Supercommittee of the One Percent Won't Even Think of Taxing Wall Street

[dajoki]

Supercommittee of the One Percent Won't Even Think of Taxing Wall Street
by Dean Baker | November 1, 2011 - 8:53am
http://www.smirkingchimp.com/node/39312

If anyone still questioned who owns Washington, the Congressional supercommittee charged with reducing projected deficits by $1.2 trillion seems determined to end any doubts. According to press accounts, both the Republicans and Democrats on the committee support a plan to reduce average Social Security benefits by 3 percent.

While whacking our parents and grandparents with a big cut in Social Security benefits apparently draws bipartisan support, the supercommittee will not even score a plan to tax Wall Street financial speculation. No committee member from either party is prepared to make a simple request to the Joint Tax Committee of Congress that would allow a speculation tax to be one of the items considered in the mix.

It's hard to know which part of this picture is worse. The plan to cut Social Security benefits at a time when seniors are more dependent than ever on them is incredibly pernicious. The people who would see their benefits cuts under this proposal paid for their benefits contributing to Social Security over their entire working career.

Most retirees have little other than Social Security to support them in their retirement. In large part, this is due to the economic mismanagement of the supercommittee types. If they or their friends, like former Federal Reserve Board Chairman Alan Greenspan, actually had been doing their jobs, we would not have had the huge housing bubble that wrecked the economy. The collapse of this bubble caused most of the wealth that retirees and near retirees had accumulated in their home to disappear, leaving them with nothing other than Social Security to sustain them in retirement. Now, they want to cut Social Security as well.

<<snip>>

The benefit cut is being justified by claiming that the current cost-of-living adjustment exceeds the true rate of inflation. In fact, the Bureau of Labor Statistics index that measures the cost of living of the elderly indicates that the current adjustment understates the rate of inflation experienced by retirees. There should be no doubt, this is a proposal for cutting Social Security benefits; it has nothing to do with making the cost-of-living adjustments accurate.

While the supercommittee has plenty of time to think of ways to make life more miserable for seniors, it won't even countenance the idea of taxing Wall Street speculation. In spite of the repeated pledges that everything is on the table, taxing Wall Street speculation is absolutely off the table.

<<snip>>

[Recursion]

1. Probably because a Tobin tax isn't intended as a revenue generator

It's intended as a behavior disincentive; it doesn't actually generate the kind of revenue the committee needs to find. For that matter, neither does raising the top marginal tax rates on the literal top 1% -- you have to reach down the income ladder pretty far.

[fasttense]

2. And yet Social Security has nothing to do with the deficit either.

We Baby Boomers have paid DOUBLE Social Security payments ever since Raygun decided to cut the taxes on the idle rich.

We have paid for our own and our parent's retirement. We are the ones who have built up the Social Security Trust fund. That is our retirement money.

Now because the government has bailed out the banksters, fought two useless wars and gave tax cuts to billionaires, they want to cut our Social Security.

Corruption thy name is the Super Committee.

[piratefish08]

3. you don't have to reach very far down the defense budget.

but of course that is a sacred cow too.