other than what the evidence suggested would minimize the number of innocent lives killed. By contrast, in this very thread Blanton has advocated that restitution claims of the wealthy should be canceled, and has questioned why the wealthy don’t have more of their earnings stolen from them.
Thus Blanton is an advocate and apologist for naked redistributionist aggression.
Blanton hypothesizes a strawman platform plank about government theft from “rich white guys in their forties”, to distract from his questioning why high-income earners shouldn’t have their taxes raised.
In Blantontarianism, victim status is means-tested, and non-anarchists are “hypocrites” if they complain about socialism.
Thanks Tom. I’m not up on much of the Soc. Sec. program. Just know a few facts and not enuff to fill a teaspoon.
MW
Michael,
You write:
“Nope what Tom? Am I wrong?”
Yep.
In order to collect Social Security benefits, you have to have legally (sic) worked in the US, and have paid the Social Security payroll tax, in at least 40 quarters.
Those 40 quarters don’t have to be consecutive, i.e. 10 straight years, but there have to be at least that many quarters in which you’ve paid said taxes before you’re eligible for Social Security retirement benefits.
tb: They’ll probably even buy into the argument that evil anarchists are to blame for the plight of rich “limited government” white guys in their forties being ripped off by the very same government the anarchists wish would vanish.
me: Seems unlikely. I suspect virtually all Americans would heavily discount anything a self-identified anarchist had to say about politics.
Capozzi, your point only makes sense if Holtz is the self-identified anarchist.
I would concede that in the bizarro world that Holtz lives in, he confuses statists (that wish to redistribute his money) with those who want government to simply go away. So, perhaps Holtz does view himself as an anarchist. But outside of his bizarro world, it is he that wishes to redistribute the money of others (to fund the murder of Iraqis).
Nope what Tom? Am I wrong? 😉
tk, my point might have been slightly crisper if I’d included the word “contemporary.” Neverthless, as a Thoreau-influenced theoretical asymptotic anarchist, I believe my point stands.
I’m not sure how influential Thoreau’s political views are today…I’d say based on results, not much or virtually not at all. Thoreau is claimed by many contemporary political advocates, including socialists. Thoreau’s transcendentalism is — I suspect — his more lasting influence, which in turn was influenced by the Bhagavad Gita, which is great stuff, in my book.
Anarchists need to somehow shake the “bomb-throwing” adjective to be taken seriously in contemporary times, I’d submit.
“BTW don’t tell Brian but I think immigrants coming into the U.S. who are 65 can collect Soc. Sec without having ever to have paid a penny into it.”
Nope.
BTW don’t tell Brian but I think immigrants coming into the U.S. who are 65 can collect Soc. Sec without having ever to have paid a penny into it. No wonder we need to close and weld the borders shut!
Most of us are connected to the government by one way or another. Root makes his money off of gambling and if you walk into any casino, and there are three of them by me, you will see a large number of seniors playing the slots. Did they get the money to do that from Social Security? It has been quite obvious to me for decades that the casino business was a direct beneficiary of Social Security.
Then there are all those tax supported state colleges that participate in sports not to mention the tax supported NFL with its taxpayer supported stadiums. Root may not be hogging the trough but he has got his hand in the feedbag for sure.
I think you’re right. Heck, even the proprietors of Amazon discounted the copy of Thoreau’s Civil Disobedience I ordered the other day by 100%.
Then again, they discounted it because I ordered it with some statist stuff (Paine, Nietszche, et. al). If I’d just wanted the anarchist stuff, I’d have had to pay full price.
tb: They’ll probably even buy into the argument that evil anarchists are to blame for the plight of rich “limited government” white guys in their forties being ripped off by the very same government the anarchists wish would vanish.
me: Seems unlikely. I suspect virtually all Americans would heavily discount anything a self-identified anarchist had to say about politics.
Maybe the LP needs a special plank to address the plight of rich white guys in their forties.
Poor Wayne Root could have been discriminated against in college because of his race if his grades weren’t so good. And poor Brian Holtz has had to pay so much in taxes and he’ll never get back in transfer payments from the government what he has paid in.
What American could object to eliminating SS after hearing the plight of Wayne Root who can think of better things to do with his $15,000, not to mention the plight of poor suffering Brian Holtz? Truly, a winning issue that will resonate with all voters.
I think Americans will overlook the hypocrisy of pro-government pro-war libertarians complaining about paying taxes for unwanted programs while insisting others pay taxes for wars of aggression they want.
They’ll probably even buy into the argument that evil anarchists are to blame for the plight of rich “limited government” white guys in their forties being ripped off by the very same government the anarchists wish would vanish.
Elect Root/Holtz in 2012 and restore a free society for the downtrodden six-figure income white guys in their forties. End their suffering NOW!
Michael @ 171
Excellent!! Please send me an e-mail. My e-mail address is on the national website.
@ 168 Aaron writes; “Now, I’d like you to volunteer by writing material for literature and the website. If you feel that writing is not your strong suit — it’s not mine, I’m more of a numbers guy — then perhaps you can help us find someone appropriate who is reliable and willing to take on this task.
Michael, can we count on you to help in this regard? I’d be deeply appreciative if you would.”
MHW: I’ll certainly volunteer for this. How would you like to proceed?
More on this later.
Blanton wrote: “Holtz fails to see his own hypocrisy as he whines about the taxes he pays for things he doesn’t like, yet he has no problem with forcing others to pay for what they don’t like.”
I wrote: “Blanton repeats his mantra that non-anarchists can’t complain if they are in a group that is narrowly targeted for a tax increase.”
Blanton remains oblivious to the fact that he could bleat “hypocrisy” about any non-anarchist who complains about being targeted for a tax increase. Blanton offers no indication of how a non-anarchist could ever avoid this facile and silly charge of “hypocrisy”. Blanton is saying nothing more than: non-anarchists can’t complain about socialism. Yawn.
Blanton wants to distract from me opposing Blanton’s proposed massive tax increase on high earners, so he focuses on me complaining that “poor wealthy folks simply pay too much in taxes”. Blanton apparently can’t connect the two dots about how these two topics are related, and how it was Blanton’s uncapping proposal that brought up the subject of the tax burden on high earners. Blanton the anarchist questions why “wealthy folks” don’t pay more in taxes, but he disingenuously claims he doesn’t “advocate” that they do.
Blanton again says Social Security is “a transfer payment just like welfare”, utterly ignoring the two crucial differences I cited. Again: “Welfare” is something that is means-tested, and for which you qualify regardless of your contribution/taxation history. SS is neither.
Blanton says “I don’t think wealthy people should get transfer payments from the government even if they were forced to pay into this ponzi scheme.” So this is Blanton’s idea of libertarian justice. If you’ve been a victim of the FICA tax for the last 40+ years, and we know to the penny how much you’ve paid in until you retired yesterday, Blanton says you should get zero in restitution if Blanton thinks you are too wealthy. From each according to their wealth, to each according to their needs.
In the very next breath, the Blanton writes: “Again, it isn’t me that advocates taking any money at all from you.” No, Blanton just wants to cancel your restitution claim if you have more wealth than some Blanton-defined threshold, and he’ll question why your FICA contributions should not be increased (while severing its link to your benefits) if your income is too high.
Blanton then admonishes me to be “thankful that I’m making so much money”. Who precisely am I supposed to thank? Should I thank Blanton for not questioning why FICA doesn’t confiscate 100% of my income over $106K? I thought anarcholibertarian Blanton would say that I own every penny of the money I trade my labor for, and that I shouldn’t have to “thank” any thug or voter for letting me keep some of it.
It appears that this discussion has outed Blanton as a redistributionist, because he thinks that your rights to your own labor and property — or at least to restitution for their theft — can be canceled if your labor or property are worth more than the Blanton-defined threshold of “wealthy”.
Short of my suggestion at 97 subbing pollution taxes for FICA, my Plan B would be to abolish the income tax and replace it with FICA. Exempt the first, say, $40K and take away the cap, and we have an instant flat tax, which is less injurious to the private economy.
Most of the IRS Code’d go away. The least able to pay would get a pass. The most able to pay would not be taxed on K gains and dividends.
Broad strokes, a blow for liberty, IMO.
Michael @ 167
“Aaron I have been volunteering for something like 30 years. Candidate, officer, donor, door knocker, ran booths, wrote letter to the editor (just had one published two weeks ago), writing letter to the legislature, proposed legislation, testified on legislation, etc. What else do you suggest I do?”
And I sincerely appreciate you doing that. I’ve been doing the same for the last 30 years.
We’re both hard-working activists. You and I tend to be doers. Many others are just complainers. I wish there were more people just like us. We could get more done that way.
Now, I’d like you to volunteer by writing material for literature and the website. If you feel that writing is not your strong suit — it’s not mine, I’m more of a numbers guy — then perhaps you can help us find someone appropriate who is reliable and willing to take on this task.
Michael, can we count on you to help in this regard? I’d be deeply appreciative if you would.
Aaron I have been volunteering for something like 30 years. Candidate, officer, donor, door knocker, ran booths, wrote letter to the editor (just had one published two weeks ago), writing letter to the legislature, proposed legislation, testified on legislation, etc. What else do you suggest I do?
Michael @ 165
Actually, I’m asking you to volunteer.
We are a volunteer-driven, bottom-up organization. We depend on activists, such as you.
So that means you can’t help update the website or the literature? Or push the LNC to develop the tools to help the office do so?
You can’t say “Hey we need to update the website and lets find a way to help the office do just that”.
Guess I was expecting way too much!!!
Michael @ 158/160/161
MW: “It is the wasted time among the LNC officers and some of the Reps I find fault with.”
AS: “Keep in mind, we are volunteers, just like you.”
MW: “And that means what?”
It means that members of the LNC are also volunteers. And the level of dedication demonstrated by each volunteer varies depending on each one’s time and circumstances.
People’s first priorities understandably are to their income earning jobs and volunteerism often takes a back seat.
Also, keep in mind that most all activism is local.
The board’s chief responsibility is providing oversight and general direction to national staff.
By design, we are a volunteer-driven, bottom-up organization.
My observation has been that state affiliates are stridently independent and they would generally chafe at the idea of the national party taking a more active role in their affairs.
The LNC purposely takes a hands-off approach, allowing each state party to make its own decisions as to how to promote their party and candidates.
Time and time again it has been pointed out that education, or getting the word out, is the most important thing a movement can do. Our website and our literature has been lacking for some time.
Whether it is Social Security or some other issue unless the LP is clear, concise, direct and to the point the LP will never succeed.
BTW Aaron I pointed out to Richard Burke some years ago that this party was run by volunteers and he has been using that excuse for things not getting done on time ever since. Please don’t run that excuse by me.
You do remember Richard Burke don’t you?
Lead, follow or get the hell out of the way! We used to tell people that years ago.
Michael @ 160
“Aaron did you notice this sentence ‘and any reduction seen is probably the result of postponed or canceled nonemergency surgeries.’
It has been suggested that 20% to 30% or more of medical procedures are unnecessary. Are you aware of that figure?”
By what standard would one determine that it is unnecessary?
Elective surgeries are risky, but they also can improve one’s quality of life.
For example, a gastric bypass surgery is elective. It helps some morbidly obese people to reduce their ability to consume large amounts of food at any one sitting. Thus, they lose weight, which reduces their risk of contracting adult-onset diabetes and other medical issues. It’s been shown to increase the lifespans of those who survive the surgery.
However, somewhere around 1% of these people die from the procedure. No one knows for certain what the outcome will be until after the procedure is completed.
I suppose one could legally prohibit any surgical procedure that isn’t necessary for the immediate saving of a life, rather than to enhance the quality of life, but I believe people should be free to make such choices.
And that means what?
Michael @ 158
Keep in mind, we are volunteers, just like you.
Aaron did you notice this sentence “and any reduction seen is probably the result of postponed or canceled nonemergency surgeries.”
It has been suggested that 20% to 30% or more of medical procedures are unnecessary. Are you aware of that figure?
re #157 ya I know. I’ll be out collecting signature Monday. I just hope management will pitch in.
btw I have no fault with Wes and the staff. It is the wasted time among the LNC officers and some of the Reps I find fault with.
Michael @ 154
Please feel free to draft something and submit it to Wes Benedict at the national headquarters.
By design, the LP is largely a volunteer-driven bottom-up organization.
Michael @ 151
“Aaron I have a study here that shows that when the doctors went on strike in L.A. in 1976, as I recall the date, the death rate declined. I’ll have to dig it out but I think it dropped 15%.”
Ergo we should eliminate doctors and the medical profession?
Sure, deaths resulting from elective operations (e.g. hip replacements) (all surgeries involve some risk) are simply postponed until the doctors return to work.
Here’s an article that addresses this topic:
http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2741/when-doctors-go-on-strike-does-the-death-rate-go-down
Tom @ 152
Thanks for clarifying that for me.
Aaron the LP does not have any literature on Social Security nor do I see any on LP Stuff’s site.
The info on the website is from about 2005.
How about fixing that for us. That is not a question. It is a statement.
We can just state the problem. After all Thomas Edison didn’t know the answer when he set out to make the light bulb. He had to go through a lot of ideas before he found a solution.
“Jagadeesh Gokhale
Social Security
A Fresh Look at Policy Alternatives
Many of us suspect that Social Security faces eventual bankruptcy. But the government projects its future finances using long outdated methods. Employing a more up-to-date approach, Jagadeesh Gokhale here argues that the program faces insolvency far sooner than previously thought.
To assess Social Security’s fate more accurately under current and alternative policies, Gokhale constructs a detailed simulation of the forces shaping American demographics and the economy to project their future evolution. He then uses this simulation to analyze six prominent Social Security reform packages—two liberal, two centrist, and two conservative—to demonstrate how far they would restore the program’s financial health and which population groups would be helped or hurt in the process.
Arguments over Social Security have raged for decades, but they have taken place in a relative informational vacuum; Social Security provides the necessary bedrock of analysis that will prove vital for anyone with a stake in this important debate.”
http://www.press.uchicago.edu/presssite/metadata.epl?isbn=9780226300337
Stating that he is fortunate suggests that you might believe Brian is merely lucky. At least that’s how I read (or perhaps misread) what you wrote.
Guess what Aaron, if I had meant to say Brian is merely lucky, I would have written: Brian is merely lucky. I’m not using any secret code here.
He is actually fortunate to be employed and earning a great deal more than most people, regardless of productivity.
Many talented and productive people I know have not been so fortunate during the past couple of years. I’m self-employed in the real estate industry and I’ve been hit hard, but I am one of the lucky ones. Lots of people I know are out of business or are barely hanging on. LandAmerica, formerly Lawyers Title, headquartered here in Richmond, Va. went out of business and it was one of the biggest title insurers in America.
