I am at the age where we have to take RMDs and I have a small pension it pushes our AGI where we have to pay the max (85%) on our SS.

I don't mind paying my taxes but it is wrong that the wealthiest in America pay less than even a middle class retired couple - that is not right.

The reason it happens is because the people capable of changing the law are wealthy themselves. It is truly like the "fox watching the henhouse".

As I have said many times, America is not a Democracy it is an Oligarchy. The wealthy control us and to think otherwise is simply naive. ☮

I’ll work another ten years or so. My hubs has been on disability for a long time (blind)

We’re reasonably comfortable but we do live in California in a high cost area. Thank dog we bought our house decades ago.

It costs about 5 grand in tax for us, not insignificant

I too am fed up with endless war, direct and indirect, leaving wakes of destruction and no gain beyond the warmongers' coffers. And then we/the MSM pretend that the costs of war don't drain us – that rampant inflation is just a hangover from the pandemic, or whatever.

– Hermann Goering, per Nuremberg Diary (Farrar, Straus & Co 1947)

I looked up the Beatitudes, and see that there are several versions
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beatitudes

But the most common ones in practice go like this:



I of course disagree, but it's quite prevalent.
Those who understand that real wealth is not in the illusions above need to convince others, one person at a time.

I have always held a few beliefs, starting with "thou shall not kill", but that seems to be the first resort rather than the last, or the non-resort. When I got the call, I joined the Coast Guard, thank goodness for that.

I have a set of beliefs, and don't add amendments, revisions and conditions to them, nor do I mark them up with sharpies. They work for me and I am glad to share, setting an example when I can (It worked for my fabulous daughter).

To me, killing is unconscionable, stealing is unconscionable, and of course, the world as it exists today is unconscionably sick and insane. To the extent that I can, I practice what I say. (and piano) That includes gratitude.

If more people learned from history instead of using it as a source of resentment and vengeance .... Oh well.

Anrcdote:
https://democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=18849546

think the odds are that a bill taxing the rich at the rate they should be paying and without all the exemptions they shouldn't have, will become law? Zero or none?

I see what you did there. 🤭
Read your post too fast...

have little or no support for their efforts.

Passed in 1983 with bipartisan support.

Last edited Sun Apr 14, 2024, 12:16 AM - Edit history (1)

in the world, namely U.S. Treasury securities.

BY LAW, each year the surpluses are loaned to the federal government

and no, that didn't start with Reagan. Nor did it start with LBJ. It has been that way from the beginning.

The government in turn creates special issue treasury securities that are deposited in the Social Security and Medicare trust funds. These earn interest -- paid in the form of more special issue treasury securities. In a year when Social Security revenues fall short of benefits then trust fund securities are redeemed to make up the difference. This is already occurring:

"At the end of 2021, Social Security’s trust fund reserves were $2,852 billion, having decreased by $56 billion over the year." - Source: 2022 Trustees report, https://www.ssa.gov/OACT/TRSUM/2022/index.html

Similarly the Medicare Trust fund.

Anything you read about "pilfering" of the programs is literal fucking bullshit.

Social Security Trustees 2022 report -- https://www.ssa.gov/OACT/TRSUM/2022/index.html
from the above link:

Federal law requires that the Trustees invest all excess funds in interest-bearing securities backed by the full faith and credit of the United States. The Department of the Treasury currently invests all program revenues in special non-marketable U.S. Government securities, which earn interest equal to rates on marketable securities with durations defined in law. The balances in the trust funds, which represent the accumulated value, including interest, of all prior program annual surpluses and deficits, provide automatic authority to pay benefits.

(By the way, the 4 trustees are all high level Biden administratrion appointees. This isn't a report by right wing economists or the right wing media or such)

The report is signed by:

Janet Yellen, Secretary of the Treasury, and Managing Trustee of the Trust Funds.
Xavier Becerra, Secretary of Health and Human Services, and Trustee.
Martin J. Walsh, Secretary of Labor, and Trustee.
Kilolo Kijakazi, Acting Commissioner of Social Security, and Trustee.

(and if some idiot says, well what do you expect liberal Democrats to say? Well, the same language is in Trump era SS Trustees reports too, for example this snapshot from 2019: https://web.archive.org/web/20191125074043/https://www.ssa.gov/oact/trsum/ )

Actuarial Note #142 of January 1999 (how interest rate determined, the trust fund securities etc.) http://www.ssa.gov/OACT/NOTES/note142.html

And as the above said, they earn interest that goes into the trust funds and are invested in new treasuries.

If they were put in a "lock box", they wouldn't earn a fucking dime in interest or any other kind of earnings. So like I say, I don't know what Al Gore was getting at, to put it nicely.

I have treasuries too, about 10% of my investable assets. (I'm kinda old and invest conservatively with a 60% equity and 40% fixed income allocation).

I also suffer paying income tax on 85% of my SS benefits.

What makes it easier to stomach is that income taxes on SS benefits goes into Social Security, NOT into the general fund.

I agree with your OP that more, a lot more of this, should be paid by the billionaires and corporados.

and a very small amount (around $400.00) federal.

At least part of why I pay so little is that my financial consultant rearranged my money and investments to get them into tax free or tax deferred accounts.

People here constantly trash financial advisors, and I do not understand why.