Home › Forums › Open Discussion › Earth to Hooper, Earth to Hooper! Come in, Hooper!
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January 5, 2011 at 3:38 pm #712943
TDeParticipantFICA is not a “rip-off” system… it’s social insurance and works like any other insurance is technically supposed to work. If you buy an insurance policy with Blue Cross, Group Health or any other insurance and need surgery a year from starting that policy, your insurance will pay out more for your surgery than what you paid in. If you only need minor surgery 30 years from the date you started your policy, you’ll be paid out far less than what you paid in… Same with car insurance…
Here’s how the social security insurance system works… and by the way, it would solvent if not for two small glitches: First, those making over $106.8K annually were charged FICA for social security on all their earnings like the rest of us and second, if the gov’t hadn’t borrowed from social security to pay for other shortcomings.
“If you work for an employer, 6.2% of your wage is withheld and your employer deposits the withholding, along with its 6.2% matching contribution, with the government for the Social Security programs. In 2010 and 2011, the employee tax and matching contribution stop after the first $106,800 of wages. In addition if you work for an employer, 1.45% of your wages is withheld and the employer makes a matching 1.45% contribution to the Medicare program, making the total withholdings at 7.65% (6.2% OASDI and 1.45% Medicare). However, all wages are subject to the Medicare tax; there is no ceiling.
If you are self-employed, you pay 15.3% of your taxable income into the social security and Medicare programs, up to the first $106,800 of income. You continue to pay 2.9% of your taxable income into the Medicare program for your earnings above $106,800. Although the impact on you is greater because you pay twice the rate of employees, you can deduct half of your federal self-employment taxes from your income when it comes time to pay your federal income tax.”
http://law.freeadvice.com/government_law/social_security_law
Just one more thing. I run a small business with 3 employees, so my business and personal paycheck pays out a great deal of FICA tax. I’ve always been happy to do so, because it helped support my elderly parents for some years when their savings ran out. It’s a good system, a safety net and the wealthy earners in this country should be paying their fair share on all their income like the rest of us.
January 5, 2011 at 4:13 pm #712944
JoBParticipantTDe..
well put.
hooper1961
so.. back up that “fact” you keep rolling out…
that the average beneficiary of social security is currently taking out more than they paid in.
and have fun looking.
you might even learn something.
HMCRich…
is your car insurance an entitlement program?
what about your health insurance?
maybe your private life insurance?
the government managing an insurance pool
doesn’t make it an entitlement program
unlike the probable suspension of the govt regulations on carbon output by your newly elected tea party candidates
which is a direct entitlement program to the oil companies…
just saying
January 5, 2011 at 4:26 pm #712945
hooper1961MemberJoB – post 40. And if I conduct more detailed data and prove this further what will you do? Call Senator Murray to request benefit payments be consistent with money paid in?
January 5, 2011 at 4:44 pm #712946
JoBParticipanthooper1961
ROFLOL
only you would refer back to math already debunked for proof of your “fact”.
i am sorry hooper but aside from the “fact” that i know the statement to be false
the accountant in me just shakes her head and wonders what you have been drinking.
basic reading comprehension is a learned skill hoop… but hang in there… actually reading other people’s posts is a good place to start…
January 5, 2011 at 4:54 pm #712947
hooper1961Memberthe fact is the fica tax rate in 1960 was only 3% and is now 12.4% that is 4 x’s the rate. a 3% contribution rate was not adequate to provide the payout rate that current beneficiaries are receiving! prove me wrong!
January 5, 2011 at 6:00 pm #712948
JoBParticipanthooper1961
the fact is that your calculation failed to include the employee matching funds…
prove me wrong.
cherry picking stats to build an argument only works if you include all of the relevant stats…
which your example doesn’t.
sorry.. it’s a fail.
now…
please link to whatever site you cut and pasted that example from.
January 5, 2011 at 6:19 pm #712949
dawsonctParticipantI’m all for cutting undeserved entitlements, but let’s start at the top first, with the ones who have plundered our economy and have driven our Nation into the ditch and sent all out manufacturing jobs overseas and collecting tax-breaks put in place by their bought-and-paid-for politicians. They aren’t entitled to the wealth of our Nation, they aren’t entitled to destroying the American middle-class.
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Another very important point, when taxes are lowered on the middle- and under-class, their paychecks eventually drop to meet that level. If your pre-tax pay is X, and your take-home is Y, your employer knows you are willing to work for Y. There will be a temporary bump in pay, but it is always temporary and will be offset by lower pay-raises until you are making essentially the same pay you were getting before the tax cut.