I live in the city, urban as opposed to suburban, and there is a lot of unemployment and plenty of poor folks living all around me. Any one of these people would feel fortunate to earn a 10th of what Holtz earned – after taxes.
Perhaps Mr. Holtz would realize how fortunate he is after once all the IT gigs are offshored to India – don’t laugh, it could happen.
When rich guys complain about the government, all I can say is join the club.
From a pragmatic political perspective, tax breaks for the rich isn’t a winning issue. If you are interested in practical politics and actually getting something done at your advanced age of 46 (I’m 52, by the way), I wouldn’t waste a lot of time pushing the elimination of all taxes on income over $106,800. You’d be more apt to have income tax repealed entirely for everyone.
Aaron I have a study here that shows that when the doctors went on strike in L.A. in 1976, as I recall the date, the death rate declined. I’ll have to dig it out but I think it dropped 15%.
Michael @ 148
That’s really orthogonal to my argument.
Of course, anyone receiving such a subsidy you describe is part of the problem.
But you can’t generalize from that statement and conclude that all people earning above a certain amount should be taxed more money than those earning less.
Michael @ 146
I doubt it.
I have observed that many folks who are doctors and lawyers are quite bright and capable. If their respective lines of work were not available to them, they certainly had the option of entering another rewarding field.
The doctors who become general practitioners make a good living, but they do not tend to make a lot of money, especially considering the years and money they invest achieving that stature. However, it’s the ones who go beyond getting a license and actually achieve board certification and specialize are the ones who do very well.
As far as lawyers go, we don’t really have a shortage of them. Many lawyers make a good living, but not an outstanding one. Those who specialize in a very demanding area that is highly valued (e.g. intellectual property) seem to do quite well.
Those who work in garbage collection probably do so because their education and options are limited. And their earnings potential is limited because many people are capable of entering that profession.
Just to be clear, this is not a reflection of anyone’s worth as a human being. I suspect we all would be quite unhappy if there weren’t people willing to perform the task of garbage collection or any other janitorial work.
The profession of motherhood is clearly underrated, in my opinion.
But ultimately it’s supply and demand that is the overwhelming determiner of what the market is willing to pay, not any one person’s individual assessment of value.
Aaron writes; “The base upon which FICA tax is imposed tops out at $106,800. I fail to see the benefit that someone receives from government by having to pay taxes on earnings above that amount.”
Depends on how much welfare they get from the government. An independent janitor working nights probably isn’t getting much from the government, but a licensed lawyer who went to a state college to get a law degree and works for defense contractor is on the dole to a far greater extent than my make believe janitor.
There have been a bunch of studies that have shown that the well to do are far more likely to benefit from the government than the poor. Just take a look at the agricultural subsidies that are handed out, but who do we bitch at? Those on food stamps.
Tom @ 143 writes to Brian:
“You should actually be thankful you are making so much money doing whatever it is you do. You are fortunate to earn so much considering how much time you spend playing around on the internet.”
Stating that he is fortunate suggests that you might believe Brian is merely lucky. At least that’s how I read (or perhaps misread) what you wrote.
I believe the market has a way of rewarding behavior that provides what the consumer wants. I imagine the more reasonable explanation is that Brian is simply more productive than most people. At least that’s what I have observed of him. I believe productivity is a trait we should celebrate and admire.
@ 144 Aaron writes; “Frankly, even having two people paying even the same flat rate of tax is inherently unfair because a person who is 10 times as productive as another, at least as measured by his earnings, is paying 10 times the tax without getting 10 times the benefit.”
Aaron that is a not necessarily so. A garbage man who makes $50k is probably more important to society than many doctors, lawyers and others who are presently making $500K but only do so because the market is closed thanks to licensing laws.
Wage are a poor measure of productivity.
Would you agree that reducing the marginal tax rate for FICA, Medicare and Income Taxes to 0% on earnings above $106,800 brings us closer to a free society? Would you oppose such a proposal?
I suppose this would bring us closer to a free society in the same way that incarcerating someone for 9 years, 11 months and three weeks instead of 10 years for a victimless crime would bring us closer to a free society.
Frankly, tax relief for the wealthy is not at the top of my list of things that would reduce the size, scope and power of the government. It certainly doesn’t bring anyone earning less than $106,800 closer to a free society.
If it was up to me, there would be no government. Aware that this is not going to happen anytime soon, short of an actual USSR-style collapse, I would prefer a government significantly smaller that what most libertarian minarchists find acceptable. I would like to see no FICA, Medicare and Income Taxes at all, for everyone. I don’t see this happening either. Frankly, I can’t see what you propose as being likely to happen.
Given the state of the economy, if there were to be one tax measure I’d be willing to support it would be ending all taxes on corporations, limited partnerships, and limited liability companies. This would benefit the economy greatly.
We would see lower prices, higher wages, more hiring, increased productivity, higher dividends, and/or more capital investment. We would see less corporate lobbying, the elimination of subsidies through tax policy, and special tax breaks which would even the playing field, allowing smaller businesses to compete with big businesses. All of this would benefit rich and poor alike.
I also believe that tax cuts that target top earners wouldn’t do anything to reduce the size of government. In all likelihood, revenue lost by such a tax cut would be borrowed, increasing taxes on future workers earning less than $106,800.
Tom @ 127 responds to:
“I don’t understand why someone should be required to pay for anything based on a percentage of their earnings.
If I want to buy a car, the price isn’t lower just because I earned less this year than last.”
Tom responds with:
“I would agree, but do you not deny that is the system we have? And, since it is the system we have, why should some pay a higher percentage than others? Why not a flat fee? But, obviously, none of this is a system I advocate. I would prefer no government with people paying for what they want in the way of services (previously provided by government) to private providers in a free market.
Anyway, why should FICA and income tax be separate since both go into the general fund?”
Tom, I’m not sure I understand your position.
I would not propose to increase the rate of tax on some people so that others may pay a lesser rate. I propose reducing taxes by those who are paying the most because they are experiencing the most coercion in the system today, at least as measured by dollars stolen from them.
Frankly, even having two people paying even the same flat rate of tax is inherently unfair because a person who is 10 times as productive as another, at least as measured by his earnings, is paying 10 times the tax without getting 10 times the benefit.
The base upon which FICA tax is imposed tops out at $106,800. I fail to see the benefit that someone receives from government by having to pay taxes on earnings above that amount.
So that I’m crystal clear on your position, let me ask you this:
Would you agree that reducing the marginal tax rate for FICA, Medicare and Income Taxes to 0% on earnings above $106,800 brings us closer to a free society? Would you oppose such a proposal?
And then Blanton repeats his mantra that non-anarchists can’t complain if they are in a group that is narrowly targeted for a tax increase.
No, Holtz, you’ve still got it wrong. I wrote:
“He fails to see his own hypocrisy as he whines about the taxes he pays for things he doesn’t like, yet he has no problem with forcing others to pay for what they don’t like.”
“He” refers to you, Holtz. This has nothing to do with anarchism. This has to do with your hypocrisy.
And we wonder why the LP’s anarcholibertarianism has had so little impact on America’s public policy discourse….
Now, you and Mr. Root can whine and complain about how you guys are getting fleeced by the government and how the poor wealthy folks simply pay too much in taxes, but both of you are sadly mistaken if you think this will resonate with the vast majority of voters. And we wonder why the LP’s moderate statists have had so little impact on America’s public policy discourse.
Sorry if I upset your delicate sensibilities by calling SS welfare, it actually is a transfer payment just like welfare. I don’t think wealthy people should get transfer payments from the government even if they were forced to pay into this ponzi scheme. I don’t think poor people or corporations should get transfer payments from the government either.
Again, it isn’t me that advocates taking any money at all from you. If you are seething with anger over your taxes, you should be lashing out at all of your friends, family and neighbors that vote for Republicans and Democrats. Show them the rage you keep bottled up inside.
You should actually be thankful you are making so much money doing whatever it is you do. You are fortunate to earn so much considering how much time you spend playing around on the internet.
Brian’s graph @ 138 illustrates dramatically how people born around 100 years ago (i.e. my parents) made out like bandits, while current workers are screwed. Of course that part of the curve off to the right is just a guess.
And no, I don’t know a lot about nanotechnology – just what I read in WIRED. But it’s not unreasonable to suppose that a starting age of 92 for SS retirement benefits 100 years from now might allow most people to collect for a few years.
Wes has said that if anyone sends him exactly what they think it should say, he would strongly consider posting it.
I nominate Brian Holtz for LNC Chair. Do I hear a second?
Know much about nanotechnology? 😛
Blanton is ignorant about Social Security if he thinks that no beneficiaries are currently receiving more than their lifetime contributions (plus inflation and a modest real rate of return). Here is a graph of Social Security’s transfer of wealth among generations by each cohort’s year of birth:
Does Blanton think that every SS beneficiary born before 1936 died this morning? Regardless of his ignorance about the empirical fact of whether any of the SS ponzi windfalls are still happening, note that Blanton doesn’t disagree with my Principle 1: any windfalls should stop immediately.
On Principle 2 (opting out), all Blanton can say is that an income stream is better than a claim on federal assets (such as a T-bill, or a share of auctioned property). Does Blanton really not know how a T-bill — or any other marketable asset — can be turned into an annuity? He also seems oblivious to the point that an opt-out is not mandatory, and that people can choose to remain in SS and receive their scheduled income stream (until it hits the no-windfall cap imposed by Principle 1).
On Principle 3 (shortfalls not financed on the backs of special victims), all Blanton does is point out the obvious: that high-income earners are easy targets for people — apparently including Blanton — who have a soft spot in their heart for redistributing income from the wealthy. Blanton ignores the fact that by me saying shortfalls should be funded from general revenues, I’m resigned to the fact that revenues are already collected by a progressive/redistributionist taxation system. (Even a “flat” tax on income is arguably redistributionist. The year my wife and I paid $400,000 in federal taxes, did we really get that much more in federal services than people who paid $40K or $4K?)
Principle 3 just says that the progressiveness of the general-revenue tax system should not be increased by the need to make whole people whose contributions have already been redistributed as windfalls to the undeserving elderly. (If there had never been any redistribution windfalls, then by definition there would be no shortfalls now.) But apparently a no-extra-redistributionism principle is something that Blanton just can’t agree with. After all, Holtz wouldn’t be wealthy if not for some unspecified government privilege, so lets send men with guns to take even more of his income. Apparently, the cure for past redistribution is to increase the redistributive nature of the system.
In the end, Blanton gives no details about how his plan for unwinding Social Security would differ from mine. He just wants to click his anarchist heels together and wish The State out of existence.
And we wonder why the LP’s anarcholibertarianism has had so little impact on America’s public policy discourse….
Blanton chimes in again @136 to say “SS is nothing more than welfare paid out of general funds”. Utterly false. “Welfare” is something that is means-tested, and for which you qualify regardless of your contribution/taxation history. If Blanton weren’t so ignorant, he’d know that Social Security differs in both respects.
And then Blanton repeats his mantra that non-anarchists can’t complain if they are in a group that is narrowly targeted for a tax increase. Yawn.
Finally, Blanton points out that no government has ever been perfect. He needs to read http://libertarianmajority.net/what-empirical-evidence-supports-anarchism
This is not always necessarily the case. I read that it was far less so than previously in 2008. However, I have also read the opposite contention elsewhere. Anyone know solid numbers?
Blanton apparently thinks that because the SS trust fund invests in T-bills, one’s SS benefits somehow lose their mathematical relationship to one’s personal record of past “contributions”. He apparently thinks it would decrease inequity to massively lower the already-lower ROI of high-income participants by massively increasing their contributions without increasing their benefits by a penny.
To paraphrase Tina Turner: What’s equity got to do with it?
SS is nothing more than welfare paid out of general funds. If you ask me whether wealthy people should collect welfare, my answer is no – not one red cent. Is that fair to the rich? Who cares? What the government does to people is rarely fair.
SS is statutory, not contractual. It is all subject to change. Apparently, Holtz doesn’t understand that. The same for taxation. Holtz also seems to think he is entitled to keep what he has earned. That’s another train that left the station a long time ago. Welcome to the welfare/warfare state, Holtz. The same one you ridicule me for wanting to eliminate. The same one you cling to, thinking that your brilliant plans will somehow alter it and tinkering around the margins will make it all wonderful.
While Holtz pontificates about what he thinks I understand or don’t understand, he fails to see that government is inherently unfair. He fails to see his own hypocrisy as he whines about the taxes he pays for things he doesn’t like, yet he has no problem with forcing others to pay for what they don’t like. He also fails to see that attempts to limit government over the past two centuries has failed.
If you want to reduce aggression or inequity, don’t look to government. Walk away from it and look elsewhere. If I’m wrong, show me where any government at any time has been consistently fair and equitable.
I don’t think we can successfully market our position on SS to those who are invested in the system by many years of “paying in”, although Harry Browne did a good job of coming up with a plan that appealed to at least a few of them.
I think our best chances are with marketing alternatives to those who have many years of paying ahead of them and little chance of recouping their “investment.”
The typical profile of most college students is about 80/100 on average on social issues, 50/100 on economic issues and readily admitting they do not know much about economics. That is, they care much more about that 80% (and the missing peace dimension on the quiz) than the 50% economic disagreement/confusion.
It should certainly be possible to figure out how to market the LP on campus. It’s nothing intrinsic to libertarianism that is the problem – Ron Paul did very well with this demographic despite, not because of, being more conservative than the LP on several key social issues.
By the way, those scores are about equal for men and women. I mention this because Aaron does not think we can attract college students to libertarian groups because most libertarians are men and thus it is not a good place to find a date. But this is only true of the LP as currently constituted, not its potential.
And the numbers are based on hundreds of OPHs I did which scored hundreds of people each on average over several years.
Aaron if you are still reading this regardless of who is right or wrong it looks like the info on the national site under issues and social security needs to be updated.
Perhaps people should google “Helvering v. Davis” and read a little about what SS is and what it isn’t.
Let’s look at what Holtz actually advocates:
1) Windfall benefits beyond personal lifetime contributions (which hereinafter includes inflation plus a modest real rate of return) should be stopped immediately.
What windfall benefits? As Mr. Nolan demonstrated in his estimate above, there isn’t even a “modest” rate of return. Inflation? According to who? The COLAs haven’t kept up with inflation. The less than moderate return that one can expect has no inflation component until one starts to actually receive benefits (based on what they paid in to the system, of course, as anyone who works is well aware of).
