Free Republic

NEWARK, N.J. - Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama criticized Republican John McCain's approach to Social Security on Saturday, saying it would undermine the government program aimed mainly at retirees. Obama said McCain's campaign has suggested trimming Social Security benefits and raising the eligibility age, according to prepared remarks of his speech to a gathering of the AARP. Obama was addressing the group via satellite.

The recently released details of Barack Obama's tax plan, published on his campaign website, along with an article by his top economic advisers in the Wall Street Journal, confirm that Obama makes Mondale look like a moderate. For Obama pledges not just to raise taxes. He proposes to raise every major federal tax. -The big trick behind the Obama tax plan is that his refundable tax credits would primarily go precisely to those who pay little or nothing in federal income taxes. -When "tax credits" primarily go to this group in the form of checks from the government rather than...

Democratic party presidential nominee Barack Obama wants to sharply increase Social Security taxes on upper-income earners, righteously declaring that "the rich can afford it." However, the economy can't. Raising the highest federal tax take on income to over 50% would slam the economy hard by punishing success. High tax rates have been the principal barrier to growth in western Europe. High-tax countries such as Germany and France consider themselves in a boom when their growth rates reach an anemic 2%. Weakening long-term economic growth seems a peculiar way to meet Social Security's gargantuan obligations to the 78 million baby boomers...

The Congressional Budget office latest update on the demise of Social Security.

Professor Hubbard explains that Obama's claim that he will increase the payroll tax by only 4% cannot be correct. This amount will not generate the revenue necessary to maintain even current levels of entitlement spending: "The new payroll tax hike is more modest than the one Mr. Obama hinted at last fall, which might have uncapped the payroll tax entirely. But it would also do very little to shore up Social Security, since it means that no more than 15% of Social Security's long-term funding gap would be closed. Thus, if Mr. Obama is indeed opposed to reductions in Social...

Given the hearty support Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama received in Europe last month, he must have noticed the surprise and skepticism among some Germans when he asked that Europeans contribute more for defense. Many Europeans argue they cannot afford such an additional expenditure. They are right. And therein lies a cautionary tale for the United States, because continental Europe has been following something like Mr. Obama's plans for spending and taxes. Mr. Obama has revealed his plans in stages. First, on his campaign Web site, he indicated he would solve the long-run solvency of Social Security (a good thing)....

Want to do something truly patriotic to help preserve the American way of life? Don't retire. At least not yet. That's the advice of Andrew Yarrow, a vice president of the nonprofit, nonpartisan research organization Public Agenda and the director of its Washington, D.C., office. Yarrow urges the nation's 78 million baby boomers to forgo traditional or early retirement and work for a few more years, for their own sake and the good of the country. Talk back: Does delaying retirement make sense to you? If boomers all turn in their keys at age 55, 62 or 65 and head...

Peter Orszag is no conservative ideologue. The head of the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) was a scholar at the liberal Brookings Institution before being picked for his current position by Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid. Yet, Mr. Orszag recently warned that the rising cost of federal entitlement programs, particularly Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security, poses a grave threat to America's economic future. According to Mr. Orszag, without dramatic reform, the cost of those three programs alone will rise from 18 percent of GDP today to 28 percent by the middle of this century and as much as 35 percent soon...

"J'aime l'Europe." "Ich liebe Europa." Whether you say it in French or German, many on the American left harbor a not-so-secret sentiment: "I love Europe." Maybe their trans-Atlantic love affair stems from affection for the Enlightenment, an affinity for secularism or a secret hope for socialism. Regardless, liberals have longed to clone the Old Country. Or at least make America a little more like France. During presidential candidate Barack Obama's supposedly senatorial visit to Europe, the crowd of 200,000 in Berlin made it clear: "Deutschland liebt Barack" and "Barack loves Germany." Interestingly, though, in his meetings with heads of state,...

Sen. John McCain continues to slam rival Barack Obama for wanting to raise taxes on Social Security, even as he periodically explains that he might be willing to do the same. At times the Republican presidential candidate leaves audiences thinking he won't raise taxes no matter what. At other times, he says all options are on the table and parties will have to work together to find a solution. "I will not raise your taxes nor support a tax increase. I will not do it," Sen. McCain said Wednesday at a town hall meeting outside of Denver. He said Sen....

WASHINGTON -- Republican presidential candidate John McCain's signal that he may be open to a higher payroll tax for Social Security, despite previous vows not to raise taxes of any kind, is drawing sharp rebukes from conservatives. Mr. McCain's shift has come in stages, catching some Republicans by surprise. Speaking with reporters on his campaign bus on July 9, he cited a need to shore up Social Security. "I cannot tell you what I would do, except to put everything on the table," he said.

