Social Insecurity

Kevin Drum sums up Social Security as well as anything I’ve seen. You should read this. Whether you agree with its underlying point of view or not, the facts are correct.

Social Security is funded by payroll taxes. In 1983, Alan Greenspan headed up a commission that recommended saving Social Security from imminent doom by raising those payroll taxes to cover expected increases in Social Security payouts. But there was a twist: Greenspan recommended raising payroll taxes above what was required to actually pay current benefits to retirees, with the resulting surplus used to buy treasury bonds that would be piled up each year in Social Security’s trust fund. And since these bonds were sold to the trust fund by the federal government, this means that the federal government got a big chunk of extra money every year for use in the general fund.

Under this scheme, payroll taxes were sufficient to cover payouts plus bond purchases until about 2018. Then, from 2018 to 2042, when payroll taxes would no longer be enough to cover payouts, the difference would be made up by cashing in the bonds in the trust fund. In other words, the feds would tap into the general fund to give back all the money that Social Security had handed over between 1983 and 2018. This money would come from the same place all general fund money comes from: income taxes.

Still with me? Here’s what this means:

• Between 1983-2018, this plan calls for payroll taxes to be higher than they need to be to cover payouts to retirees. However, because the surplus payroll taxes are handed over to the feds, it means income taxes are lower than they would otherwise be.
• Then, between 2018-2042, payroll taxes will be less than they need to be to pay benefits to retirees. However, the difference will be made up by higher income taxes, which will be used to pay off the trust fund bonds.

Payroll taxes are paid mostly by the middle class and the poor. Income taxes are paid mostly by the well off.

So: for 35 years the middle class and the poor pay excess payroll taxes and the well off get a break on their income taxes. However, for the following 24 years the middle class and the poor get a break on their payroll taxes and the well off finance it by paying higher income taxes.

Now, this may sound like a dumb idea to you, but that was the deal. The bottom 80% take it on the chin for a few decades, followed by a couple of decades in which the well off get socked.

But suppose — as conservatives are laying the groundwork for — that Bush decides the trust fund is a mirage, just a giant IOU from one part of the government to the other. And as part of his “reform” plan he proposes a complex scheme that, when stripped to its essentials, entails doing away with the flim flam of that illusionary trust fund and the higher income taxes it will require when 2018 finally rolls around. What would that mean?

It would mean that the middle class and the poor got suckered into overpaying their taxes for three decades, and then when the bill came due the well off ducked out of their end of the bargain.