2) Anyone should be allowed to opt out of the system and get a claim on federal assets (such as a T-bill, or a share of auctioned property) equaling their lifetime contributions less the present value of all past benefits received.
This might be acceptable to someone who has not yet become entitled to receive SS benefits, but many if not most current recipients aren’t looking for T-Bills or some mysterious share of property to be auctioned in the future. They are looking for is income. Why would they want anything other than cash or a private guaranteed annuity?
3) Any system shortfalls should be financed from general government revenues/assets, and not by targeting any special class of victims (like present high earners, or future workers, or present beneficiaries).
General government revenues come from taxes. If we exclude future workers and present beneficiaries, that leaves current workers picking up the entire tab. Fair enough. But the reality is that even with two incomes, low-income and middle-income families are having a hard time already. As a “pragmatist”, Holtz should know that raising taxes on them is not likely to be something most politicians will do. That leaves the high-income people.
So, is the Holtz “plan” politically feasible? Probably not. Is any plan that seeks to end SS in the current environment politically feasible? Again, probably not.
What we can expect is higher FICA taxes, raising the cap on contributions for high-income earners, raising the age of eligibility, and lowering the benefits. None of these items alone will make much difference, so look for all of them to be implemented. Still, that is no solution to the underlying problem, but it will allow politicians to say they are doing something.
That’s the curse of the minarchist – the Faustian bargain they must make to retain the state, somehow hoping to limit it. Maybe one day, the wealthy will decide to advocate a stateless society and it shall be, but I doubt if the wealthy ever will because they are the major rent-seekers and they live in the high rent district.
The only thing I really want to redistribute is the idea that the huge pile of shit we call the state should be flushed down the toilet of history.
Begin the bankruptcy proceedings for the federal government ASAP!
Thus Blanton declines to assert the grammatical negation of what I say his position is. QED. So much for his claim that I misrepresented him…
All he’s saying is that non non-anarchists can’t complain if they are in a group that is narrowly targeted for a tax increase. Readers can decide for themselves whether that’s silly.
Blanton tries to change the subject from 1) his defense of lifting the FICA basis cap to 2) means-testing SS benefits. The fact remains that he’s argued here repeatedly that it would be less inequitable for high earners to have their contributions uncapped, which obviously would be redistributionist.
Blanton apparently thinks that because the SS trust fund invests in T-bills, one’s SS benefits somehow lose their mathematical relationship to one’s personal record of past “contributions”. He apparently thinks it would decrease inequity to massively lower the already-lower ROI of high-income participants by massively increasing their contributions without increasing their benefits by a penny.
I challenge Blanton to say: “if don’t advocate allowing taxpayers to opt out of financing government programs that they oppose, then you can still have standing to complain when you are singled out for a tax increase”.
That doesn’t make any sense at all.
What I will say is that when someone wants to force others to pay for unwanted things, like war, they shouldn’t whine about being forced to pay taxes for things they don’t want.
If they do whine, they shouldn’t expect to others to feel sorry for them as it is obvious they are hypocrites.
Blanton denies he has any “redistributionist desire to seize even more income” from high earners, but he’s argued here repeatedly that it would be less inequitable for high earners to have their contributions uncapped, and thus have their already-low ROI made massively lower.
Nice try. What I actually said is that their “already low ROI” be could means tested. Which means probably eliminated altogether.
I also question why FICA and income tax should be separated since it all goes into the general fund and SS benefits are paid out of the general fund into the SS system. None of this means I advocate any of this.
Aaron I certainly phrased that wrong.
Brian Okay you win. One upmanship is more important than reality. Point to Brian!
Blanton still doesn’t seem to understand that SS benefits are a function of contributions, and that higher contributors within an age cohort actually receive a lower return per dollar contributed than lower contributors.
Blanton issues a non sequitur: “By saying the benefits should perhaps be means tested, it is implicit that I am aware that benefits are based on contributions.”
Blanton denies he has any “redistributionist desire to seize even more income” from high earners, but he’s argued here repeatedly that it would be less inequitable for high earners to have their contributions uncapped, and thus have their already-low ROI made massively lower.
Blanton blatantly misrepresents my position, and the claims that I misrepresent his. I stand by my characterization: Blanton is asserting that unless you advocate making all taxation voluntary (or, equivalently, allowing taxpayers to opt out of financing government programs that they oppose), then you have no standing to complain when you are singled out for a tax increase. I challenge Blanton to say: “if don’t advocate allowing taxpayers to opt out of financing government programs that they oppose, then you can still have standing to complain when you are singled out for a tax increase”.
Blanton asks “who determines what a windfall is?” This discussion is about Social Security. Does Blanton still not know that every SS participant’s past contributions and benefits are recorded down to the penny?
I of course don’t deny that there are massive inequities built into the current system of government-enforced privileges and rents. Indeed, in this very thread @36 I wrote: “For a handy overview of the major forms of rent-seeking in America, see http://knowinghumans.net/2009/09/rent-seeking-in-america.html“. As a geolibertarian, I even decry the government rents bestowed on allodial landowners, while Blanton presumbly defends the land titles granted by government gangs.
For any system of government-created privilege Blanton can name, such as Social Security, for which all past costs and benefits are recorded for every participant, I will gladly apply my principles above for ending windfalls and making participants whole. Can Blanton name one?
When Blanton ever pays over $400,000 in federal taxes in a single year, as my wife and I have, then I’ll listen to his complaints about how the “wealthy whine about the redistribution of wealth”.
I don’t understand why someone should be required to pay for anything based on a percentage of their earnings.
If I want to buy a car, the price isn’t lower just because I earned less this year than last.
I would agree, but do you not deny that is the system we have? And, since it is the system we have, why should some pay a higher percentage than others? Why not a flat fee? But, obviously, none of this is a system I advocate. I would prefer no government with people paying for what they want in the way of services (previously provided by government) to private providers in a free market.
Anyway, why should FICA and income tax be separate since both go into the general fund?
Blanton confuses 1) the court decisions that SS beneficiaries do not have legal ownership of their scheduled SS benefit stream with 2) the indisputable fact (of which he was apparently ignorant) that one’s scheduled SS benefit stream is a mathematical function of one’s past SS “contributions”.
Wrong and wrong again. By saying the benefits should perhaps be means tested, it is implicit that I am aware that benefits are based on contributions.
Blanton’s confusion leads him to try to rationalize his redistributionist desire to seize even more income from those who earn more than he does.
I never stated my income. Please explain how abolishing SS, which is what I prefer is evidence of a redistributionist desire.
Blanton goes on to blather that if there is a single government program — financed by general government revenues — that you have advocated but that Blanton opposed, then it’s OK for Blanton to advocate raising your taxes by tens of thousands of dollars per year, while conveniently not raising Blanton’s taxes by a penny.
I never said any of that. You are either a liar or an idiot, Holtz. Here’s what I did say:
“My complaint with many so-called moderates is they whine about paying high taxes that go to pay for things they don’t like, yet they have no problem with insisting that others pay taxes to pay for things they want but others don’t like.”
That isn’t a call to raise taxes or to keep mine at the same level and you are intellectually dishonest, as usual, to claim it is.
Then you go on to talk about eliminating windfalls. Who determines what a windfall is? This after whining:
Blanton also appoints himself as the all-knowing seer of how much income and wealth various kinds of people would enjoy — or not enjoy — under a “free market”
But it is acceptable for Holtz to appoint himself as all-knowing seer of how much is this windfall should be?
Holtz also either believes a free market exists or he denies that that government picks winners and losers under the current system. For example, Holtz must deny that the mortgage interest deduction for wealthy people living in mansions is a subsidy which is unavailable to a renter who is unqualified to buy a home under FHA or FNMA guidelines – but actually pays more rent than the mortgage payments might be for a comparable property.
Many Republicans make the claim, that is implicit in the whining of Holtz, that people of modest means are waging a class war against the wealthy. If this is the case, I would suggest they are losing.
While the welfare state provides perverted incentives and dependency, the costs of debt induced inflation, bailouts, corporate subsidies, and stimulus plans fall heavily on the poor and middle class.
America is a big mess. There are no good solutions. There is no libertarian plan that will be accepted by all. There is no plan that will be equitable because those who pay to clean the mess up aren’t those who made the mess. But, I find it disgusting that so many who advocate for wars of choice and are relatively wealthy whine about the redistribution of wealth.
When people who live within walking distance from the wealthy are in poverty, largely because of the system imposed upon us by government, it is most perverse that these same wealthy people seek to redistribute the income of the working poor to “help” people thousands of miles away – especially when that “help” consists of subjecting them to radioactive pollution, homelessness, poverty and death.
It takes a certain type of mental illness for Holtz, who favors “limited” government, to lash out at me, who favors abolishing government. Why not lash out at the Koch boys – the largest contributor to the GOP? Why not lash out at your own wealthy neighbors who vote the welfare state proponents in?
Holtz, the bottom line is that you pay taxes because you are afraid not to and it is not me you are afraid of, it is the government that you have repeatedly tried to be elected to be a part of. It isn’t me that wants your money to go to the poor, it is your neighbors. However, it is you that wants me to pay for wars that you get some sort satisfaction from.
Your whining only serves to point out what a hypocrite you actually are.
I apologize, Tom, I should have noted that your “soak-the-rich plan” was indeed hypothetical.
“turn turn turn ………..”
Brian,
You write:
“It’s fascinating how libertarian ‘radicals’ like Knapp, Blanton, and Wilson have a soft spot in their heart for increasing FICA taxes on high earners”
… and later, you refer to my “soak-the-rich plan.”
I do not advocate, and never have advocated, increasing FICA taxes on anyone, in any way (by increasing the rate, by raising the cap on income taxed, etc.).
I was just trying to figure out why you didn’t advocate doing so. Your explanation clarifies why (you’re looking at individual variable impacts rather than merely aggregate impact).
Tom @102: “How is [me throwing the switch in the Trolley problem] different in principle from being willing to uncap the one’s taxes to eliminate the nine’s taxes?”
In the Trolley Problem, aggression is measured by the net number of innocent lives lost. As I already told you, in Social Security, aggression is measured to a first approximation by “the sum across the participants of the costs to each participant minus the benefits that participant receives”.
I repeat: your soak-the-rich plan would obviously increase net aggression.
David @ 116/117
I’m imagining someone making the following offer to me, “Aaron, in exchange for you and your siblings being responsible for your parents’ living expenses and your own retirement, you are all freed of having to pay any FICA.”
Between my brothers and I, if we had to give 15.3% of our earnings directly to our parents, it would far exceed what they get now. As a family, we would clearly be better off.
Others may want to go through the same exercise. I suspect many people would be better off. As the ratio of workers to retirees decreases and the tax rates increase, it will be even more the case over time.
And most people’s parents don’t want to be a burden on their own children. Current SS recipients have no problem with lobbying for increased benefits because they don’t see how it adversely impacts their own children directly.
Blanton confuses 1) the court decisions that SS beneficiaries do not have legal ownership of their scheduled SS benefit stream with 2) the indisputable fact (of which he was apparently ignorant) that one’s scheduled SS benefit stream is a mathematical function of one’s past SS “contributions”. Blanton’s confusion leads him to try to rationalize his redistributionist desire to seize even more income from those who earn more than he does.
Blanton goes on to blather that if there is a single government program — financed by general government revenues — that you have advocated but that Blanton opposed, then it’s OK for Blanton to advocate raising your taxes by tens of thousands of dollars per year, while conveniently not raising Blanton’s taxes by a penny. That’s Blanton’s “libertarian” solution to unwinding the entitlement mess.
Here again is my solution:
1) Windfall benefits beyond personal lifetime contributions (which hereinafter includes inflation plus a modest real rate of return) should be stopped immediately.
2) Anyone should be allowed to opt out of the system and get a claim on federal assets (such as a T-bill, or a share of auctioned property) equaling their lifetime contributions less the present value of all past benefits received.
3) Any system shortfalls should be financed from general government revenues/assets, and not by targeting any special class of victims (like present high earners, or future workers, or present beneficiaries).
Blanton apparently disagrees with (3), and says that shortfalls should be financed exclusively by people like me instead of people like him. How principled and noble of him.
Blanton also appoints himself as the all-knowing seer of how much income and wealth various kinds of people would enjoy — or not enjoy — under a “free market”, and uses this pretense to rationalize his desire to seize income and wealth from those of us who have more than he does.
I’d heard of Sunstein’s libertarian paternalism before, but Tom Blanton’s libertarian redistributionism is a new one to me.
Michael, as Aaron already pointed how, high-income earners already get a lower rate of return from SS than low-income earners. I don’t understand how you can justify radically increasing that inequity. “From each according to their ability” is Marxist, not libertarian.
Michael, on IPR you have twice criticized the capping of social-insurance payroll-tax basis.
You wrote here on Aug. 26: “[Root] left out the payroll taxes. Those are the taxes that go to support Social security, Medicare, etc. Fact is I can claim that the average worker in America is getting screwed and the fat cats are getting a pass on Social Security with the income cap at somewhere around $108,000 anything you make over that isn’t taxed”.
And you wrote on Apr. 3: “I’ll toss a bone to those who are not so radical as I. To keep the Social Security, Medicare tax revenue neutral and abolish the cap, that is tax everyone’s income the same, i.e. Warren Buffet types, what would the percentage be? How much money would that put back in the hands of American workers who are going to spend it on goods and services everyday?”
Why is there so much redistributionism lurking in the hearts of anarcholibertarians?
Tom @ 113
I don’t understand why someone should be required to pay for anything based on a percentage of their earnings.
If I want to buy a car, the price isn’t lower just because I earned less this year than last.
Michael @ 114
I really don’t have any argument for price stability, per se. Prices of some goods will rise and others will fall depending on changes in the desires of consumers and producers.
I believe any debasement of the currency (whether it is through currency creation or fractional reserve banking) is really a form of counterfeiting.
In the absence of such debasement, in a free market, as the amount of goods increases, we should expect to see prices generally dropping over time.
@ 98 BH writes “It’s fascinating how libertarian “radicals” like Knapp, Blanton, and Wilson have a soft spot in their heart for increasing FICA taxes on high earners — eliminating the FICA wage basis cap on contributions, without increasing by so much as a penny the benefits earned by those contributions under the long-standing SS Ponzi formula.”
Brian I don’t think I have ever supported increasing the tax. I have suggested that it is one solution that has been pointed out. Perhaps I failed to point out that was what others were suggesting. Not me.
I do think it is a crime that low income people are likely to pay a larger percentage of the income into the system than the upper class folks do. Especially since many low income people will never see a dime of their money.