WASHINGTON (AP) - Barack Obama's bid to place a new Social Security tax on very high incomes is either a bold or foolhardy plan, depending on who critiques it. But its potential impact is almost impossible to gauge because he is providing few details on basic questions such as what the tax rate might be, what types of income would be taxed and how the taxpayers' benefits would be affected. The Democratic presidential candidate says he would work with lawmakers from both parties to resolve such matters. Voters generally applaud bipartisan cooperation, but they apparently will go to the polls...

A freedom-focused grassroots organization has issued a nationwide alert about a plan in Congress that would require credit card companies, eBay, Amazon, Google and other companies to report what you buy to the federal government. FreedomWorks chairman Dick Armey said the privacy implications are "breathtaking." "This is a provision with astonishing reach, and it was slipped into the bill just this week," he said. "Not only does it affect nearly every credit card transaction in America, such as Visa, MasterCard, Discover and American Express, but the bill specifically targets payment systems like eBay's PayPal, Amazon and Google Checkout," he said....

WASHINGTON -- The competing tax plans laid out by Sens. Barack Obama and John McCain would both add trillions of dollars to the national debt and could add to the tax system's complexity, a nonpartisan tax research group concluded Wednesday in a newly released report. Both campaigns have asserted that their plans to continue many Bush-era tax cuts and offer new reductions would aid the economy without requiring massive new spending. But the Washington-based Tax Policy Center warned that under either candidate, "the debt would likely continue to rise as it has over the past eight years." Obama's plan --...

Fyi. Neat tool. Social Security Administration unveiled its new retirement estimator on its Web site Monday. On it, it takes just a few points and clicks and some personal information to produce benefit estimates within a few minutes.http://www.ssa.gov/estimator/

New York tax filers reporting more than $375,000 a year in earned income may end up paying nearly 60% of their wages in taxes to the government under a Barack Obama presidency, economists who have analyzed his plan said. The Democratic presidential candidate is proposing not only raising the federal income tax, but also adding a Social Security tax for those Americans earning more than $250,000 a year. For New Yorkers, that could mean that if the current Social Security rate is applied, the marginal tax rate, or rate on every extra dollar earned, could rise to 58%. "This is...

Sen. John McCain continues to oppose a tax increase as part of a comprehensive remaking of the nation’s Social Security program, despite comments by a top adviser that left the door open to such a tax hike. In an interview with Bloomberg News, top McCain adviser Carly Fiorina raised the possibility of supporting higher Social Security taxes, if a bipartisan coalition is “creative enough” to only impact wealthier Americans in the comprehensive solution it develops. Fiorina’s remarks echoed comments made by McCain, R-Ariz., before he became a presidential candidate. In February 2005, McCain said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that...

For decades, a fairly consistent share of workers -- about 60 percent of women and about 52 percent of men -- have claimed a Social Security check at 62, the earliest age at which most people qualify for benefits. However, collecting Social Security before "full retirement age," which is climbing gradually to age 67, results in a permanent reduction in a person's monthly payout, says the Wall Street Journal. In a study published in June by the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College, researchers found: Some 48 percent of women and 43 percent of men who turned 62 in...

According to Phil Gramm, senior economic adviser to John McCain, the retirement age will have to be raised. Gramm told the Washington Times that a bipartisan deal might include raising the retirement age to 70 over 30 years, indexing the benefits of wealthier retirees to inflation rather than the more generous wage rate, and creating a private account program for younger workers. This means that if you are 40 and under, you will be working 5 years more than your parents did...

<p>Last week, Barack Obama revealed his plan to shore up Social Security's shaky finances by raising the income level on which the payroll tax is applied. Currently, incomes above $102,000 are exempt, with that threshold rising every year indexed to wage inflation. Mr. Obama would keep that limit in place, but then assess payroll taxes on incomes above $250,000, which his campaign claims would apply to only the richest 3% of Americans.</p>

Woman Received Social Security For Several Years, Despite Status A 74-year-old illegal immigrant from Stockton pleaded guilty Wednesday to theft of government property, U.S. attorney McGregor W. Scott said. Ramona Soto, also known as Feliciana Cortez Castro, crossed the border from Mexico into California sometime around 1960. At some point before 1968, she obtained the birth certificate of a United States citizen and applied for and received a Social Security card, Scott said. Soto applied for and began getting Social Security benefits in 2000. Scott said between 2000 and 2007, Soto fraudulently received approximately $30,400 in Title II benefits. Undocumented,...

