If they dissolved SS today your tax burden would not significantly decrease. The pirates would be right back in your pocket with some other excuse. At least this way a little money trickles down to the working people. Most of the SS money still goes to big money, they are just bent because the little people handle it, dirty it, before it goes home again.

Once again, if jobs were available that paid a living wage SS would work just fine. When the powers that be sent the jobs overseas they knew SS would be underfunded.

Maybe I don't know the definition of "tax". The government compels us to pay into Social Security out of our gross pay. That seems like a tax to me.

You think Warren Buffet should voluntarily pay more taxes because of his opinions on tax rates for the rich. Shouldn't you do the same with SS and refuse to take benefits?

Wealth distribution PBS news hour.
Top 20%=85% of the wealth. If you include SS benefits, as wealth, the top 20%=55% of the wealth.

Don't forget that your employer ( or you, if self employed) pays a like amount. Talk about sneaky financing! The true cost of hiring an employee has to include both sides of the SS "tax"--you don't think the employer takers that out of his pocket, do you? Its just part of his cost of doing business and his cost of having you as an employee.
Why do you think it was set up this way? Obviously it was done to hide the full amount paid into SS.

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1982 300SD " Wotan" ..On the road as of Jan 8, 2007 with Historic Tags

I'm not understanding your logic so please explain it CLEARLY for me.

Your logic goes that IF I am against something, I should not collect it. Fair enough.

HOWEVER, if that something took something from me, what is the logic of saying that because I am against it, I should not attempt to recover my money?

Now if I didn't pay into it, I can understand your point. What you are asking me to do is to forfeit my claim simply because I disagree with it ALTHOUGH I WAS FORCED TO GIVE UP MY MONEY IN THE FIRST PLACE. So if you write me a bad check, should I give up my claim on it simply because I disagree with writing bad checks?

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So your contention is Americans are too stupid to keep THEMSELVES out of poverty? If so, maybe everyone should be a ward of the state. It is a highly successful program for making dependents, I'll give you that.

How did you determine that? Is it determined with the total administrative cost? How much did the congressmen who worked on it, working on it and will work on it cost in time?

Good selling point. Got a magic wand to make those adjustments?

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Oh, you got him there. Kudos. Wanna bet that if we hire a forensic accountant to go over his books, he comes out looking better than the administrators of the plan, aka Congress? Obviously Bot is not as apt at juggling money since he has no pools of funds to juggle from whereas congress has shown exceptional ability to write fiction that is equal to and better than a truck driver's log book.

So Bot, you think that a neutral accountant can show your managing of money to be better than Congress? You feel you want to be part of the bet if HONUS has the stones to take my challenge?

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Some comes out of the employer's pocket and some comes out of the employee's. Some of it comes out of the employers pocket because:That contribution increases the cost of doing business without providing a direct enhancement to the employer's products or services. I would think, therefore, that it comes out of profits and therefore out of the employer's pocket.Seems like a plausible explanation.

No.

I'm not entirely clear on what you are proposing, but it doesn't appear as if my stones are the ones that would be tested by your "challenge."

And then you woke up and discovered the truth. You cannot be so naive to think it stops there, can you? If it costs more to do business, the balance comes from YOU.

When I hire an employee, I have to consider the WHOLE package and not just the wages. That means insurance, vacation, sick leave, etc, etc.

As I have asked you before, simply tell me how much taxes I paid if I made 100K. It includes EVERYTHING lumped in and not just the IRS figure. If the business gets taxed more or the cost goes up, it gets passed onto the customer. Unlike the govt, it cannot print more money to make payroll.

You want 100% coverage on insurance? Sure. I'll give it to you but I'll take it somewhere else. Either out of your paycheck or pass it onto the customer or both. You want 3 weeks of paid vacation? Sure. I'll pay out less somewhere to make the number work or add that to the cost of doing business and charge the customer more or both.

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91 Vette with 383 motor
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Simple. You wanted to compare Bot to the US Govt. To compare, lets see how they both handle their money. What do you want to bet that Bot can handle his money and spend within his means better than the US govt?

Bet enough money and cover the cost of the forensic accountant and we can get going with it. We are currently, EVEN WITH ACCOUNTING TRICKS, spending more than we earn, right? Bot has few avenues for tricks so it should be straightforward to prove if he can spend within his means. Lets see if Bot is spending money on his revolving credit card balance which is getting larger and larger every day.

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That's what I just said.You asked me that before? I assume that my answer then was, "How would I know?" If I didn't get back to you when you asked before, I will do so now: How would I know?

I'm afraid you have me at a disadvantage. When you said , I interpreted it to mean that it stops at the employer's pocket, IOW the employer eats the cost. Can you clarify.

Fair enough. You don't know. I also mentioned that my accountant doesn't either. So, if nobody knows, is it safe to assume that we cannot know when the cost is passed onto the consumer, IOW an INDIRECT TAX, but a tax, nonetheless? If we don't know, we don't really know how much we paid in taxes, whether it is too much or too little, right? If the business cannot simply print money, where do you think the shortfall goes? If the business continues to absorb shortfalls, what happens to the business?

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01 Ford Excursion Powerstroke
99 E300 Turbodiesel
91 Vette with 383 motor
05 Polaris Sportsman 800 EFI
06 Polaris Sportsman 500 EFI
03 SeaDoo GTX SC Red
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04 Tailgator 21 ft Toy Hauler
11 Harley Davidson 883 SuperLow

In that same post, I said this:I wouldn't read any significance into my ignorance of how much you paid in taxes. That your accountant doesn't know is more troubling. I don't know where you get the idea that nobody knows "how much taxes [you] paid if [you] made 100K." Why wouldn't you just look at the tax tables and figure it out?