Some of our party trip all over themselves pointing out that the so-called flat tax is a flat percent. Maybe they’d be willing to apply that same idea to payroll taxes. Whaddya think?
Above should be BUT as Aaron notes.
I’m aware that the age of eligibility for “full benefits” is currently 66, and rising slowly. Bust as Aaron notes, it’s scheduled to rise so slowly that it won’t even keep up with increasing life expectancy. If we bumped it up by 3 mos/year, that should do the trick, although the average person MIGHT live to 92 a century from now. The point is, we need to decrease the amount of time most beneficiaries are drawing benefits.
Tom @ 111
I don’t know how to make practical use of your answer.
Sure, I’m certainly sympathetic to the idea of states being able to secede from the union.
I suspect that as the debt burden of the Federal government increases, such a notion might very well carry more currency some day in the future … but not today.
Aaron thanks for explaining that bit. If I made add to it the Federal Reserve Bank of N.Y. is the one bank that is charged with growing the money supply to meet the decisions of the Federal Open Market Committee. It works with a dozen or so dealers to do this and it is those dealers in New York who get first shot at those dollars. They benefit most.
But there is no reason to have inflation. We should be arguing for price stability.
Holtz whines:
It’s fascinating how libertarian “radicals” like Knapp, Blanton, and Wilson have a soft spot in their heart for increasing FICA taxes on high earners — eliminating the FICA wage basis cap on contributions, without increasing by so much as a penny the benefits earned by those contributions under the long-standing SS Ponzi formula.
I never addressed benefits other than to say that perhaps they should be means tested since SS is nothing but a transfer payment to begin with – it is not a retirement program, according to SCOTUS.
I would suggest that after eliminating the FICA wage basis cap, the FICA tax should be substantially reduced and perhaps eliminated altogether for minimum wage earners or eliminated for people under a certain age.
My complaint with many so-called moderates is they whine about paying high taxes that go to pay for things they don’t like, yet they have no problem with insisting that others pay taxes to pay for things they want but others don’t like.
Implicit in such rants is that the disgruntled moderate knows what is best for everyone else – things like liberating people in foreign nations by dropping 100 tons of depleted uranium on them, making them homeless, destroying their economy, creating debt in America, and destroying freedoms in America.
As much as I loathe the welfare state, as evidenced by my repeated calls to abolish it, I would rather have money taken from me by government go to individuals that have been impoverished by the state as opposed to going for imperialism and surveillance.
Maybe I’d take the whining of well-off moderates more seriously if they acknowledged that it is they lack of a free market that has created much of America’s poverty – the same lack of a free market under which they have prospered.
It would also be refreshing for those whining about taxes to acknowledge that the working poor often pay a much higher percentage of income than the wealthy when all taxes and payments to various levels of government are considered as opposed to only the income tax.
As for those who advocate a warfare state while whining about the welfare state, they can’t be taken seriously at all in the context of their claims to favor limited government.
Brian @ 109
It’s actually a little more complex than that.
Inflation’s affects are not evenly distributed. Those who get the first use of the newly created money obtain close to its full value. Those who receive the money much later have a lower purchasing power than the average.
Also, those who receive the money first may engage in different purchasing behavior than those who receive it later, so economic resources tend to get malinvested in those industries supporting the earlier users.
On the subject of abolishing the federal government, Aaron asks:
Let’s stipulate for the sake of discussion that you are 100% right about the solution, how would you sell this to voters?
We are now in an political atmosphere where talk of nullification and secession is not uncommon. Secession, in essence, does abolish the federal government for the state seceding.
The endless federal debacles, unsupportable levels of debt and spending, and increasing centralization serve to delegitimatize the federal government.
The idea of selling the abolishment of the federal government presents a real challenge, of course. Although, more and more people are buying into the idea of secession. Typical objections are entitlements and national defense.
Without writing an entire treatise on this, I do believe there are valid arguments that can be made that overcome these objections.
Based on anecdotal conversations with people who are not libertarians or anarchists, I have found that when I ask individuals whether they would be better off without the federal government, many people do believe they would be better off.
The main question that must be answered is how eliminating the federal government would be accomplished – not politically, but in practice. This involves the liquidation of assets, settlement of debts, reimbursement of contributions to FICA, agreements between states as to commerce, mutual defense and other matters.
Selling the idea of having no federal government also challenges the internalized dogma of American exceptionalism/patriotism. People tend to have emotional reactions when it is pointed out that the founders are not deities, the constitution has failed at limiting government, and our experiment of having a constitutional republic with a limited federal government has been a failure.
It is these emotional issues that are the hardest to overcome. I have found that many people, outside of the libertarian and socialist movements, can relate to Thoreau as as advocate of American anarchy. They have generally already come to the conclusion that the system of politics in America is a failed system.
So, should one advocate for ending the federal government? Assuming the very real possibility of collapse in the not too distant future, absolutely. Having the idea already on the table could actually prevent a totalitarian solution (like a Hitler) in the event of collapse. The idea also serves as a counter-balance to the statist arguments for more government.
Is it a short-term solution to the problems we face now? Not so much. Would it bring about utopia. Nope. But then has the baby-step positions taken by a majority of the LP candidates brought about a short-term solution? No.
Also to be considered, giving the notion that politics is a compromise, where is the center between an anarchists and socialist totalitarians? Where is the center between moderate statists and socialist totalitarians?
I will continue, as I have for many years, to question the legitimacy of the state and provide as many people as I can with evidence which calls into question the legitimacy of the state.
While we can debate short-term “solutions” to the many problems created by the state, the only real solution is to abolish the state. Not to achieve utopia, but to avoid dystopia. The claim that “the people” won’t buy abolishing the federal government becomes self-fulfilling if the attempt is abandoned. It seems “the people” haven’t bought the idea of moderate minarchism either – after years and years of trying.
I would argue that if the groups who control the government, media, education, and a major slice of the economy wanted to indoctrinate people to eat their own shit as a means of sustenance, people would eat their own shit.
It is not objections to ideas that anyone advancing a new idea faces so much as overcoming the life-long establishment indoctrination that has been internalized by people. It’s hard to get people to accept a good idea when they only accept the bad ideas that have been hammered into them since birth. Convincing someone that everything they know is wrong will always be a tough sell.
David @ 106
If history is any guide, people who are older have a much higher propensity to vote. The political will to aggressively phase out the system over time doesn’t seem to be there among those who decide who gets to hold public office.
There is actually a phasing out taking place now, with the retirement age being slowly lifted (my expected eligibility date for SS is 67), but it is at a pace slower than the increase in lifespans.
It’s my understanding that aggravating the problem is that benefits promised are being set by increases in per capita incomes, rather than by inflation. Perhaps someone can provide us with a citation.
Michael, I’m glad you asked Aaron that question, because it points out a misconception about inflation that is embedded in a lot of rhetoric against the Fed, fiat currency, etc.
The real harm is when actual inflation is different from anticipated inflation. The only major harms from a steady low well-anticipated rate of inflation are to 1) holders of currency and any dollar-denominated asset for which anticipated inflation wasn’t factored into its price, and 2) vendors who have to adjust their prices (“menu costs” of reprinting menus, revising catalogs, etc.).
The seniors in your example need not fall into either category. If they receive $100K in cash, they can invest it in an asset — e.g. stocks, or shares in a real estate investment trust — whose value will tend to rise with the rate of inflation. Even if they invest it in a bond or annuity, market pricing will ensure that the returns from such an instrument will have future inflation already factored in.
For more information, see the article I mentioned to you earlier: http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/Inflation.html.
David, I assume you know that the retirement age has already been increased from 65, and is scheduled to reach 67 by 2027.
Tom @ 102
Let me illustrate what Brian is stating a bit differently.
Let’s imagine there are five people and they are taxed $1,600 as follows:
A $100
B $150
C $150
D $200
E $1,000
Now let’s say these same five people receive $1,500 in checks from the government (the government keeps $100) as follows:
A $200
B $250
C $250
D $325
E $475
Persons A, B, C and D came out $425 ahead on this wealth redistribution scheme. And those who paid less tended to get a bigger bang for their “investment”.
If you measure the net amount of coercion, it would be the net $525 imposed on Person E. If you want to decrease the amount of coercion, you need to reduce the tax on Person E and reduce the “benefits” to Persons A-D.
Now, let’s imagine that Person D stops contributing to the system and some advocate maintaining the living standards of Persons A-D. Even if Person E could make up the shortfall by paying in an extra $200 because he could afford to do so, that would cause a net increase in the amount of coercion.
Using this same reasoning, lifting the caps on Social Security taxes causes a net increase in coercion.
Aaron I am not suggesting we sell the BLM lands. I was just using that as an example.
Frankly I think it will come down to a combination of ideas to get us out of this mess. Personally I’d bet that we end up with a VAT to finance Social Security. Not that I support the idea.
Aaron @105 – I’ve run for U. S. Congress twice, and have encountered little resistance to the idea of increasing the age of eligibility for SS benefits. Most people see the problem, but want the “pain” deferred. To a 25-year-old, the notion of waiting 50 years, vs. 40, for benefits they don’t expect to receive anyway, is not a big deal – especially if you give them the choice to opt out, even partially. The people most resistant, I’ve found, are those in your age group. They don’t want to wait an extra 5 years for benefits, and the idea of forfeiting their accumulated “benefits” is also less appealing, since they’ve been paying in for 20+ years.
Incidentally, when I analyzed my own SS payment history, I was surprised to find that most of the S&P shares I could have bought with that money were in my first 16 years of full-time employment: 1966-1982. The stock market was flat to declining during that period, so I could have scooped up a lot of shares at very low prices. Someone who started working in 2000 would not have been nearly as fortunate.
Michael @101,
The problem with most Ponzi schemes is that their growth rates soon cause their obligations to swamp everything else.
There are two reasons I am not confident that selling all of the government’s assets would make everyone whole.
1) Social Security and Medicare recipients are not the only ones who have claims.
2) Selling all the BLM land would not fetch the prices you would imagine. Of course, we should figure out the best way to return such land to private hands, but such a vast increase in supply placed on the market would easily overwhelm the demand. Prices would plummet.
In examining any proposed solution to the problem, we have to answer two questions.
1) Will the proposed solution actually solve the problem?
2) Can the solution be successfully sold in the political marketplace?
Michael @ 101/103
Assuming an environment with 2% inflation for 20 years, to maintain $5,000 of purchasing power you would need $7,429.74 [$5,000 * 1.02^20].
Another way of expressing it, $5,000 today would only buy what $3,364.86 would have bought 20 years ago [$5,000 / 1.02^20].
Opps! I wrote “With your skills you should be able to tell us how much the buying power of the $5000 will deteriorate each year assuming 2% inflation.”
I should have said something such as how much the buying power of $5000 will decline over 20 years.
Brian,
Okay, I acknowledge that your brand of libertarianism develops.
Still, your answer on getting rid of the cap on Social Security taxes is, unless I’m recalling correctly or you’ve changed your mind, opposite your answer to the trolley problem.
You’re willing to kill the one person to save the nine’s lives.
How is that different in principle from being willing to uncap the one’s taxes to eliminate the nine’s taxes?
Aaron let me try another example to explain what I mean when I say other factors come into play and impact how this problem is solved.
Suppose the LP suggests that the government sell all the BLM land and place the funds into a trust for seniors so that each senior gets a $100,000 bond and then uses the interest of $5000 to live off each year.
Since the 1950s the U.S. has had roughly 2% inflation each year. Two percent annual inflation will result in the value of that interest declining each year. Prior to that, from say 1820 to 1950 there was virtually no inflation over the long term.
With your skills you should be able to tell us how much the buying power of the $5000 will deteriorate each year assuming 2% inflation.
Now if the government abolishes the Federal Reserve and pursues a monetary policy that produces no inflation, much like we had prior to 1940’s we don’t have to concern ourselves with the problem of the value of the interest to be paid out to the seniors deteriorating each year.
Imho we need to keep the discussion about the problem on the table especially since it will hurt future generations, but also point out that there maybe a number of ways to handle the problem.
We shouldn’t walk away from the problem simply because we don’t have an answer. That doesn’t make the problem go away.
You need to make up your mind whether your brand of libertarianism is what you’ve always said it is, or not.
Definitely not, but I haven’t backed off one iota from the posting you linked to.
In 1997 I argued strenuously for the standard libertarian allodial/conquistadorian theory of property in land, against the Georgism espoused by my fellow Sun engineer Al Date: http://humanknowledge.net/Correspondence/Al_Date/1997-09.txt. Now I’m a born-again geolibertarian fundamentalist.
More recently, I thought that a minarchist had to advocate force-initiation to finance the State. It was only a few years ago I realized that geolibertarianism lets you finance a minimal state by taxing only aggression, which is not force-initiating.
I could list half-a-dozen subtler changes in my brand of libertarianism over the last decade, but these are probably the biggest ones.
re #90 Aaron I was trying to point out that there are a number of different things that can be done to ease the financial burden for seniors. Getting rid of agricultural subsidies is another thing. That would help lower food costs. Abolishing zoning might help to improve housing options.
There are a number of points that we can emphasize to improve the lives of people.
If the LP takes a long term approach as David suggest above and is successful in getting that approach adopted we also have to realize that over the years other factor, which we may not have planned for, will have an influence on the outcome.
Here’s an example. About 30% of medicare funds are spent in the last year of life by a small percent of the medicare patients annually. Simply change the culture as to how we treat those are in the last year of life and we save a significant portion of those dollars.
Another example. It has been estimated that 20 to 30% of all health care procedures are unnecessary. That represents a lot of money, $500 billion annually. Eliminate that and we save a lot of dollars. Maybe the LP should suggest that doctors should be charged with fraud when they do unnecessary procedures the same way any other business person would be treated since the elderly are on the receiving end of many of those procedures. But something tells me the LP isn’t ready to make that jump.
Tom, the net aggression here obviously isn’t just the gross amount that the government requires everyone to pay into the system. The net aggression is more related to the sum across the participants of the costs to each participant minus the benefits that participant receives. Your soak-the-rich plan would obviously increase net aggression.
It’s fascinating how libertarian “radicals” like Knapp, Blanton, and Wilson have a soft spot in their heart for increasing FICA taxes on high earners — eliminating the FICA wage basis cap on contributions, without increasing by so much as a penny the benefits earned by those contributions under the long-standing SS Ponzi formula. Could one be blamed for wondering whether uncapping FICA taxes would cost them anything?
as, my suggestion is to replace SS and Medicare taxes with pollution taxes. Broad strokes, I’d phase in/out both.