Last week, Barack Obama revealed his plan to shore up Social Security's shaky finances by raising the income level on which the payroll tax is applied. Currently, incomes above $102,000 are exempt, with that threshold rising every year indexed to wage inflation. Mr. Obama would keep that limit in place, but then assess payroll taxes on incomes above $250,000, which his campaign claims would apply to only the richest 3% of Americans. Mr. Obama angered liberals last year when he admitted that there was a "Social Security crisis." But at least Mr. Obama's base should be appeased now that his...

Last week, Barack Obama revealed his plan to shore up Social Security's shaky finances by raising the income level on which the payroll tax is applied. Currently, incomes above $102,000 are exempt, with that threshold rising every year indexed to wage inflation. Mr. Obama would keep that limit in place, but then assess payroll taxes on incomes above $250,000... According to the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center, Mr. Obama's new tax would siphon off 0.4% of gross domestic product annually. Combined with Mr. Obama's other tax-hike initiatives, "the total tax on labor would be close to 60 percent..." But the most...

We constantly hear about the cost of earmarks and the Iraq War, but we hear nothing about "entitlements" -- the government's ironic term for programs that transfer money from people who earned it to people who didn't. Today's big problem with entitlements is that their growth will soon eat everything in the federal budget, says 20/20 host John Stossel. Last month, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) analyzed the growth of government spending and deficits for Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), ranking member of the House Budget Committee. According to the CBO report: Spending on Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security, which in...

Sen. Barack Obama has a bad idea for "extending the life of Social Security." He has proposed applying the Social Security tax to incomes above $250,000, in addition to the current tax on incomes up to $102,000... Reporters cited the Obama statement without asking for the logic behind having someone making $100,000 pay on every dime and someone making $250,000 pay on just 41% of income, while someone making $10,000,000 would pay on 98.5% of income... Neither Franklin Roosevelt...nor the intervening three dozen Congresses thought they were imposing an "unfair" system on the middle class. There is a very good...

Barack Obama has unveiled his plan for saving Social Security and it consists, unsurprisingly, of a massive tax increase. In addition to his plans for raising tax rates on capital gains and dividend income and repealing the Bush tax cuts, Obama now proposes to increase the amount of income subject to Social Security payroll (FICA) taxes. Under current law, Social Security taxes (6.2% for both employers and employees) are imposed on income up to $102,000, which is indexed for inflation in future years. Obama claims that it is “unfair” for middle-class earners to pay the Social Security tax "on every...

For all his talk of a new politics of change and unity across partisan lines, Barack Obama said last week that as President he would deny working people the freedom to choose a better deal for Social Security. No real change for that program, adopted over 70 years ago, following the model adopted by German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck in 1889. Indeed, Obama even voted against legislation to stop the longstanding raid on the Social Security trust funds. The supposedly old and stodgy John McCain, however, voted for the legislation to stop the raid, and supports allowing each worker the...

Obama: Payroll tax on incomes above $250,000 By CHARLES BABINGTON, Associated Press Writer 9 minutes ago Democrat Barack Obama would apply the Social Security payroll tax to all annual incomes above $250,000, which he says would affect the wealthiest 3 percent of Americans. The presidential candidate told senior citizens in Ohio on Friday that it is unfair for middle-class earners to pay the Social Security tax "on every dime they make, while millionaires and billionaires are only paying it on a very small percentage of their income." The payroll tax is now applied to all income up to $102,000 a...

Congress is spending us into a hole. We hear about the cost of earmarks and the Iraq war. But what about "entitlements"? That's the government's ironic term for programs that transfer money from people who earned it to people who didn't. Entitlement? How can you be entitled to someone else's money? To finance "entitlement" programs, the government threatens force against the taxpayers who provide the money. Why are people who favor compulsion called humanitarians, while those who favor freedom are stigmatized as greedy? But I digress. Today's big problem with entitlements is that their growth will soon eat everything in...

Tax Foundation: Obama’s Plan to Abolish the Social Security Wage Ceiling: A State-by-State Breakdown, by Gerald Prante: It is commonly observed that the policy ideas of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are almost identical, but Obama does have one major tax proposal that Clinton does not specifically endorse: eliminating the wage ceiling for Social Security taxes. ... [T]here has always been a ceiling on the tax, an amount of annual wages above which the tax does not apply. Right now, the wage ceiling is quite high, $102,000 for a single person ... In 2008, the maximum Social Security tax for...

