All Posts Tagged With: "payroll tax"

Is It a Tax or Not?

In his State of the Union speech the other night President Obama said: Right now, our most immediate priority is stopping a tax hike on 160 million working Americans while the recovery is still fragile. People cannot afford losing $40 out of each paycheck this year. There are plenty of ways to get this done. [...]

26Jan2012 | Sheldon Richman | 0 comments | Continued

It Makes One’s Head Spin

President Obama’s jobs program calls for cuts in both sides of the payroll tax. That tax finances Social Security and Medicare. Social Security and Medicare are already taking in less money than they need to pay retirees. So they will have to cash in more of the Treasury IOUs left behind when previous surpluses were [...]

9Sep2011 | Sheldon Richman | 11 comments | Continued

Social Security: Mythmaking and Policymaking

Beginning in 1935, when Social Security was enacted, the program’s administrators made a huge effort to shape the public’s understanding of and beliefs about it. In speeches, articles, pamphlets, and other mass-circulation literature, they described Social Security as “insurance” under which workers pay “contributions” or “premiums” to receive “guaranteed” benefits that, being “paid for,” are theirs “as a matter of earned right,” without any means test.1

1Dec2003 | John Attarian | 7 comments | Continued

At Least Ponzi Didn’t Threaten Violence

Suppose while perusing your annuity fund’s quarterly statement you read: “By 2038, the funds will be exhausted and the contemporary contributions will be enough to pay only about 73 percent of benefits owed.” Your emotions might run the gamut from outrage to fear. In the wake of the Enron, WorldCom, and (insert the latest name) [...]

1Mar2003 | David G. Surdam | 0 comments | Continued

A New Deal for Social Security by Peter Ferrara and Michael Tanner

Cato Institute • 1998 • 264 pages • $19.95 cloth; $10.95 paperback In 1980 Peter Ferrara produced the path-breaking critique Social Security: The Inherent Contradiction. Now he and the Cato Institute’s Michael Tanner ably update his exposition of Social Security’s flaws and offer a thought-provoking solution. Social Security is a federal “social insurance’‘ program paying [...]

1Jan2000 | John Attarian | 0 comments | Continued

Unhappy Returns

Harry Dolan is a writer and editor in Bowling Green, Ohio. On August 13, 1920, a confidence man named Charles Ponzi was arrested for running a pyramid scheme that had cheated investors out of millions of dollars. Ponzi had promised his investors a 50 percent return after 45 days, and he was able to deliver, [...]

1Feb1999 | Harry Dolan | 0 comments | Continued

How Big Government Usurped Personal Responsibility

Aren’t national summits great? America’s foremost academicians, bankers, and mutual fund managers gathered in early June at the government’s request to devise new ways to encourage a spend-happy public to save more. While the 240 delegates to the National Summit on Retirement Savings agreed that more savings are needed, they were reluctant to suggest policies [...]

1Oct1998 | Peter T. Leeson | 0 comments | Continued

Social Security Can Be Good for Your Health

Until recently I took every opportunity to inform my students about the financial fraud of Social Security. Given demographic realities and the Ponzi-scheme nature of Social Security, those about to enter the work force will receive an anemic return on their “investment,” assuming they receive any return at all. They would be far better off, [...]

1Mar1998 | Dwight R. Lee | 1 comment | Continued

Will Retirement Become a Personal Responsibility?

With Social Security benefits projected to exceed the system’s revenues within 15 years, young Americans are increasingly skeptical that the government will take care of them when they reach their mid-sixties. That’s a healthy development because in a free society, responsibility for one’s retirement is too important to relinquish to the vagaries of politicized programs. [...]

1Dec1997 | Lawrence W. Reed | 0 comments | Continued

How We Privatized Social Security in Chile

Social Security is the single largest government program in the United States, spending $350 billion a year—more than the defense budget during the Cold War. The bad news is that Social Security is approaching bankruptcy. It won’t be able to pay all the benefits everybody has been promised. This is because any pay-as-you-go social security [...]

1Jul1997 | José Piñera | 0 comments | Continued

How High a Price for Civilization?

Mr. Gold is associate director and communications director at the Tax Foundation, a nonprofit research organization in Washington, D.C. In the battle over tax reform, skirmishes over the current level of taxation are inevitable. As in the past, supporters of big government will almost certainly complain that taxpayer advocates only focus on one side of [...]

1Feb1996 | Stephen Gold | 1 comment | Continued

The Social Security Tax

Dr. Manion, formerly Dean of the Law School at Notre Dame, now practices law in South Bend, Indiana. The promoters Of the great social security deception never advertised it to the people as a slick, easily collectible form of constantly increasing taxation, Nevertheless, when the original Federal Social Security Act was passed upon by the [...]

1Nov1955 | Clarence E. Manion | 1 comment | Continued

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