The Catfood Commission has an email address

[eridani]

[e-mail]


I'm seriously disgusted with the Deficit Commission's use of the term "entitlement" to imply that Social Security and Medicare are welfare programs for people who don't work. "Entitlement" in reality means that since average Americans work and pay into these funds for most of their adult lives, we are jolly well ENTITLED to the benefits we have paid for, capeesh?

Social Security is a government program funded by a dedicated tax. There are two ways to look at this. First, you can simply view the program as part of the general federal budget, with the dedicated tax bit just a formality. Alternatively, you can look at Social Security on its own, in which case as long as it still has funds in its trust fund, it doesn’t need new legislation to keep paying promised benefits.

But you can’t have it both ways. You can’t say that for the last 25 years, when Social Security ran surpluses, well, that didn’t mean anything, because it’s just part of the federal government; but when payroll taxes fall short of benefits, even though there’s lots of money in the trust fund, Social Security is broke. If you are truly worried about that, just raise the earnings cap.

If you are worried about the deficit in general, then tax those parasitic derivatives peddlers you are pimping for, reinstate Reagan era (or even Eisenhower era) marginal tax rates and tax investment income at the same level as earned income. And consider the increasingly obvious fact that the US can no longer afford to be an empire with 800+ military bases around the world. If Britain and the Soviet Union could give up being empires in the last century, then we can do it in this century.

[xchrom]

1. recommend

[ProfessionalLeftist]

2. OH GOOD. Because I know some old ladies who would...

...love to tell that sphincter to kiss their a$$es.