10/24: Responses to Questions [2024]

• Who was the Best U.S. President after FDR for Social Security Recipients? [ssr]
  Richard Nixon introduced: automatic annual COLAs to help benefits keep pace with inflation, automatic increases in the maximum earnings subject to FICA taxes, and early retirement at age 62.
• Who are the Two Worst U.S. Presidents for the Future of Social Security? [ssr]
  George W. Bush and Donald Trump. Both substantially reduced the taxes on gifts and estates.
  In 2006 Bush signed the Tax Increase Prevention and Reconciliation Act (TIPRA) of 2005 with an effective date of 2010 for the backdoor Roth IRA. This delay was designed to avoid recognition of the substantial future revenue loses to the U.S. Treasury.
  Our proposal to save Social Security will include the entire value of Roth IRAs in estates, limit the tax-free amount in Roth IRAs, and require annual minimum distributions.

10/4: Research: The GOP Wants to Defund Social Security [ssr]

Most people who are familiar with the history of Social Security are aware of Thomas Paine's 1795 pamphlet entitled "Agrarian Justice." He proposed to use a 10% tax on inheritances to provide an annual benefit to be paid to every person age 50 and older, to guard against poverty in old-age. You can verify this by visiting the Social Security Administration History Page on Thomas Paine.

Thomas Paine is known for being the author of "Common Sense" that was featured within the last 12 months as the first book to read on C-Span's Books That Shaped America. Early in his writing career Thomas Paine used the pseudonym Common Sense. Mr. Common Sense certainly had a common-sense proposal to tax inheritances to fund an old-age pension for the poor.

One must ask: "Have any members of the House Ways and Means Subcommittee on Social Security considered a common sense proposal to use a tax on estates to support Social Security?" They certainly should be presumed to be aware of what Thomas Paine proposed in Agrarian Justice.

10/2: The Republicans Plan to Defund Social Security

On January 18, 2024, Representative Randy Feenstra (IA-4). a Republican member of the Subcommittee on Social Security proposed H.R. 7035, the bill to Repeal the Estate Tax. The names of the GOP House Members who are co-ponsors of this bill are listed on two pages of Defund Social Security. I hope this list will be downloaded and used to defeat these GOP members who want to Defund Social Security.

2/18: A Proposal to Save Social Security

• All federal assistance should be funded from general tax revenue. The intent of the Social Security Act of 1935 was to provide funds from general tax revenues to the states to cover the blind, surviving spouses and dependents.
  The simplist and fairest way to save Social Security is based on these principles:
  1. secure the current promise of Social Security to provide Federal Assistance to surviving spouses and dependents.
  2. use general tax revenues to cover the federal assistance benefits that are now included in Social Security.
  3. do not expand the promise of benefits within Social Security.
  4. minimize intergeneration transfers by taxing gifts and estates.
  5. change the benefit formula of old-age benefits to insure that benefits are proportional to contributions
  6. exclude disability benefits from Social Security,
     Disability is more appropriate to be considered as a health condition. The cost of disabilities that are related to military service should be funded by the Veterans Administration.
• Do you know how the current asylum-seekers, refugees and illegal immigrants are threatening the viability of our entitlement programs? That's Biden's biggest mistake and now his legacy. Do you know what the costs of anchor babies are? The CBO doesn't tell us unless if affects their 10-year federal budget projections. Do you know how both political parties and the Supreme Court have created incentives for poor immigrant familes to come here?
• Are you aware of the Republican Party's barbell tax strategy of increasing the child tax credit at the same time they are rewarding their mega donors with income and estate tax cuts, the backdoor Roth IRA, Donor Advised Funds, perpetual Dynasty Trusts, Opportunity Zones, and the Qualified Business Income Deduction. They have created tax benefits with the help of Democrats to reduce the payroll taxes that help fund Social Security and Medicare.
• Our goal in reforming Social Security will attempt to provide benefits that are actuarially proportional to your contributions. To accomplish this goal will be to focus on increasing the tax on capital gains, trusts, the Roth IRA, gifts and estates. State and local government already impose property taxes on real estate. A few states impose taxes on intangible property like stocks, bonds, mortgages, copyrights, and patents. A more practical way is to impose a tax on assets at the time there is a transfer of ownership The only exemption from this tax at the time of realization and recognition might occur when assets are transfered between spouses.