This aligns Ls with a green issue. It internalizes an externality. It cuts the taxes of workers and employers. It doesn’t cause seniors to eat cat food. Yet it also phases SS and Medicare out.
Of course, the world doesn’t work this way. Such a proposal will never happen. Nor will the State be ended tomorrow. Rather, policy prescriptions position Ls in ways that either get us toward the negotiating table, or relegates us to the fringes.
All else equal, I’d prefer to be within earshot of the negotiating table. Some Ls like the comfort of their construct cocoon.
Brian,
You write:
“All I said in the linked message was that government share of GDP was ‘a measure of how involved the government is in the economic activity of the nation.'”
Well, no, that’s not “all” you said. You also said:
“HURT ME with the problem of a government that grows in absolute size even as the GDP explodes to inexorably reduce the government’s share of the economy.”
And as I’ve noted elsewhere, you’ve long held that what your brand of libertarianism is about is:
“[T]he policies and tactics that have the highest expected value in terms of minimizing the net amount of aggression suffered by humanity …”
So let’s rumble, Brian:
10 people.
Nine of them make $100k per year and pay x% of that $100k into a payroll tax-powered retirement program.
One of them makes a million bucks a year, and pays the same tax — on the first $100k. No tax above that.
We could “minimiz[e] the net amount of aggression suffered by humanity” by 20% (as a measure of total earnings seized, which is a reasonable correlation to GDP) or by 90% (as a measure of total number of victims) by exempting the nine from the tax entirely and making the one pay eight times as much tax as he already does.
You need to make up your mind whether your brand of libertarianism is what you’ve always said it is, or not. Right now you’re saying it’s not, and I’m calling you on it. A few days from now when you’re saying it is, I’ll call you on that, too.
David @ 92
I agree that what we really have is an income tax system where there is a drop in the marginal rate of tax just above the FICA limit.
At its core, Social Security is simply a welfare scheme, where the payments are a function of the taxpayer’s previous earnings.
People will accept this government welfare check at retirement because they convince themselves that they “paid for it” and are now “entitled” to the calculated benefit. Sometimes, I even find this argument put forth by some libertarians.
David, regarding your proposal, do you have any thoughts on how it can be successfully sold in the political marketplace? It seems to me that most proposals to lift the age of retirement are DOA. Ditto for proposals to allow folks to opt-out.
Brian @ 88 writes:
“Aaron, I knew you were a closet radical, but I can’t believe you would eliminate the benefit stream of somebody retiring tomorrow.”
I don’t know if I can be easily labeled.
I’m interested in our doing whatever is effective in reducing the size and scope of government. In other words, I want to actually move the ball down the field.
If someone could show me a focus group study or some other polling data that strongly suggests that an absolutist approach would sell, I might very well get behind it.
The way I view it, we have people who are suffering TODAY under our system of government.
I’m not in this political game today so that I can say, “Hey, look at me. I’m a purer libertarian than you. You must be some type of statist because you don’t want to eliminate all of government this very morning.”
Believe it or not, I was precisely that type of arrogant person right up until my mid-twenties. I wasted a lot of time and energy on such ego-stroking.
My attitude and approach have evolved over the years. Today, if I were to promote an absolutist position instead of one I believe actually stands a chance of reducing the amount of coercion in the world, I would have trouble looking at myself in the mirror.
I’m not certain that either my proposal or yours can be successfully sold in the political marketplace today. I’m certainly willing to promote a half-way measure if it will actually increase the net amount of freedom.
Brian @ 88 writes:
“I’m curious if you (or anyone) would disagree with either of these three principles for unwinding SS:
1) Windfall benefits beyond personal lifetime contributions (which hereinafter includes inflation plus a modest real rate of return) should be stopped immediately.
2) Anyone should be allowed to opt out of the system and get a claim on federal assets (such as a T-bill, or a share of auctioned property) equaling their lifetime contributions less the present value of all past benefits received.
3) Any system shortfalls should be financed from general government revenues/assets, and not by targeting any special class of victims (like present high earners, or future workers, or present beneficiaries).”
I would agree with #1, except I would not include any rate of return.
Regarding #2, I believe I would rather make it that someone had to opt-in to participate in SS. However, a more important question to answer is what should be the creditor priority ranking on the sale of federal assets. Should veterans’ benefits get paid first? Should those who bought Treasury bills and bonds get paid first? Why should someone who paid Social Security taxes have a higher claim than those who, say, paid income taxes far more than the value of any benefits they received?
Regarding #3, depending on who you see as the victims and their order of priority, it’s very likely possible that the number of claimants as a portion of the population is so large that one would have to wonder what the point would be to tax just about everyone to pay just about everyone.
The U. S. has a weird two-pronged federal personal income tax system: a nominally progressive tax, combined with regressive “non-tax” called Social Security contributions. Poor people pay little or no “income tax,” but lose 15.3% of their earnings to SS/Medicare, while earnings over about $100K are exempt from the SS/Medicare “non-tax.” Until the mandatory SS/Medicare deductions are acknowledged as taxes, any discussion of our overall tax structure is almost meaningless.
As to how we can “fix” the SS mess, the first step is to start raising the age for retirement benefits by about 3 months every year. Today’s 65-year-olds (like me) can expect to live about 18 years on average, and that’s one of the main causes of the system’s looming insolvency.
Concurrently, anyone now paying into the system should be given the option of leaving, and/or of receiving a 100% tax credit for every future dollar they put into a Roth-like IRA, with the understanding that if they choose this option, they forfeit the money already stolen from them. (It’s gone, anyway!)
Obligations already incurred by the system will have to be funded out of general revenues, but these will decline significantly from present projections as the age of eligibility is raised and many people opt out, forfeiting their future benefits. But at least we won’t be pretending that SS is “not a tax,” and that there is a “trust fund” somewhere with real assets.
Tom @ 86
“The best solution is to abolish the federal government ASAP!”
I was really interested in libertarian theory for its own sake 30 years ago. I’m 46 now and I’m finding myself more interested in what might actually achieve traction in the political marketplace.
Let’s stipulate for the sake of discussion that you are 100% right about the solution, how would you sell this to voters?
Michael @ 83
I’m concerned that our merely stating the problem (as we have for nearly 40 years) won’t get people to enroll with us; they’ll simply view us as complainers. Most Americans are solution oriented.
If you are right that $250B is spent on the military abroad, there is still over $500B being spent on domestic military spending each year.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_federal_budget
Eliminating $250B is certainly helpful, but it is less than 10% of the $3.5 Trillion budget.
The bigger numbers are for Social Security and Medicare, which combined make up 39% of total Federal governmental expenditures.
Entitlement spending as a portion of the problem dwarfs just about everything else and is becoming ever bigger.
Tom @ 86
I believe the reason for the cap on the base upon which the SS tax is levied is because the original idea was that some of your money was being taken from you for your future retirement.
The payment that you receive from the government during your retirement is a function of the earnings you had (and the tax you paid) during your lifetime.
That said, the way the “benefits” are calculated, those who earned more money and paid more tax get less of a return on their money relative to those who earned less money and paid less tax.
If we eliminate the veil of calling this some type of an insurance annuity plan by lifting the limit on the amount of money upon which one gets taxed, at that point you really have an increased income tax on everyone combined with a welfare scheme that has no relationship to what one pays in to the “system”.
So when Aaron asks Blanton what’s Blanton’s solution to SS, Blanton says: “raise taxes on high earners” — presumably without increasing their benefits by so much as a penny.
Blanton “see[s] no reason why there should be a $100,000 cut-off for the SS portion of FICA anyway”. He apparently doesn’t know that your SS benefits are a function of the wage basis on which you paid FICA taxes. He should visit http://www.socialsecurity.gov/OACT/quickcalc/index.html and see how benefits change as a function of earning history below the FICA basis cap. If the FICA basis cap is removed, then SS becomes a Ponzi scheme in which people who invest $15K and $15M both get the same payout schedule.
Aaron, I knew you were a closet radical, but I can’t believe you would eliminate the benefit stream of somebody retiring tomorrow. I’m curious if you (or anyone) would disagree with any of these three principles for unwinding SS:
1) Windfall benefits beyond personal lifetime contributions (which hereinafter includes inflation plus a modest real rate of return) should be stopped immediately.
2) Anyone should be allowed to opt out of the system and get a claim on federal assets (such as a T-bill, or a share of auctioned property) equaling their lifetime contributions less the present value of all past benefits received.
3) Any system shortfalls should be financed from general government revenues/assets, and not by targeting any special class of victims (like present high earners, or future workers, or present beneficiaries).
Michael, I created that graphic myself.
Aaron one thing we need to push is that the urban transit marketplace needs to be opened.
The government’s own study notes “Almost half those without an automobile are persons 65 years or older, and of these, 81% are women.”
We open that marketplace and that provides seniors with better access to jobs, goods and services in many cases.
That’s just one of a number of factors that we can and should be pushing on this and related issues.
The problem is there is no real solution. Ponzi schemes are usually self-liquidating at the end and a lot of people are left holding the bag.
The young people are already on the hook for a huge national debt aside from providing the revenue for entitlements. The taxes required just to pay the interest on the debt along with ever-increasing costs of operating the leviathan will be enormous.
The best solution is to abolish the federal government ASAP!
Not all old people have children and it is also common these days for children to be living in other cities, far from their parents.
Just paying them welfare is essentially what SS is anyway. Why not just means test SS benefits?
I see no reason why there should be a $100,000 cut-off for the SS portion of FICA anyway. When combined with income tax, there is no reason why someone making $250,000 should pay a lower percentage of income than someone making far less who must pay the full 15.3% plus income tax.
Tom @ 82
I’m open to an alternative solution. What would you propose?
@ 78 Aaron Starr writes; “I have often been troubled as to how we libertarians might be able to successfully promote the idea of eliminating Social Security in a way that is politically palatable. ”
Aaron maybe we should just focus on the problem and leave the solution and leave the solutions out for the time being. The future generation of Americans are going to go over a cliff.
There are a lot of ways out of the problem and the solution will depend on the factors that can be brought to the table.
I have always believed that our first focus should be on bringing our troops home since that is $250 billion annually that is spent abroad. We bring that money home and reinvest it here then that makes the change that much easier. Otherwise if we continue to spend that abroad it makes change more difficult. But first we have to convince Americans to bring the troops home and that requires that the LP develop materials to do that job, website info, brochures, and build up from there.
3) As the “societal” trade-off for no longer having to pay Social Security taxes, children will be held financially responsible for their retired parents to the extent that current retirees are unable to pay for their own retirement.
Who will hold children responsible? Officer Friendly and his trusty six-shooter? Even from a totalitarian statist perspective, this plan sounds almost completely unworkable. It promotes generational conflict, pitting elderly parents against children.
Also, not all elderly people have substantial savings. Maybe try driving through the inner-city come time and look around. A lot of old people live in dilapidated houses that they can’t maintain as it is. Skyrocketing utility bills, real estate taxes and food costs also hit the elderly hard.
Brian what is the source of your chart?
Thanks
Knapp @72 invokes an http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Either_or_fallacy. All I said in the linked message was that government share of GDP was “a measure of how involved the government is in the economic activity of the nation”. I of course wasn’t saying that GDP share was the only measure of economic injustice. I of course wouldn’t applaud a percentage-point reduction in government share of GDP if, say, all government taxes under the new smaller budget were henceforth being collected only from non-Caucasian people.
Mike @74, the principles of my sunset plan are just these:
1) Windfall benefits beyond personal lifetime contributions (which hereinafter includes inflation plus a modest real rate of return) should be stopped immediately.
2) Anyone should be allowed to opt out of the system and get a bond equaling their lifetime contributions less the present value of all past benefits received.
3) Any system shortfalls should be financed from general tax revenues (which are already heavily progressive), and not by increasing the progressivity of the tax system by imposing some new tax only on high earners (or blacks or seniors or favorite victim you might have).
Note the existing progressivity of America’s tax revenues in the graph below, and consider also that 1) Medicare “premiums” have no wage basis cap, and 2) the corporate income tax represents a double-taxation of dividends earned disproportionately by high-income earners.
Blanton @75 apparently confuses a cap with a floor. Also, he says he advocates “a long-term liquidation to fund settlements to debtors”, but apparently opposes using bonds for settlements, and doesn’t understand how SS debts are fungible with bond debts, and that they can be settled in equivalent ways.
MW @77
“An example. We need to have a piece of literature that clearly states the LP position on Social Security. If we do not have such a flier then different people will be telling people different things.
..
I am not suggesting that the sales approach will be the same with everyone.”
But a single piece of literature is only one sales approach.
Different people do need to hear different things depending where their head is at, what their cultural understanding is and how much of a well programed robot they are.
At a national level selling to 300,000,000 people or so is not an efficient use of resources to find a tract that will work for all of them. Any one approach will only garner some very small percentage.
Where a distributed approach allows for individuals to mount individual efforts and deal with individuals. County or State parties may find a common sell for a common culture. I imagine that this is easier done in North Dakota than California or New York.
At the national scale the sell has to be so… bland… no… homogenized as to be nearly meaningless. These central authority model works for the status quo because they are established on a centralized push model since radio gave FDR the means.
We live in a different and emerging age. Decentralization is our goal as libertarians. The distributed risk/reward nature of the market is one of the strengths we celebrate. The model for spreading, promoting and selling principles is no different.
Putting all eggs into one basket or literature tract is just not smart strategy, and definitely a denial of the market as a force.
Libertarians are at their strongest when they are encouraged to put their ideas to work. They are at their least potential when someone else is making decisions for them.
I think that in the end it boils down to this:
Many of us have what we think are brilliant sells. We make graphs. We write essays and turn them into pamphlets. We even sometimes get cartoons drawn, or create signs, and TV shows/YouTube videos, and radio/podcast programs produced.
Then we get frustrated that no one is using what we made. The next step can go one of two ways:
1. We get out there and hustle attention for our work and accept the fact that 95% of the time, no one is impressed. We then improve on the lessons learn and try again.
OR
2. We figure that everyone else is just stupid and start looking for ways to get some central authority to push our creation onto the rest.
Only one of these routes is libertarian in philosophy and principle.
Only one of these is capable of producing and refining truly masterful material after being molded by real market forces.
Only one of these represents the model that launched the Ron Paul movement into low orbit instead of crashing and burning like most insurgent campaigns.
Hancocks R3volution posters were not a central command from that campaign. Neither were the handmade freeway signs or the blimp for that matter. All those successes were born of individual initiative and were co-opted by others who saw them and wanted in on the project or wanted to emulate a winner voluntarily.
