What’s the point of this article? To pave the way for cuts in Social Security? The government can afford trillions in overseas spending, including pointless wars - Afghanistan still billions a month- but there’s no money for social security?
The point is to make people, like many on this site who call SS recipients leaches on the young, feel righteous.
It appears we have a greater responsibilty to subsidize socialism in other nations through our military exertions than we do to fulfill our commitments to American retirees who have paid into the system all their life. People like Rubio who drone on endlessly about committments to foreigners never seem to repect obligations to Americans.
Ding, ding, ding! We have a winner! That is exactly what the article is about, reducing or eliminating SS by means testing.
The article is pure bull shite.
Obviously.
They want to pave the way for means testing. Now, consider:
- If you have any reasonable amount of income, you pay tax on your Social Security above a threshold. So, you are means tested to as high as a marginal rate in the low 40's (37% Federal, roughly 5% in many states). - If you have a decent income, your Medicare premiums vary from the low of $99 to a high of roughly $500 per month--they are means tested.
Still the idea behind SS "means testing" is to suck more out of you if you have a decent salary out of your pre-retirement wages (because it is a savings plan, haha), and then tax you at not 42%, but 100% by denying you the funds that you were forced to give to SS. You would get consfiscation of your SS pension if you were successful in saving outside the system.