The Arkansas Department of Higher Education has begun checking students’ Social Security numbers and alerting colleges and universities if they appear invalid. Jim Purcell, the department director, said Thursday that the goal is to ensure that illegal aliens aren’t allowed to pay instate tuition rates when state officials think they’re ineligible under federal law. The investigation into the Social Security numbers began last week after Purcell alerted institutions, at the direction of Gov. Mike Beebe, that they need to ask students for evidence of legal residency before allowing them to pay the cheaper in-state rates. Purcell said the first check...

The Social Security fixes touted by John McCain and Barack Obama couldn’t be any further apart — unless Obama was offering a true fix. McCain would close looming Social Security shortfalls by curbing benefit promises. Obama would leave benefits untouched and rely just on tax hikes — though not nearly enough to erase the funding gap. But their plans do share one common feature: Both would likely be dead on arrival in Congress, say Social Security reform advocates. "They’re both very politically attractive options if you’re running in a primary,” said Andrew Biggs, resident scholar at the conservative American Enterprise...

The internet and mainstream media are full of stories claiming John McCain threatens Social Security. That’s nothing new. The Democrats use this rhetoric every election. “(Fill in the name of any Republican candidate) will cut your Social Security” is a standard in the Democrat playbook. The reality is that it is the Democrats who are threatening Social Security. We’ve known for years that the Social Security system faces a structural financial crisis. The first of the Baby Boomers are beginning to retire already. Their grandchildren are the ones who are paying for their Social Security retirement benefits, and there just...

Wealthy folks worried that a new administration will raise their taxes sharply by tinkering with Social Security are making plans now to soften the blow. Campaign trail talk by Democratic Sen. Barack Obama, D.-Ill., about shoring up Social Security with a tax on higher incomes has advisors walking clients through ways to reduce the impact. Rich self-employed people would be hardest hit. Among the possible antidotes: Taking a bonus or exercising stock options this year instead of next. Another idea is for entrepreneurs to take smaller salaries to reduce their taxable income. Tax rhetoric by politicians is powerful stuff, as...

Vote Tallies1935 Social Security Act Proposal Introduced in Congress Shortly after the 74th Congress convened in January 1935, President Roosevelt sent his "Economic Security Bill" to Capitol Hill. The Administration proposal was transmitted to the Congress on January 17, 1935 and it was introduced that same day in the Senate by Senator Robert Wagner (D-NY) and in the House by Congressman Robert Doughton (D-NC) and David Lewis (D-MD). The bill was referred to Senate Finance Committee and the House Ways & Means Committee. Hearings The House Ways & Means Committee held hearings on the bill from January 21, 1935 through...

Democrat Barack Obama told seniors Sunday that Republican John McCain would threaten the Social Security that they and millions like them depend on because he supports privatizing the program.Obama turned to a bedrock, pocketbook issue as he spoke to about 130 people at an assisted living facility and sought to tie the GOP's presidential nominee-in-waiting to an unpopular President Bush on an issue that motivates seniors."Let me be clear, privatizing Social Security was a bad idea when George W. Bush proposed it, it's a bad idea today," Obama said. "That's why I stood up against this plan in the Senate...

The Social Security program was established in 1935 to provide retirement income to certain workers. The program was later expanded to cover most of the workforce. Prior to the program's development, individuals were completely responsible for funding their personal needs both during their working years and during retirement. If an individual failed to save and invest, that individual could not retire from the workforce. Like any large, complex government program, there are many components to Social Security. Ten common questions about the program are addressed below. More at Yahoo Finance..Investopedia.com

I recently wrote to Utah Senators Orrin Hatch and Robert Bennett, voicing my disapproval that they voted against the DeMint Amendment, which would put some constraints on earmarks. Bennett never bothered to answer, but Hatch did. He went on for two or three pages defending his decision. He said that earmarks are a very small part of the national budget and went on to say that the real budget-breakers are Social Security and Medicare. He then said they needed some kind of reform. I wrote the following in reply: "I [have] had several opportunities to hear you speak. I believe...

Maybe the brilliant mind of the Free Republic members can advise on this. I run a genealogy site for the family. In here we post information obtained from the Social Security Death Index (SSDI), published by the U.S. Government. Let's say someone passes on and their spouse is receiving benefits. The SSDI publishes the SS# of the passed family member. Is it possible for the spouse to have complications arising from the theft of their loved ones ID?

Lately I've been thinking of four left wing incidents that happened in Maine over the course of two years. I feel I should get them off my chest I think some of them would be interesting and I think others should know about them. The first one involves an incident that took place in the Bangor metro area two years ago. This freind of mine and his family were having trouble. He had difficulty getting by and he worked at Edwards Shop'n'save in Hampden outside Bangor. He was on food stamps and his wife was laid off and couldn't get...