For the libertarian model to work, you do not want a central authority making tracts. You want a central networking hub that empowers people to create and share tracts and other media and then communicate those lessons to WIN.
I have often been troubled as to how we libertarians might be able to successfully promote the idea of eliminating Social Security in a way that is politically palatable.
Social Security eventually must end because the mathematics of any Ponzi scheme is clearly unsustainable. We also know that the longer we wait, the more suffering there will be.
As a class, those who have reached retirement age have accumulated assets that exceed those who are much younger.
So, thinking out loud, I’m imagining the following public policy proposal:
1) Social Security taxes and benefits are eliminated today.
2) Current and future retirees are required to handle their own retirement financially until their resources are exhausted. I suspect some retirees will choose to re-enter the work force, even if it’s for part time work.
3) As the “societal” trade-off for no longer having to pay Social Security taxes, children will be held financially responsible for their retired parents to the extent that current retirees are unable to pay for their own retirement. In many cases, retirees will need to move in with their children and many will do so to avoid being a financial burden.
4) To the extent that children are no longer able to care for their parents, each state has the option of providing welfare to those who require it.
From a fiscal policy-wonk standpoint, I suspect this is workable. I’m just not sure that such a proposal is even remotely marketable from a political standpoint.
Suggestions anyone?
@ 66 Right as Rain writes; “I disagree with MHW @64 and I very strongly believe that as a generalized rule Ls in New Mexico and Ls in Florida should NOT be handing out the same literature. The sell is not the same even person to person. If you try to define a single tract for people to use, you simply limit the number of people willing to distribute it, and limit the number of people that will buy it.”
I’m not sure I understand what you are driving at.
An example. We need to have a piece of literature that clearly states the LP position on Social Security. If we do not have such a flier then different people will be telling people different things. Some people may get the idea that we need to end it immediately. Others may think we want to turn it all over to Wall St.
Since I have been in the party I have met Libertarians who support the government schools, light-rail, the overseas military deployment, the drug war or at least some part of it and zoning laws, just to name a few items. I almost forgot government zoos (that is for animals).
I am not suggesting that the sales approach will be the same with everyone.
tk 63, not wanting to belabor this, but “relating” to Root as an entrepreneur and using personalizing rhetoric may or may not align.
Many entrepreneurial types are in sales in some form. They don’t say “Buy this product so I make $X commission.” They suggest “Buy this product because it will help you.”
So, regardless of whether Root is speaking in code designed to relate to entrepreneurs, I question whether his word choice was optimal. I would agree with Root that the entrepreneurial set is a great target for Ls.
I’d guess that a lot of entrepreneurs liked Reagan, too, and I suspect they wanted government off OUR backs, not just MY back.
Hoping that’s clearer…
Smarty pants Holtz writes:
Blanton @53 says that if I don’t object to all taxation, then I shouldn’t complain about anything financed by taxation. ROTFL. Blanton is the poster child for what I called “naive faith-based anarchism” @45.
Blanton @54 asks when did I “start viewing radicalism as a positive thing”, apparently not having read/comprehended my answer @45.
Yuk, yuk – that’s “worst” than my mistake, smart guy. You didn’t write the post @45. Yooou made a mistake. Yooou made a mistake.
Blanton @55 hilariously thinks that a proposal to cap benefits is “worst [sic] than doing nothing” — i.e. worse than leaving benefits uncapped.
Smart guy, your “cap” would cost more than what the expected benefits would be without the cap. Recipients would reap a bonanza.
Blanton @56 then parrots part of my plan for unwinding Social Security, where I wrote @39 that “any individual should be allowed to opt out and take any unused accumulated contributions in the form of long-term Treasury bonds”.
Not quite, boy genius. I’m talking about unwinding the federal government. There would be no opting out and there sure as hell wouldn’t be any long-term Treasury bonds. I’m talking about a one-time settlement as to SS, and you’re out – mandatory. There probably wouldn’t be much of a market for Treasury bonds when the government is having a going out of business sale. But, if you’re interested, I’ll sell you the Golden Gate Bridge. Give me 10% down and I’ll even finance it for you.
Another thing Holtz, it is you that copied me when you got your mom to buy you a Batman lunch box just like mine.
“Uncapping the wage basis for FICA taxes would of course be unlibertarian, and would only increase the unjustness of the system.”
Of course it would, and that’s the point. By doing so, it does a couple of things. first, it exposes upper incomes to it, which will get them riled up enough to yell for change. Second, it also illustrates that any attempt to reform a bad system will only make it worse, and that the only solution is to abolish it.
But a functional sunset with a guarantee of benefits to those already paid in and staying is is the most politically palatable solution to the mass public, because it shares the burden on all incomes and makes sure it ends is a proper manner. A sunset without the cap lifting would simply cause the unfunded levels to skyrocket and compound the problem we have now. The people will accept a sunset with that guarantee, but they won’t if it isn’t there, because it’s their money.
FWIW:
http://thinkprogress.org/2010/03/30/teaparty-social-security/
PEACE
“Uncapping the wage basis for FICA taxes would of course be unlibertarian, and would only increase the unjustness of the system.”
That’s true … if economic injustice is a flat and personal, rather than scalar and aggregate, phenomenon.
So, Brian, when did you change your mind about that?
Uncapping the wage basis for FICA taxes would of course be unlibertarian, and would only increase the unjustness of the system.
People who got in on the beginning of SS did a little better than “fine”. 🙂 Every Libertarian should know the name of the first SS beneficiary: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ida_May_Fuller. She retired in 1939, after paying in $49.50 over three years. She received $22,888.92 in lifetime benefits.
Madoff wasn’t running a Ponzi scheme. He was running an FDR scheme.
As for reforming SSA, as if libertarians wanted to keep it around, four simple solutions:
1. flip the cap or eliminate it.
2. exempt SSA checks from SSA and income tax withholding.
3. opt-out option, with paid-in funds forfeited or returned. (the opt-out is the important part, and refund is preferable)
4. Remove SSNs as a de facto ID #. (If we have to have one, make it a phone number instead, since it’s now actually technologically and logically feasible.)
Granted, if I had my way, I’m sunset the thing, including the steps above plus a stop date for new enrollees, a real lockbox for collected funds, and an end date when the last beneficiary who stayed in dies.
How to present it (getting rid of SS w/h, etc.)?
1. Point out that getting 7.3% back in your paycheck every week/two weeks/bimonthly/monthly/etc. is the equivalent of having a 7.3% raise every check–in their pocket. At $10/hr wage full time, that’s $29.20 extra–enough for a nice dinner, a movie, or in some cases an extra tank of gas (prices and mileage vary). Then hit them with the double-down: “If that’s what getting out of SS w/h can do, what does getting out of all w/h do?”
2. Everyone gets an annual statement from SSA on what they’ve paid in and projected benefits. A lot of people throw them out. I actually read mine. Direct people to that and they will be surprised.
3. Once they see how much they’ve paid in over the years (or year), ask them how much of a return they could get with that money in the stock market, commodities, or simply using it to cut their debt.
The problem with capping SS benefits at some arbitrary amount is that almost nobody who is just starting to collect them now, or will start in the future, is likely to even come close to getting back a positive return. Like any Ponzi scheme, the people who got in at the beginning did just fine, but the later participants get hosed.
My parents, who retired before 1970, made out like bandits. I’m just now starting to collect “benefits,” and I will never, ever collect anything close to what I’d have if my forced contributions had been invested in a simple no-load index fund. (See #$57 above.)
It could be argued that the money I paid in during my peak earning years was used to pay my parents’ benefits, but with the worker/retiree ratio constantly shrinking, that can’t hold true in the future. People who won’t retire until 2030 or 2040 or 2050 are absolutely screwed.
This point is somewhat off topic but thought I’d toss it in.This idea came across my desk this morning.
Since Neal Boortz gets a lot of play on the Fair Tax issue I thought it might be wise to be aware of an idea that is floating around and the book behind it, which is to abolish the income tax for most of us and institute a 14% VAT and and income tax for those making in excess of $100K.
It has been proposed by Michael J. Graetz who is at Yale and his book is titled “100 Million Unnecessary Returns: A Simple, Fair, and Competitive Tax Plan for the United States”.
It would seem to me that this idea would have a wider appeal than what the Flat Tax people propose.
Personally I think we should be more forceful on the spending issues and opening the marketplace. Cut, cut, cut!
I hate to say it, because well we all know what happens to peace makers in the party of peace… But, you are all right, every one of you, and TK @62 touches on it.
There are many ways L principles are sold. You have a bunch, I have more than several, WAR has some; and they are all valid. Some are more pure than others. Some are less pure (to you).
The only just purpose, the only authority any of us have in criticizing WAR, TK, EH, GP, or even Mr. Redpath, is in our expressing preference in our leadership.
When we dive into statements like : “We need to…” we engage in demands outside of our authority. There is no “we” that does anything.
I disagree with MHW @64 and I very strongly believe that as a generalized rule Ls in New Mexico and Ls in Florida should NOT be handing out the same literature. The sell is not the same even person to person. If you try to define a single tract for people to use, you simply limit the number of people willing to distribute it, and limit the number of people that will buy it.
I want to see an LP that is not driven by what one or a handful of people think “we” should be doing. I want to see an LP that at its center is an administration that empowers the affiliates within it without trying to control them.
@ 63 Brian writes: “Is there any reason why you or your LP affiliate aren’t handing these out to prospects?”
Brian it ain’t about me. It is about what the LP does or doesn’t do. Is this source advertised in LP News or up on the website? Do the members in Florida know about this source? Are people in New Mexico handing out the same flier as those in Rhode Island?
My point is that Libertarians nationwide need to be on the same page when it comes to these issues and it needs to be a message that has been shaped by members of the LP itself.
And for what it is worth the url for your libertarian toolbox is in the state news letter so that our members can take advantage of what you have put together.
Blanton @53 says that if I don’t object to all taxation, then I shouldn’t complain about anything financed by taxation. ROTFL. Blanton is the poster child for what I called “naive faith-based anarchism” @45.
Blanton @54 asks when did I “start viewing radicalism as a positive thing”, apparently not having read/comprehended my answer @45.
Blanton @55 hilariously thinks that a proposal to cap benefits is “worst [sic] than doing nothing” — i.e. worse than leaving benefits uncapped.
Blanton @56 then parrots part of my plan for unwinding Social Security, where I wrote @39 that “any individual should be allowed to opt out and take any unused accumulated contributions in the form of long-term Treasury bonds”.
Michael @57, see http://defendsliberty.com/social-security. It’s one of a dozen issue briefs (see the Evalute menu) I assembled simply by cutting and pasting from official LPUS statements. See also the section on SS in the “Issues Briefing Booklet” published by the LPUS in 2000, at http://libertarianmajority.net/tools. The Retirement Security discussion you like in the Viewpoint newspaper is also in the New Vision For America booklet, linked on the same page. I give a link to where LPstuff.com lets you order them for $0.20/ea. Is there any reason why you or your LP affiliate aren’t handing these out to prospects?
Bob, Social Security windfall beneficiaries are beyond the reach of any honest Libertarian outreach — with the possible exception of those who might be willing to put the interests of their grandchildren’s generation ahead of their own interest in keeping their windfall. We don’t need to target every category of rent-seeker in America. We just need to to target the 13%-20% of Americans who polls show want America to move in our direction. If we could get just half of them to vote for our legislative candidates, and just a quarter of them to vote for our presidential candidates, it would have much more impact than the LP has ever had before.
Bob,
You write:
“I was using the opportunity to critique a penchant among Ls of personalizing government policies in ways that tend IMO to make us unsympathetic, selfish, and unattractive.”
And I was trying to point out that there exists a question of “unsympathetic, selfish, and unattractive” to whom?
Wayne was giving his target demographic an opportunity to identify with him.
His message to that demographic — expressed pretty subtly considering who was expressing it — was “I’m just like you, or just like you some time in the foreseeable future hope to be.”
It may be that he should concentrate on a different, or broader, demographic (older people who are worried about getting stuck on the Cat Food Diet, younger people who are being sucked dry by payroll taxes they’ll never see a dime of ROI on, whatever) , but he sung in perfect pitch for/to the demograph he is focusing on.
fyi, I checked and the SS wage base is now about ~$106K. It’s been creeping up since last I checked.
tk, 15.3% includes Medicare taxes. Separate thing, although linked.
It’s interesting that you think I’m being hard on Root. I said he got a sliding double, which ain’t bad in my book.
I was using the opportunity to critique a penchant among Ls of personalizing government policies in ways that tend IMO to make us unsympathetic, selfish, and unattractive. Maybe that plays to the self-employed, but I kinda doubt it. There’s a curious victimology underneath that sort of rhetoric.
It’s easily fixed and optimized. Collective nouns play much better in this situation, IMO.
P.S. otherwise we are pissing up a rope.
Regardless of what conclusion anyone here comes to unless the LP has a way to communicate the message in a clear and concise manner to the public, especially the younger people, nothing will change. Right now national doesn’t have a brochure and they probably don’t have the time to produce one. I’m not faulting the people in the office.
We need something that is available on the web and can be downloaded by local groups, printed up by them to be handed out as needed. It should be something that is researched and put together in an open source fashion or whatever the hell y’all computer types call it. HQ should only need enough copies to send out to new members.
I had hopes of seeing some progress on producing new brochures but it looks like that ball has been dropped once again.
Maybe we should try to get the Viewpoint paper published again but with a new issue coming on a regular six month schedule or at least something people can drop off at college campuses, at coffee shops, the local library and to be used as handouts at fairs and local farmer’s markets.
I just did a quick’n’dirty estimate of how much money I’d have today if I had simply invested the amount I (and my employers) were forced to pay into Social Security since 1961. Assuming the money had been invested in a no-load fund that tracks the S&P 500, I’d have about $450,000, plus accumulated dividends – probably about $750,000 in all. I will have to live a VERY long time for my SS benefits to add up to that amount. Today’s workers in their 20s, 30s and 40s will do far worse. They’re totally boned!
Maybe it’s time to just start winding down the operation known as the federal government. Begin a long-term liquidation to fund settlements to debtors and citizens’ for their FICA payments.
That would seem more sane than just waiting for leviathan to collapse and then coping with the chaos of social unrest and risking a totalitarian solution.
The current situation is unsustainable for an extended period of time and things could get very ugly once the rubes figure out how they’ve been hoodwinked. If there was ever a time for radical actions to be taken, now would seem to be that time. It starts with being truthful – something that is in short supply in the area of politics.
