Obama says taxes should be raised on him. That's fine by me. He should feel free to voluntarily send all the money he wants to the government or any other groupd or individual of his choosing. Except that Obama doesn't really want to do that. What he really wants is to be generous with your money. If somene wants to give your money away, whether you want to give it away or not, that person is NOT being generous. You can only be generous with your own money.
The issue is Social Security taxes. Obama wants to raise them. Perhaps, if we privatized social security and allowed people to invest their retirement money as they wished -- in, say, the stock market, which if we average out booms and busts grows at 10% a year -- rather than in low yield (at or below the inflation rate) government bonds (which is how the government has managed to squander all your social security money, BTW -- by loaning that money to itself at a low interest rate so politicians can buy votes from the electorate), then we wouldn't need to raise the SS tax. Hmm, I wonder if there's any reason why people like Obama wouldn't want to privatize social security, but would rather raise your taxes?
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When one looks at places like Chile, where privatized social security actually work, one does wonder why so many in Congress are afraid to try it here. The thing is, as is the case of many of FDR's programs, social security is a sacred cow, not to be touched. The fact that FDR himself voiced his preference that the program be operated by the private sector is ignored, and social security has been sold to the public as a "benifit."
One thing about George W. Bush I admire is that he thought outside the box on Social Security, something no politician, Demcratic or Republican is willing to do.
As a result, Social Security is a money trap that benifits no one, not even the government.
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