What We are Up Against

As tax time approaches, it is hard not to think about the cruelest tax of all. Social Security is the winner. Don't get me wrong, I think the Social Security program is a good one, but no program better illustrates how the public is duped than Social Security. I always challenge people to walk down the street. Stop ten people, ask each of them if they know there is a seven percent tax break for people making over $97,500. On every dollar you make over that amount you pay no Social Security tax. It is the biggest tax break for the wealthy ever invented. However, your average simple minded person wandering around in the fog is unaware of this. My bet is nine out of ten people you stop on the street will not know about this outrageous tax break for the wealthy. If people paid Social Security on all the money they made our deficits would disappear. Anyone with any sense, or any sense of fairness would ask, why isn't the Social Security tax a progressive tax, rather than a regressive tax? The simple answer is people are so ignorant they don't even know what is happening. For those that do ask the question, there is a deceptive answer. A typical conservative will spin it this way. Well, everyone gets the same amount out, so why should the rich pay more? What they fail to mention is that Social Security was intended as an insurance program. People were being insured against being poor when they were old. If you are old and NOT poor, you should get nothing, but the clever right wing has twisted the whole system so you can be old and rich, and still get Social Security. The ridiculous illusion goes on and somehow the rich end up with a seven percent tax break. If you used this logic you could apply it to anything. You could say that the rich use the highways no more than the poor, so their taxes should be no more than the poor's taxes. Obama proposed justice be done with this system and the rich pay their share for Social Security. Hillary retorted, "That would be a tremendous tax increase". Of course it would on exactly the people who could afford it. The whole thing is the biggest scam imaginable, and no one understands or cares.