This plan is worst than doing nothing:
Any entitlement that is purportedly financed by past payroll “contributions” should be capped at the lifetime sum of all the beneficiary’s (and their employers’) “contributions” plus real interest plus inflation. For Social Security old-age and survivor benefits this is straightforward to calculate for each participant, and any individual should be allowed to opt out and take any unused accumulated contributions in the form of long-term Treasury bonds.
The average of the total payments that most boomers are expected to receive is less than the proposed “cap” suggested. I’ve read that boomers can expect a 1% to 2% return on their contributions. Just indexing for inflation alone would cost more.
The Holtz writes:
Blanton, since you said absolutely nothing to rebut my point about Root and Barr being more radical on Social Security than Ron Paul was in the 2008 campaign, I’ll just repeat it:
Blanton, when Root was asked on national TV whether he’d do away with Social Security, he said “I’d certainly like to.” When Ron Paul was asked on national TV whether he advocates the abolition of Social Security, he denied it, and instead talked about “taking care of the elderly”, and bragged about how he’s “the one who has saved” Social Security.
Actually, I said that Dana is the most radical of all of them, You left her out, Brian. You also seemed to have missed the part where Ron Paul says he would let people opt out. Everybody except Dana seemed to be babbling a little bit. But, I’d take ending SS first, opting out, second. Cutting COLAs doesn’t do much to end SS and Root pontificating about how he’d like to end it and how people would want to privatize a small portion of it doesn’t seem so radical. Radical is in the eye of the beholder.
I’m curious though, Brian, since when did you start viewing radicalism as a positive thing and do have an opinion about who among the three men has the largest johnson?
my wife and I pay among the highest property taxes in my school district, so our family is subsidizing others, not the other way around.
Awww, ain’t that a shame. But, you know, that’s what you get with collectivism sometimes. But just think of the wars you get to enjoy, Brian, that are being paid for by people who see illegal wars of aggression as being evil and who must also suffer the loss of rights in the warfare state.
Spence,
Just to be clear here, I’m neither endorsing Wayne’s rhetoric nor cheering him on for chair.
I disagree with him in significant respects when it comes to which demographic the party should target. I’m just acknowledging that on Larry King, he did a good job of targeting the demographic he has said we should target.
As far as his candidacy for chair goes, not only do I not endorse him, I’d consider him as chair to be the functional equivalent of dissolution of the Libertarian Party as a national institution.
And *here instead of hear
*National chair, not sure why I said platform chair.
If Root wins platform chair, will this finally bookend the depressing legacy of the LP Mr. Nolan started so long ago? It’s disheartening to hear the people hear endorsing Root’s brash, “used car” rhetoric as effective and well-marketed.
Bob,
I think you’re being too hard on Wayne here — not necessarily in the round, but with respect to whether he is delivering on something he has consistently advocated for.
Wayne believes that the future of the LP is with a particular demographic or group of demographics.
Mash that group together, and his audience — because that’s the audience he believes is approachable, and because that’s the audience he believes will fork over the money to market the party — is “right-leaning small businesspeople.”
The self-employment tax is, I think offhand, 15.3%, which means he was claiming an income of about $98k per year.
That claim is in line with:
– What many right-leaning small business people earn; and
– What many OTHER right-leaning small business people WANT to earn.
In his 2005 book Millionaire Republican, when he was still trying to promote the GOP, he made a good point. If it wants to be successful, he wrote, the GOP shouldn’t be just the party of the people who ARE rich, but also the party of the people who WANT to be rich.
So, what he was doing was appealing to the broadest cross-section he could think of among the people who meet, or fancy themselves as eventually meeting, the description of the demographic that he thinks the LP can best benefit by approaching.
bh, if yer askin’ whether srs have a right to SS payments, I’d say No. The law can be changed. It’s not a contractual annuity.
Personally, I’d rather be effective than technically correct. I think Root was technically INcorrect with his $15K number, although it’s close enough.
Regardless, I find his personalizing his tax hit to be suboptimal if not ineffective.
Perhaps he should listen to his hero Reagan a bit more. He didn’t say “Get the government off MY back,” he said “Get the government off OUR backs.”
Politics is theater. The substance of politics IS rhetoric.
Bob, I didn’t say “all seniors”. I said: “If they’re able-bodied or have assets, they don’t need to get back a stolen-goods windfall beyond what they paid in.” Surely you wouldn’t say that a senior who is able-bodied or has assets should nevertheless continue to get a stolen-goods windfall beyond what they paid in, just because they’re used to it and/or voters sympathize with them.
Tweak the rhetoric however you want, but let’s at least agree on that underlying policy principle. If they cannot work and have no assets, then they should receive disability benefits from the contributions of their cohort. If even that runs out, there would in geolibertopia be a nature’s dividend — i.e. a share of the proceeds from taxing depletion/pollution/congestion of unowned natural resources.
Michael, I have for several years been claiming to be more radical than the LP’s Rothbardian anarchists, on several grounds.
1) I advocate a purist Lockean leave-as-much-and-as-good theory of property rights, rather than the allodial/conquistadorian theory that putting a cross on a beach can make an island/continent your sovereign property.
2) I want aggression to be opposed and minimized, rather than merely abstained from.
3) Specifically, I advocate institutional change that would systematically oppose the aggression constituted by polluting/depleting unowned natural resources. By contrast, anarchists advocate institutional change that in effect endorses any aggression for which defending against it costs an individual more than the harm it causes her.
I’ve been making these arguments for so long that I finally made a web page for them over two years ago: http://libertarianmajority.net/more-libertarian-than-thou
I too am very intrigued by Sunstein’s work on libertarian paternalism. It’s built around the market failure known as http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Status_quo_bias. I would argue that the economic analysis of market failure — combined with the public-choice analysis of government failure — is the right way to decide whether and how institutions should deviate from the naive faith-based anarchist norm.
Libertarians who haven’t read Sunstein can find references at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soft_paternalism.
bh, your SS reform has appeal and could be packaged as reasonable and fair. However, even the rhetoric “let them get a reverse mortgage” seems, I dunno, callous. Not all seniors own their homes, btw, I’m sure you know.
Positioning Ls as callous is unlikely to win over large numbers of people. This is NOT to say that the current state of affairs and trajectory are not — in a different way — callous toward those who’ll be burdened with the national debt.
Callousness makes Ls sound right wing, very right wing, in fact. From a rhetorical perspective, I don’t think we’ll make a lot of headway sounding VERY conservative. Progressive, modern, thoughtful and reasonable would be preferable adjectives, more optimal positioning IF we want to garner the interest of large numbers of people.
(Of course, a citizen’s dividend paid for with pollution taxes would — in broad strokes — render the Nanny State utterly unnecessary, incl. SS.)
David, your wish is my command. 🙂 The graph is on the 2nd page of this PDF rack card, along with a pocket version of the Constitution: http://marketliberal.org/RackCard%202008-08-19.pdf
The image is also available at the url http://marketliberal.org/Images/FederalBudget.png
Brian there is something we might refer to as a backdoor solution that has been proposed and while I don’t agree with it some headway has been made.
That is to require everyone to participate in an IRA when they go to work for a company. They would automatically be in it but have to opt out if they didn’t want it. I believe that the idea has been proposed by Cass Sunstein who is one of Obama’s advisors, or was and is a long time friend of his from the University of Chicago. I believe Sunstein refers to this as Libertarian Paternalism. The IRA would replace Social Security for many people.
I hate to admit it, but Holtz is making a lot of sense here. Is that dual bar graph available anywhere in durable form? I would love to have a copy I could take with me to meetings, if it’s available in a compact format, laminated in plastic. (I don’t have a color printer, and ink-jet print on standard paper is pretty crummy anyhow.)
@ 39 Brian has written; “Michael, I guess I’m just more radical than you are”
Well ya gotta remember Brian you are the original Liberventionist so bringing the troops home has never been big on your agenda.
I think we can work on both problems at the same time. But I am glad that finally you might just think of being somewhat radical. 😉
Of the two issues I’ll bet that we could make significant headway arguing for bringing the troops home if we cared to more so than we could on abolishing Social Security. Having listen to the arguments on the Social Security issue it will be difficult in this climate to get much headway there in my opinion.
Bob, I don’t say “let them eat cat food”. I say “let them get a reverse mortgage instead of stealing from their grandchildren”. If they’re able-bodied or have assets, they don’t need to get back a stolen-goods windfall beyond what they paid in. If they’re disabled, please refer to my entitlement reform proposal:
Any entitlement that is purportedly financed by past payroll “contributions” should be capped at the lifetime sum of all the beneficiary’s (and their employers’) “contributions” plus real interest plus inflation. For Social Security old-age and survivor benefits this is straightforward to calculate for each participant, and any individual should be allowed to opt out and take any unused accumulated contributions in the form of long-term Treasury bonds. For SS disability insurance and for Medicare the benefits for an age cohort should be capped at the “contributions” of the age cohort plus interest plus inflation. Where individuals or a cohort are currently receiving more than what they’ve contributed, the excess benefits should be reduced to zero over N years, and the affected beneficiaries may resort to whatever safety net exists for Americans under 65. I’d set N at about 20.
Michael, I guess I’m just more radical than you are, because I see no reason to impose an order of destatization between the two unrelated policies of 1) stealing from the low-voting young working poor to payoff the high-voting wealthy retired elderly and 2) stationing troops on the soil of treaty allies. I’m not making any excuses for not ending (2), but somehow I doubt (2) is the only excuse you could find for not ending (1).
If Libertarians won’t stand up and denounce the fundamental immorality of the nanny state’s ponzi schemes, then who will? There’s no excuse for Libertarians to be less radical on this than Bob Barr and John Stossel. It’s easy for so-called radicals like Ron Paul to stand up against subsidies for foreigners and immigrants. Funny how these so-called radicals are AWOL when it’s time to stand up against subsidies for the elderly, which cost a lot more.
@36
“I of course want citizens to keep as much money out of the State’s hands, but if Ls adopt the implicit attitude of “Let them eat cat food,” I don’t think we’ll make a lot of headway that way.”
I would suggest libertarian sponsored homeless shelters. Instead of bible thumping at dinner time, teach personal (and financial) responsibility… you know all the things that high school taught upside-down:
How to pay in cash; why unsecured credit is bad; why government charity helped put them and their families on the streets; how drugs are harmful; why prohibitionist laws contribute to social decline; and how to defend against CPS attempts to take children…
Evangelicals and Progressives garner votes this way. Seems to me that the Ls have a really good sell for the poor and suffering.
Brian I agree that Social Security needs to be abolished however I feel that abolishing it while taxing Americans to subsidize the defense of foreign nations and their workers who compete with American workers is assbackwards.
Additionally in the case of those on long term disability their insurance company may have required them to apply for Social Security in order to receive benefits. The N. Y. Times (I hope that is the right source) did a story some time ago about how insurance companies were shifting their burdens to the government when people they insured became injured and went on long term disability.
But I’ll go back to my first comment above. Stop subsidizing foreign workers at the expense of the American workers and bring those dollars home.
bh, last I checked, the childless don’t receive “welfare,” aka AFDC. SS recipients have historical reaped windfall rents, although as the pyramid collapses, the percentage of benefits being tantamount to transfer payments is on a steeply downward path, last I checked the trends.
Some wish to play SS as an intergenerational war. Behind that is the idea: “Screw the oldsters, I want to keep my money.” I of course want citizens to keep as much money out of the State’s hands, but if Ls adopt the implicit attitude of “Let them eat cat food,” I don’t think we’ll make a lot of headway that way.
Since perception is reality, HOW we put things is at least as important as the “substance” of what we say.
There is no spoon. 😉
Blanton, since you said absolutely nothing to rebut my point about Root and Barr being more radical on Social Security than Ron Paul was in the 2008 campaign, I’ll just repeat it:
Blanton, when Root was asked on national TV whether he’d do away with Social Security, he said “I’d certainly like to.” When Ron Paul was asked on national TV whether he advocates the abolition of Social Security, he denied it, and instead talked about “taking care of the elderly”, and bragged about how he’s “the one who has saved” Social Security.
In the Bob Barr clip above, he goes further than either, by calling SS “immoral”, and actually proposing a cut in COLA increases for current beneficiaries.
Michael, I’m saying that if a Social Security retirement beneficiary has already received SS benefits more than everything they and their employer paid in plus inflation plus real (not nominal) interest, then any further SS income transfers to them are nothing but receipt of stolen goods and should be stopped immediately. If you disagree, then please tell us how much stolen goods you think they should receive and for how many years.
Michael @30, I defend government provision of streets, so I’m not a hypocrite for using them. I’m asking for all rents and subsidies to be stopped, even the ones I might benefit from. I’m not asking that past receipt of stolen Social Security taxes be paid back, so your questions about my past benefits are irrelevant. However, I’ll note that as a high-income earner I’ve paid way more in taxes than I’ve ever received in benefits.
BANV @31, my wife and I pay among the highest property taxes in my school district, so our family is subsidizing others, not the other way around. (When our high-property-value section of town was annexed to the neighboring school district as a cash cow, folks around here protested by painting life-sized cows on their garage doors that you can still see today.) My wife and I have paid many times over for whatever government services our kids have received.
It’s fact-impaired to suggest that more government spending is “for the children” than for the elderly:
Even state-level spending on K-12 education ($600B) is still far less than all federal spending on the elderly (~ $1100B). Most importantly, aside from the occasional school construction bond, K-12 spending is financed pay-as-you-go, while Social Security and Medicare are explicitly financed as “social insurance” pyramid schemes — i.e. intergenerational theft.
Bob, “rely on SS to survive” is aimed at a strawman. I said: “Beneficiaries/co-conspirators of the Social Security ponzi scheme should be eligible for no more government handouts than welfare recipients are eligible for.”
Michael @17 only grazes the surface of Social Security inequities. For the top ten kinds of perverse inequities of SS, see http://knowinghumans.net/2005/06/social-security-favors-trophy-wives.html.
For a handy overview of the major forms of rent-seeking in America, see http://knowinghumans.net/2009/09/rent-seeking-in-america.html. If anybody knows of a more comprehensive list, please share.
bh 24, is SS a contract? Of course not. Is there a widespread PERCEPTION that it’s insurance? Increasingly fewer do, but yes.
Should L spokespeople be MINDFUL that many think it’s a contract and many rely on SS to survive? I emphatically suggest yes.
Does that mean we should SUPPORT the idea that it’s a contract? No.
Does it play when a L spokesperson refers to his/her own money, vs. the pocketbooks of the American people? No, I don’t believe so. It comes off small-minded. It reminds me of a moment during the GOP prez debates when the subject of the AQN threat was being discussed, and Ron Paul personalized it, saying something like “I don’t feel threatened.” To me that didn’t ring true as a matter of rhetoric.
