[Dr. Sivana]

Payroll are distinctly different than federal income taxes. Payroll taxes were designed to provide specific benefits.

Irrelevant. The benefits and the taxes have been decoupled. The payroll taxes themselves are regressive. It doesn't matter what the benefits are, because those paying the taxes have no say in paying them, and have no choice in opting out (e.g. you have a disease that makes early death likely, like sickle cell or severe diabetes). All the money goes into the general fund. The purpose or intent of the tax has nothing to do with the effect of the tax itself, which is regressive.

The 50 percent not paying federal income taxes are tax freeloaders.

No they are not. They are paying taxes. A guy making $50,000 a year with eight kids, paying no fed income taxes, but paying about $7,500 a year in FICA/Medicare who dies of a stroke on his 65th birthday, and took no fed benefits except the indirect benefit of having a military is not a tax freeloader.

I advocated going back to NO income or SS/Medicare tax, and you claim that I have a leftward bias. That is laughable. It is also an attempt to dodge my explicit points which you have not addressed so far, except to indirectly admit that SS and Medicare are taxes.

I will repeat. When Rush states that 50% pay no federal taxes, when many of them in fact pay significant payroll taxes, he is being misleading, and technically inaccurate. BECAUSE PAYROLL TAXES ARE TAXES.

[businessprofessor]

You are wrong about payroll taxes. Benefits are connected to taxes although less directly than before. You cannot receive benefits unless you pay taxes for a specified period. Payroll taxes are capped because benefits are capped. The left wants entitlement benefits both ways. They want to force participation in entitlement programs but then claim that payroll taxes are no different than federal income taxes. Everyone should pay federal income taxes in addition to payroll taxes. Any able individual not paying federal income taxes is a tax freeloader.