Paul Ryan Rehashes an Old Social Security Lie—at Your Expense
Michael does an excellent job of debunking the big lie that the GOP tells about Social Security. I heard this whopper from my parents growing up, and this litany has become so embedded in Republican mythos that it’s not even challenged or examined by even moderate republicans any more. He also does a great job laying out exactly how this lie is used to screw the middle class in payroll taxes.
What’s at issue is a passage in the budget resolution Ryan released today, the fourth annual version of his “Path to Prosperity” budget. Like the others, this budget calls for large cuts in government programs for the poor, in order to preserve tax breaks for the rich and finance lavish defense spending.
But what concerns us here is his description of the Social Security trust fund, which currently holds close to $3 trillion in U.S. Treasury bonds, all purchased with payroll tax income paid by working men and women since 1983.
The idea of building up this trust fund was to bank excess tax revenues against the looming wave of baby boomer retirements, which has now begun. But the trust fund is still growing, because Social Security’s income streams—the payroll tax, interest on its bonds, and revenues from income taxation of benefits—still are sufficient to cover current benefits, and then some.
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