This is not to say that we should not appeal to people’s sense of rights, and their ability to work, save, and invest for themselves and their families. But traditionally I think Ls overplay that hand. Liberty is not only good for you as an individual, it’s good for a more harmonious civil society. If we all become pigs at the trough with government doling out the food, we’ll increasingly see the pigs turn on each other fighting for more of the slop.
@31
“Have Holtz’s children never received government benefits? Will they not receive college student loans in a decade or so?”
Personally, that is not an assumption that I would make.
I’ve always thought it a bit disingenuous to whine about the government robbing the children and big bloated government in general when one advocates illegal wars of aggression against nations and claim it is to liberate the citizens and it turns out that dumping 100 tons of depleted uranium is considered liberation by the terminally twisted.
It’s a bit disingenuous to whine about the government “robbing the children,” since so much government money (particularly education and health spending) is “for the children.”
Have Holtz’s children never received government benefits? Will they not receive college student loans in a decade or so?
I doubt that Holtz’s children have paid enough taxes to cover the government money they’ve already received and will continue to receive before their first adult paycheck.
re # 24. Brian do you not work in the computer industry? Is the computer industry free of all government subsidies? Or has it ever been in any way shape or form aided by the government now or in the past? Do you use Federal Reserve notes? Do you drive on roads built and maintained by the government? Did you go to government schools at any time in the past?
Be extremely careful how you answer these question. If you are not careful you may be expelled from the club. Here’s a clue.
Yossarian lives! Whisper that phrase, bring up the volume and then repeat it over and over especially at work. Loudly!
I thought the best things about Wayne Root’s appearance on the Larry King Show was his Svengali eye magic and the fact that he never used the term “contra-indicated”.
I wish he would wear a necktie that matches his teeth and tell some gambling jokes too.
Holtz swaggers out onto the playground during recess and makes the following challenge:
I challenge anybody to quote Ron Paul EVER having the courage during the 2008 campaign to call for a cuts in benefits to current beneficiaries.
Did anybody ever assert that Ron Paul did call for such cuts in 2008?
Did Wayne Root call for such cuts?
I challenge Brian Holtz and will bet him his Twinkies against my cupcakes that Ron Paul doesn’t say he favors letting people opt out of Social Security in the video Holtz posted above.
In fact, I double-dog dare him.
Thomas L. Knapp // Mar 31, 2010:
“Don [Lake], I was very specific.* I did not say that the LP is the only anti-war party …………”
* that is debatable, especially given your pervasive ‘spin doctor’ reputation [which I studiously ignored year after year] but originally, Nose In the Air, Phillies did! Lake
@19 “I thought Dana Loesch was way better — more attractive, more articulate, more forthright.”
The first requirement for a woman on television is to be good-looking. the first requirement for a man is to be entertaining. If you’ve got the first part down the rest becomes easier.
Libertarians should not acknowledge any “contract” with rent-seekers for continued aggression-financed rents. Beneficiaries/co-conspirators of the Social Security ponzi scheme should be eligible for no more government handouts than welfare recipients are eligible for.
tk: If anything is “dysfunctional” or “contra-indicated,” it is letting your rhetoric be limited/molded by those who are never, ever, ever, under any circumstances, going to be on your side.
me: Great feedback. Let’s keep in mind that just because seniors get SS doesn’t mean they won’t vote L or be on our side. They may well. They may feel they’ve paid into SS and should get what they’ve earned, even though they think that most of government is excessive, the war’s been contra-indicated, and it’s insane to prohibit pot and gay marriage. Also, a lot of folks like SS because it keeps their parents out of THEIR home. All those empty bottles of Ensure laying around and all that. 😉 And, I suspect 99% of the pop think that current beneficiaries should keep getting their checks out of a sense of fairness if not intergenerational contract.
I thought SS taxes were capped somewhere in the $80Ks…do I misremember that one, or perhaps it’s been upped in very recent years?…
Narrowcasting to the $100K set on cable may or may not be the optimal tactical move. Even still, personalizing the issue — I can find better ways… — may or may not be the way to reach out to the upper-middles and up. Blanton’s word — boorish — is close to the mark, I suspect. IF that’s the tack, then I’d suggest something like “American families can find better ways,” or something. Seems higher minded to this hombre.
I’d say Root got a sliding double, but could have been thrown out at second except King missed the cutoff. Same setup, and Maddow, Matthews, or Olberman would have merciless on that SS point.
Don,
I was very specific.
I did not say that the LP is the only anti-war party.
I said that libertarian partIES are the only GENUINE anti-war parties.
That’s an ideological position, and I explained why I take it. If I need to do so again, here’s the short version:
Those other parties which, from time to time, characterize themselves as anti-war, offer no ideological solutions to the root causes of war. Their anti-war-ism is “a la carte,” a transient position which changes when they find a war they like.
If you don’t find that position credible, fine, but don’t pretend that I took a position that I did not take.
Tom, and speaking of creditability ……..
LP as the only anti war party, such a laugh!
There are times that Dana Loesch strikes me as being very close to hoisting the libertarian flag. If she ever decides to do so, she’ll probably be a great spokesperson for the movement (and, if she affiliates with it, the party).
Unfortunately, at this time she seems pretty chained to, and appears to be being groomed for bigger things by, the flying monkey right. And the longer she lets herself get carried down that stream, the less credible she’ll become.
RC @16,
To be effective you must reach out to the populace with easy lessons they can absorb. You must also grab them by the sensitive parts and yank hard to disabuse them of their fallacies.
The idea that there is only one sell is death to a sales force (especially a volunteer one). There is a soft sell and there is a hard sell, and different customers react to each. Different salespeople are better at pitching each.
There is no one rhetorical black hole or rhetorical silver bullet. Let the radicals sell their extremism, let the pragmatists sell their shoeshine.
Where would abolition of slavery have gotten to without John Brown and Harriet Beecher Stowe both?
Wayne did OK; not great, but OK. I thought Dana Loesch was way better — more attractive, more articulate, more forthright. I’d much rather have HER representing the LP …. and she doesn’t even call herself a libertarian! If Wayne would just smile more, look directly into the camera, and stop touting his awkwardly-titled book, that would be a big improvement.
Bob,
On the “my own $15k a year” thing, keep in mind that Root has been VERY up-front with the party in naming his target audience — small business people — and that that remark goes right to the heart of their concerns.
When Root alludes to “my $15k a year,” he’s telling every small business owner out there “I’m self-employed and make about $100k per year, just like you either do or hope to do, and 15.3% of my/your/our money gets taken from us and produces a piss-poor return.”
Given who he’s talking to and trying to reach, that’s a good approach.
The “old people will be eating cat food!” folks will scream “old people will be eating cat food!” at anybody who calls for any changes, other than dramatic benefit increases/expansions, in Social Security. If anything is “dysfunctional” or “contra-indicated,” it is letting your rhetoric be limited/molded by those who are never, ever, ever, under any circumstances, going to be on your side.
Slightly off topic but a related point that some might wish to keep in mind is that African-American males have a shorter life expectancy and thus are less likely to get back what they pay in and have no way to leave these funds to their children if they should die before retiring.
Second issue is inflation. Post WWI inflation, which I recall as being about 50%, just about wiped out any savings that people had at the time. And since the 1950’s the U.S. government has had a policy of using inflation as an acceptable policy tool thus slowly destroying any saving people set aside for retirement.
bh15, as a theoretical asymtotic anarcholibertarian, I resonate with the idea of not voting away individual rights. But I’m a convert. I question whether that’s the most effective rhetoric for the non-converted. They may respond, well, that’s true for EVERYTHING government does, including geominarcho institutions designed to ensure a semblance of domestic tranquility. It seems like a rhetorical black hole for the general public.
Also, Root could have pointed out that the majority is not allowed to vote away the rights of the individual.
Blanton, when Root was asked on national TV whether he’d do away with Social Security, he said “I’d certainly like to.” When Ron Paul was asked on national TV whether he advocates the abolition of Social Security, he denied it, and instead talked about “taking care of the elderly”, and bragged about how he’s “the one who has saved” Social Security.
In the Bob Barr clip above, he goes further than either, by calling SS “immoral”, and actually proposing a cut in COLA increases for current beneficiaries.
I challenge anybody to quote Ron Paul EVER having the courage during the 2008 campaign to call for a cuts in benefits to current beneficiaries.
I agree Root did very well in this interview — a stand-up triple. It would have been a home run if he had answered King’s Obama-was-elected point by noting that none of Wayne’s kids got a chance on whether to vote for all the debt that Obama continues to pile onto them.
GPF: “The real way to save America and make it solvent…stop the $1 Trillion dollars in wasteful spending at the Pentagon EVERY year.”
JT: “That’s true.”
Actually, I misspoke. Stopping all the wasteful Pentagon spending (including the massive expenses for foreign wars) wouldn’t make America solvent given current entitlement welfare programs. As has been documented many places, those programs are set to explode in coming decades with a rising elderly population, effectively bankrupting the country. Politicians have to do much more than slash enormous Pentagon spending to avert that disaster. But that would be a good start.
I’d avoid the “my own $15K a year” rhetoric. It sounds, well, selfish, and selfish doesn’t play.
Root is incapable of not sounding boorish. In fact, a lot of his blustering buffoonery is done on purpose as talk radio rubes eat it up.
Why do so many libertarians like him? Because they think he is an effective huckster. A Faustian bargain if I’ve ever seen one.
tb: The key to actually eliminating Social Security is obviously in the implementation. You can’t suddenly stop paying current recipients.
me: Agreed, except I’d say the “key” to actual elimination is to convince voters gradual elimination is a good idea, and then electing people who agree with voters. There may be other ways to do it such as — off the top of my head — total economic collapse or perhaps a SCt stacked with liberty-minded justices. The electoral approach seems most direct and least wrenching, but is a huge undertaking, no matter how you slice it.
It seems the Dana Show woman has the best Social Security plan. She plainly says she would do away with it. Root says he would like to, but falls short of saying he would.
Ron Paul at least proposes that people should have an option to opt out. Root wants partial privatization. Hmmm, I’ve heard that one before. Oh yeah, it was that radical libertarian George Bush that proposed that.
So the radical Root wants mandated savings/investments, no doubt through a government approved agent, and if you refuse?
Fines, jail, and if you still refuse, death.
Holtz thinks that is the “radical” position. Whenever I hear a millionaire Republican talk about privatization, I want to run. It is a code word for crony capitalism. Actual privatization is where the government gets out of an endeavor altogether as opposed to fascist outsourcing schemes.
The partial privatization of Social Security is much like Obamacare, which Root doesn’t like. The government forces you to give money to private corporations approved of and regulated by the government.
I’m with Dana on Social Security and if it isn’t eliminated, I’d go with Ron Paul’s proposal – the option of not participating. Maybe Root and his cult don’t know enough about freedom to realize the difference between mandatory and voluntary.
Partial privatization should be a nonstarter for libertarians, even if neolibertarians claim it is a baby-step in the right direction.
The key to actually eliminating Social Security is obviously in the implementation. You can’t suddenly stop paying current recipients. But the number of possible transitions is only limited by the imagination and the desire of politicians to funnel money to their paymasters instead of allowing people to keep what they have earned. The financial services industry needs no more subsidies and special favors.
Capozzi is on the money here.
Keep in mind that King (Larry, not Rodney!) and liberals generally use SS as a third rail. It had nothing to do with the drift of the conversation, he was trying to trip the 2 interviewees up. For a large segment of the viewership, he DID trip them up.
What would you rather hear: You’ve been scammed or I don’t care if you eat cat food?
Root’s answer was fine, although I don’t think optimized. Were I advising him, I might suggest something like:
“Larry, people are waking up to the fact that SS is a gigantic Ponzi scheme. It looked like a good deal for a while, but this generation’s going to pay the Piper, and pay and pay and pay. SS is on course to burst, and when it does, it will make these recent Wall Street bankruptcies look like a walk in the park.”
I’d avoid the “my own $15K a year” rhetoric. It sounds, well, selfish, and selfish doesn’t play. In isolation, it conjures up images of millions of seniors eating cat food.
I thought Wayne did damn well on this one. As a matter of fact, except for the (perhaps necessary in the context of Tea Party) pretense that “conservatives and disgruntled Republicans” are part of the solution rather than part of the problem, and that Christianity has anything to do with it at the start, about perfect.
If he could stay on message like this all the time, he might make a fairly good presidential candidate.
Maybe we should hire Larry King to follow him around lobbing questions at him whenever he needs to speak.
GPF: “Most average Americans do not have the investment savy to save that money. Most do not know how to hold on to the money.”
You don’t need to be “investment savvy.” You need to know how to open an interest-bearing savings account at a bank and put some of the money currently going to the SS tax into it. Over the course of decades, you’d have more money than what SS pays out.
GPF: “The real way to save America and make it solvent…stop the $1 Trillion dollars in wasteful spending at the Pentagon EVERY year.”
That’s true.
Cool Green Party news from Brazil.
The Brazil Green Party has a strong woman running for President…
Green Party’s Marina Silva turning heads – without bikini
The other parties’ candidates are already flourishing their own wares and doing their best to attract media attention. A few days after the glamorous performances at Rio’s Sambódromo, Marina Silva – Lula’s former environment minister, now a senator running for president on the ticket of the Partido Verde (Green Party / PV) – lands in the city’s Santos Dumont airport. The choking traffic delays her arrival at the powerful national radio station, CBN, so she tweets to say she is on her way.
In the interview, she declares that her campaign represents a “political realignment” in Brazil, one that could break the polarization between the PT and the PSDB: “My mission is to show people that we have to build a symphony, to create an orchestra – something that changes our way to produce, consume, and our relationship with nature
http://www.brazzil.com/component/content/article/217-march-2010/10375-whoever-becomes-brazils-next-president-it-wont-be-an-anti-lula.html
Getting rid of social security is an insane idea.
Most average Americans do not have the investment savy to save that money. Most do not know how to hold on to the money.
The real way to save America and make it solvent…stop the $1 Trillion dollars in wasteful spending at the Pentagon EVERY year.
Thanks to IPR knew this was on and watched.
When will they have Green Party folks on Larry King Live…
In fact I was out gathering petition signatures and met the CNN producer for this show (Sunday night)..she mentioned to me it would be on…
I thought the woman who was on with Root was credible….she seemed to be more like a Green Party person…
Just as Barr was in the 2008 campaign, Root here is more radical on Social Security than Ron Paul was when he was asked about it on a national news program: