Thanks to Trail friend BiD for sharing this with us last night, a good idea that’s found its time:
Sanders-Warren plan would tax the rich to increase Social Security by $2,400 a year | Salon.com
The Social Security Expansion Act, introduced by Sanders, I-Vt., and Warren, D-Mass., in the Senate and by Reps. Jan Schakowsky, D-Ill., and Val Hoyle, D-Ore., in the House, would put an additional $2,400 in beneficiaries’ pockets each year and ensure the program is fully funded through 2096.
The bill would accomplish this by lifting the cap on the maximum amount of income subject to the Social Security payroll tax—a change that would not raise taxes on the 93% of U.S. households that make $250,000 or less per year, according to an analysis conducted by the Social Security Administration at the request of Sanders.
Currently, annual earnings above $160,200 are not subject to the Social Security payroll tax, which means that millionaires will stop contributing to the program later this month. The legislation proposes lifting this cap and subjecting all income above $250,000 per year to the Social Security payroll tax. If enacted, the bill would have raised more than $3.4 billion from the nation’s top 11 highest-paid CEOs alone in 2021, including $2.9 billion from Tesla and Twitter executive Elon Musk.
jamie et al on the Trail have been championing such a move for years. hope this time the powers that be make it so.
also from that Salon link:
a little background music on the subject. first, the first person who got a social security check:
Provided to YouTube by Smithsonian Folkways Recordings
and another by same guy
The Republican Plan for Social Security and Medicare explained as succinctly as possible by folksinger Joe Glazer.
So Kari Lake’s appeal of the dismissal of her election fraud lawsuit was rejected by the appeals court. Too bad. So sad. So like the Energizer Bunny she’ll keep on going.
pogo, did you get any of that bad weather yesterday? due to flash flooding, some major roads in these parts were closed; but thanklfully we escaped the tornado threats. today will see hints of snow here and there. jack’s so right about february.
back to thread topic
Risk of shortfall raises stakes in Social Security fight | The Hill
I just figured depression was the cost of doing business.
President Biden got a clean bill of health at his annual physical, but voters remain concerned about his age. Elsewhere, residents of East Palestine, Ohio are being offered meager compensation for the damage done by a massive chemical spill.
sturge, if you are referring to the good senator from PA,
seems to me people in the senate right now who are NOT depressed by what they see are the ones who need treatment for any mental instability.
Want to sell Honey Nut Cheerios to Boomers and Gen X, add a couple of cast members from The Office (US). I don’t know if this airs on broadcast/cable, it is on YouTube. One other thing that is obvious is the difference between your everyday, trying to break into the biz actors doing commercials, and wonderful seasoned pros.
actually i was only referring to me……it’s probably that I just haven’t experienced severe depression though it always SEEMED severe…….
Does everyone remember Al Gore’s “Lock Box”. He proposed keeping SS payments separate and reinvesting the interest in the fund. It never happened.
Decades of Boomer payments went to the general fund that were much greater than money paid out. This made it possible to steadily reduce the tax burden on the wealthiest people. Now that the income is approaching less than the outflow, the GOP doesn’t want to raise those taxes to pay it back.
In 1960 when the first of the Boomers entered the workforce, the top rate on the highest earners was 91%. Now as the majority of the Boomers are retired and receiving Social Security, the top rate on the highest earners is 37%. That is one whale of a drop with few of the funds that were collected over six decades being spent on infrastructure and other benefits to the general public.
patD – Thanks for putting up the post. I hope that all of the caterwauling from Republicans about the financial instability of SS, coupled with their public display of pseudo-support for SS at the SOTU will help the SB from Warren and Sanders.
As it solves the solvency issue about which Republicans love to complain, if they refuse to support it, they will not only piss off Boomers who are on SS, but they will erode any support from Millennials and GenXers, too.
Couple that with Republicans stripping women of the right to control their own bodies (and the invasion of privacy to do so), and Republicans choosing to protect assault weapons instead of the right to go to school or the grocery store without being shot at, and their lip service to mental health support without funding anything and, well, you’ve gotta wonder wonder who’d ever vote for ‘em, again.
Oh, yeah. Mostly white, mostly male, authoritarians who hold some bastardized view of Christianity where you don’t actually have to love one another.
****
BB – If you are a fan of The Office, as am I, they are holding Office-Con in Chicago in April. This is not the first one; it gets bigger every year. Some year, I will go just to experience it. I don’t give a flip about meeting the actors, but meeting the other fans would be interesting.
pat, can’t complain. We were lucky and just got rain – heavy at times, but the bulk of it skirted to the south of us. Must have gotten some pretty heavy rain overnight, but I slept through it. Woke up to a pretty good downpour but it’s passed now and no more rain is in the forecasts. Pretty high water in the streams but the river isn’t up yet.
Ah, yes, work-related depression. Renee may be the only one here who wouldn’t likely have that. Me, I spent 25 years really liking what I do, but over the last 5 a bit of “I hate this shit” and “Why am I still doing this at my age” are creeping in – VERY REGULARLY. But get me tinkering around the house and boat and I’m happy as a clam. (Now where did that expression come from?)
https://reasonstobecheerful.world/male-birth-control-pill/
“.. when given orally to male mice for four weeks, the pill “dramatically reduced” their sperm counts and was 99 percent effective in preventing pregnancy in their mates — without any observable side effects.”
“The pill, which was produced after a research stage involving the synthesis of around 100 different alternative chemical compounds, works by blocking the user’s proteins from binding with vitamin A, which is important for fertility in mammals.”
“Researchers will begin testing human clinical trials by the end of the year, but with the caveat that there’s no guarantee these hugely promising results in mice will translate to humans. Expectations of an immediate impact would also be premature: it will have to receive FDA approval and won’t be available for human use for years.”
Yeah, but it could diminish the rat population now. If feral cats ate chemically-sterile rats, would that, in turn impact their reproductive systems?
https://reasonstobecheerful.world/mud-building-sustainable-cities-construction/
“When you design for prestige, you choose a place where the building can be viewed from the best angle. But when you’re exposed to wind and weather, you choose a place that protects you. From time to time, you have to come back to what matters.“
“…clay cities have lasted for centuries in ancient Europe, Asia and Africa. One-third of the world population lives in clay buildings but most architects in the West disregard it as dirt.”
“If I had built the construction with cement, few women would have been employed on the site, but with clay as the main building material, the project becomes a catalyst for local development,”…
“Cement is one of the biggest climate killers on earth. Emitting 2.8 million tons of CO2 worldwide per year, the cement industry is responsible for nearly eight percent of worldwide emissions. By contrast, a crack in clay is easily repaired and if a building is no longer needed, the clay can simply be returned to earth, without toxic waste.”
Bob would’ve liked this story.
pogo – I retired after 35 years at a desk job, even though SS is many years away. Even though I’m glad I jumped, I miss having a routine and knowing what day it is. I’ve started painting, again, and wrote a terrible play, but creative dabbling is not enough. I took four vacations after I retired in September, just trying to fill up the time. Here’s some advice you didn’t ask of me: Wean yourself away slowly or have something to replace it at the ready. Tinkering is fun for awhile; just make sure you want a steady diet of it.
Thanks for this column patd…. yes many here on the Trail have talked about this… many many times.
But we all know that repubs will fight this tooth and nail.
Pogo… nope… never been depressed while weaving. I keep threatening to retire… and then I’ll see some yarn that I love on one of the sites where I make my purchases … and I buy it… lots of it.
BiD’s suggestion to you is a good one. Rick has now been retired for 10 yrs. It took him almost half of it to figure out how to make a new life. If you have a passion… that’s a good start.
https://www.texastribune.org/2023/02/16/greg-abbott-state-of-the-state-texas/
“Ahead of Abbott’s speech, the head of the Texas House Democratic Caucus, Rep. Trey Martinez Fischer, issued a memo that said “the only emergency the Governor has in mind is that no one wants him to run for president other than himself.” Abbott has not ruled out a 2024 White House run, and his aides say it is something he will consider after the session ends in late May.”
Most of Greg’s State of the State speech was spent in anti-wokeness and other nonsense.
https://www.texastribune.org/2023/02/16/texas-attorney-general-ken-paxton-corruption-doj/
“Justice Department officials in Washington, D.C., are taking over the corruption investigation into Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton after the U.S. attorney’s office in San Antonio was recused from the probe.”
“The Washington-based investigators will now look into allegations made by Paxton’s former top deputies that the attorney general took bribes to benefit a political donor who also employed a woman with whom Paxton was alleged to have had an extramarital affair. The latest news was made public less than one week after Paxton agreed to apologize and pay $3.3 million in taxpayer money to settle a whistleblower lawsuit with four of the employees who accused him of crimes. The settlement still needs court and legislative approval.”
Ken , I think I hear your uppance coming.
I’ve always loved the adobe homes of southern California built around courtyards. The deep walls always keeps the inside 20 degrees cooler than outside heat and have fountains in the court yards is even more temperature controls.
My retirement from the practice of law will be gradual – probably over the next 5 years. I don’t mind research and writing – it’s what I’m pretty decent at – and it’s something Mrs. P needs help with since it’s time consuming and she doesn’t care for it. Whenever she decides she’s ready to hang it up will likely mark my last day as well although I will have tapered off to probably less than a couple of days a week in my limited role. My post-full time law life will begin with a shitload of deferred projects around the house and a minor restoration of a car I very much enjoy but that needs a lot of TLC to reverse the signs of aging that are all too evident on it, and the Flying Scot I bought 20 years ago and still need to work on, and that guitar I started building a couple years ago and …
https://reason.com/2023/02/16/josh-hawley-social-media-ban-ages-16-facebook-instagram-twitter-youtube/?amp
“The MATURE Act would require sites like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube to verify that users are at least 16 years old. That verification process would force social media platforms to scan users’ driver’s licenses or other forms of government-issued identification, thus necessitating a staggering degree of data collection on the part of the companies.”
Josh Hawley wants personal data to be given to to big tech to prove your age if you set up a new social media account.
“Hawley’s legislation does exempt social media sites from seeking age verification of current users, which makes some sense, though could easily create a situation where some young people still have access to a platform even though many of their peers do not.”
“But the aim of the legislation is really worth some scrutiny, including from Republicans. After all, what exactly is conservative about suddenly blocking millions of kids’ access to the internet?”
“Foes of social media say that it is harming young people and point to rising rates of depression among teenage girls as one consequence.”
Not so fast.
“As Reason’s David McGarry pointed out in a recent article, research shows that young people who were virtually connected to each other during the pandemic had better mental health outcomes than their peers.”
https://www.foxbusiness.com/markets/ohio-train-crash-norfolk-southern-pay-inconvenience-fees
“… the company has paid out more than $2.2 million in direct financial assistance to more than 1,530 families and a number of businesses to cover costs related to the evacuation of the area.”
“Local residents say the freight carrier is offering anyone with the East Palestine zip code of 44413 a $1,000 check, referring to the payments as an “inconvenience fee” which will not bar residents from bringing suit against the railway company in the future.”
Watch the episode of The Trouble w/Jon Stewart I posted yesterday. This a drop in the bucket. At least they didn’t have to sign away their rights for an “inconvenience” check.
Just reading what my new ACA insurance says about “free” annual exams. They are NOT free. All of the stuff that’s normally included in lab work is subject to “cost sharing.” Even the copay for follow-up labs costs more than double what they did with previous policies. And, you have to use their contacted lab and their contracted pharmacy. I think I want to move to Denmark.
https://gothamist.com/news/george-santos-sister-who-gave-thousands-to-her-brothers-campaign-settles-her-eviction-case
“While allegedly withholding monthly rent payments of $2,050 between March 2020 and December 2022, Tiffany Santos donated nearly $30,000 to her brother’s campaign and other Republican causes, federal records show.”
“While she received more than $30,000 in emergency rental assistance through the state’s COVID-era ERAP program, defraying what she owed, she hadn’t made a single rent payment since March 2020, housing court records show.”
If she misused government funds, and instead gave them to George’s campaign, did she defraud the government?
“She was listed as having “operational control” of Rise NY PAC, a political action committee that supported her brother’s campaign, according to state Board of Elections records. In federal campaign donation records, Tiffany Santos listed various professions, stating she was self-employed, retired, the president of the Rise NY PAC, and a creative director at a marketing agency.”
It looks like it runs in the family.
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