Not surprisingly, it works very differently if you give millionaires huge tax breaks.
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Read David Ricardo’s treatise “on wages.” He explained it more clearly than I can.
January 5, 2011 at 7:01 pm #712950
hooper1961MemberJoB – a pie in the face to me the total FICA Historical Tax Rates Table 2.A3 does show a the total tax rate in 1960 was 6% (i misread it). Today the total is 12.4% that is significantly higher.
January 5, 2011 at 7:55 pm #712951
JanSParticipantgee, Hooper…everything is higher these days…hadn’t you noticed? Even the cost of just about everything…
January 5, 2011 at 8:00 pm #712952
JoBParticipanthooper1961
in this case..
reading the info at wikipedia would have informed you that the rate was adj to compensate for expected shorfalls…
more than once.
the sky is not falling
January 5, 2011 at 8:50 pm #712953
hooper1961Memberbut it is very cloudy
January 5, 2011 at 9:05 pm #712954
miwsParticipant“I’m all for cutting undeserved entitlements, but let’s start at the top first, with the ones who have plundered our economy and have driven our Nation into the ditch and sent all out manufacturing jobs overseas and collecting tax-breaks put in place by their bought-and-paid-for politicians. They aren’t entitled to the wealth of our Nation……”
hooper agrees, up to that point in your paragraph, dawson, (or so he claims).
It’s just easier, and perhaps more satisfying to him, to blame the working class and poor.
Mike
January 5, 2011 at 11:38 pm #712955
dawsonctParticipantOdd that a self-professed non-Republican would parrot EXACTLY the same line of reasoning of the Republican Party. Purely coincidence, I’m sure.
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Static reasoners conclude alike?
I don’t know, still working on that one.
January 6, 2011 at 12:12 am #712956
Genesee HillParticipantOf course the tax rate would have to be adjusted upward. U.S. citizens are living significantly longer today than in 1960. Also, COLA adjustments over the years.
January 6, 2011 at 12:36 am #712957
JoBParticipantgenesee hill..
no news there..
it’s already been done more than once in my lifetime
but at least this tax hike is one we individually benefit from
January 6, 2011 at 1:55 am #712958
Genesee HillParticipantJoB:
Absolutely, I am not complaining. Individually and in my opinion, collectively. I am 100% behind this type of program. For me it is a quality of life issue. Even though I have paid SS and will never get a dime from it. I have never had children of my own, but always vote for any and all school levies. Again, quality of life…
January 6, 2011 at 4:26 am #712959
RarelyEverParticipantgenesee hill, that makes you proof that it’s always the wrong people who are procreating!
January 6, 2011 at 4:48 am #712960
JoBParticipantJanuary 6, 2011 at 4:51 am #712961
chrismaParticipantWhoa, RarelyEver! That’s a bit of a sweeping value judgement, don’t you think?
January 6, 2011 at 4:55 am #712962
hooper1961MemberRarelyEver states a fact that those most capable of providing for kids without government welfare have fewer kids. and many couples with resources wanting a child but are unable end up adopting from overseas. why not pull the welfare rug out so adoptions are us born?
January 6, 2011 at 11:39 am #712963
HMC RichParticipantHold on Hooper. I adopted from oversees. What causes you to state your last opinion about domestic adoption? Can you expand?
January 6, 2011 at 2:10 pm #712964
redblackParticipanthooper: everyone who procreates (and adopts?) in the u.s. gets welfare – in the form of a “child tax credit.”
let’s close that loophole.
along the same lines, i have to admit that bush and the republicans did one thing right in 2000: they got rid of the marriage penalty.
January 6, 2011 at 2:40 pm #712965
JoBParticipanthooper 1961
we are back to that reading comprehension thing again:( that isn’t what rarely ever said at all.
January 6, 2011 at 4:41 pm #712966
hooper1961Memberredblack i am with you lets get rid of the child tax credit
job – Genesee Hill statement indicates he had the resources to properly raise a child if he had one that RarelyEver responded that the wrong people are having kids.
January 6, 2011 at 6:10 pm #712967
JoBParticipanthooper1961
and you took that comment to a whole other place that had nothing at all to do with RarelyEver’s comment.
as for that child tax credit… you talk big now but i am guessing your would have been squealing like a pig if anyone had suggested ending it while you were still benefiting.
how about we end the mortgage credit?
I am guessing you have a financial stake in that one.
Even if your mortgage is paid off you have to be counting on that credit to stimulate new home sales when the economy turns around…
Or are you building rentals for investors who can write that interest off now?
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