This is a from column called Taking Stock by Malcolm Berko where he responds to questions concerning finances: Dear Mr. Berko: I began taking Social Security at 62 and will be 70 in a few months. I wish I had waited until age 70 to collect my benefits, which would have been almost twice as much as I’m getting now. Several years ago I heard, and I can’t recall where, that I can reapply to the Social Security Administration and get higher benefits as if I had waited until I was 70. Can you verify this, and if this is...

GOP presidential candidate John McCain released his 2006 and 2007 tax returns Friday, showing he earned more than $740,396 in the last two years combined---$45,261 of which comes from Social Security. The forms are available to the public HERE. The Arizona senator also received $114,854 for his Navy pension. During those two years McCain paid $157,231 in federal taxes. McCain donates his royalties from books and Senate pay increases to charity, most of which has gone to the John and Cindy McCain Family Foundation. The royalties from his books have totaled more than $1.8 million since 1998 and those from...

Reports that the Social Security system will soon run out of money have been greatly exaggerated. As surely as day follows night, the annual report from the board of trustees of the OASDI fund (Old Age Survivors and Disability Insurance, otherwise known as Social Security) has brought forth alarms that the fund will run out of money in the not-too-distant future. Although flush with cash now and over at least the next 10 years, the Social Security system is expected to gradually begin paying out more in benefits than it takes in from payroll taxes with the result that by...

NASHVILLE, Tennessee (AP) -- [snip] The Social Security Administration estimates that about three-quarters of illegal workers pay taxes that contribute to the overall solvency of Social Security and Medicare. The agency estimates that for 2005, the last year for which figures are available, about $9 billion in taxes was paid on about $75 billion in wages from people who filed W2 forms with incorrect or mismatched data, which would include illegal immigrants who drew paychecks under fake names and Social Security numbers. Spokesman Mark Hinkle says Social Security does not know how much of the $9 billion can be attributed...

PORT WASHINGTON, N.Y. (MarketWatch) -- Reports that the Social Security system will soon run out of money have been greatly exaggerated. As sure as day follows night, the annual report from the board of trustees of the OASDI fund (Old Age Survivors and Disability Insurance otherwise known as Social Security) has brought forth alarms that the fund will run out of money in the not-too-distant future. Although flush with cash now and over at least the next 10 years, the Social Security system is expected to gradually begin paying out more in benefits than it takes in from payroll taxes...

The former comptroller general of the United States, David Walker, said in a recent interview that the unfunded liability for Social Security and Medicare was $20 trillion in 1990. The Social Security and Medicare trustees issued their annual report last week indicating that the unfunded liability for those two programs is now $53 trillion. Congress has done absolutely nothing to curtail this national financial tidal wave. For decades, some members have talked – only talked – about the problem. But all of them have allowed the unfunded liabilities to explode, and the national debt to grow to almost $10 trillion....

For a brief moment this week, the housing crisis took a back seat to another once hot-button economic issue: the financial health of Social Security. The Social Security trustees issued their annual report Tuesday, and it showed how soon the system will run into trouble. The problem is well-known: Funded by taxes on workers' wages, the Social Security system currently takes in more funds than it has promised to pay out to retirees. And the federal government has been borrowing those surplus funds over the years. But that surplus is shrinking, and eventually the system won't be able to pay...

When I hear my fellow baby boomers gleefully talk about their elaborate plans to retire ASAP, head for the Tuscan hills, or otherwise continue their lifelong quest for "self-actualization," I have to bite my tongue. It's not that I'm all work and no play. But there's just something - make that lots of things - wrong, in general, with retiring at 55, 62 or even 65. I would go so far as to call it profoundly selfish and unpatriotic. However, if Americans retired later, either staying in their current jobs or taking up "encore careers" - what Marc Freedman of...

Leave it to the Bush administration to throw thousands of law-abiding American workers and companies off a cliff in perilous economic times. That would be the effect of its decision to press ahead with a bad idea: to force businesses to fire employees whose names don’t match the Social Security database. The purge is part of a campaign — along with scattershot workplace raids and the partial border fence — to make a show of tackling the broken immigration system. The plan rests on the assumption that people with Social Security glitches are illegal immigrants using fake identities. Companies that...

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, saying that Social Security is "financially unsustainable," called Tuesday for quick action to keep the system strong and released a report detailing the program's funding shortfalls. The federal government will have to start paying back what it owes the Social Security trust fund in 2017 so the program can continue paying 100% of benefits. By 2041, if the system is left unchanged, Social Security will only be able to pay out 78% of benefits promised to future retirees. Those are two key estimates in the Social Security and Medicare trustees' 2008 annual...