David Walker,who warned Congress against spending more money than it collects from U.S. taxpayers while he headed the Government Accountability Office under Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush,is in Philadelphia this week on a national tour pushing new restrictions on Social Security and Medicare eligibility, and higher payroll taxes, at least for the rich.
He's asking support from influential Philadelphians who don't personally need federal checks. As president of the Peter G. Peterson Foundation, endowed by the billionaire Blackstone Group L.P. investment manager, Walker was guest of honor Wednesday night at tech investor Thomas Gravina's Haverford home, where local invitees included real estate mogul Ira Lubert of $12 billion-asset Independence Capital Partners, bond and casino investor Michael Forman, and McDonald's meat-supplier-turned-philanthropist Herbert Lotman. ...
What exactly does Walker want? For Social Security, he wants an added "automatic" savings plan without guaranteed payouts, like a 401(k) plan; delayed eligibility, eventually limited to age 70 and older or "indexed to life expectancy" for the continuing guaranteed benefit; and higher payroll taxes on the rich, who pay no Social Security after their first $108,000 in salary.
That's a lot more than would be needed to address any long term financing issues with Social Security.
4 comments:
Social security will have major problems if the republicans have any influence. Just today Rep. joe barton appologized to bp for the $20 billion that was set aside for the gulf disaster. This is beyond unbeleivable!!
Raise taxes on all outsourcing companies!! And other wealthy individuals.
it's a cop out to turn this discussion partisan. tough problems require thoughtul, collaborative solutions. this country has a big institution (SS) that needs a'fixin' and no one takes very seriously those who argue the extremes here. if the country wants social security, mr. walker's fiscal wake-up calls should channel the dialogue toward solution seeking...the reference to congressional grandstanding on bp is beyond dubious
How does anyone make a point about SSA by thrashing BP?
You want to save SSA some money? Eliminate SSI checks for "ADHD" and "O.D.D." children. Biggest fraud I have ever seen. 19 years in this business. They already have medicaid they don't need money for bad behavior and a lack of parenting.
How about eliminating SSI checks for the anchor babies of illegal aliens, the cases where the parents have no SSN and there is really no way to know if the kids qualify for the benefits since the income and resources are all under the table? But of course SSI does not come from the RSDI trust fund so it will be a great idea to raise the income for the SSA payroll deductions, perhaps to 250k? And retirement age is 67 for younger folks now, so raising it up 3 more years isn't that much of a shock.
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