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Go Home Dismantling the GOP’s Odious Philosophy of Voter...

PLANK AUGUST 3, 2012

Dismantling the GOP’s Odious Philosophy of Voter Suppression

BY WILLIAM GALSTON

Republicans should not be surprised if voter laws becomes a major topic of debate this election season—they will be the ones responsible for making it so. Over the past two years, the GOP has made a concerted attempt in a number of states to tighten voter registration procedures, cut back on alternatives such as early voting, and—most controversially—require would-be voters to show state-issued photo IDs as proof of identity. Because there’s such little evidence that these changes are needed to eliminate widespread voter fraud, it’s hard to avoid the conclusion that many Republican legislators want to discourage voting among groups—especially minorities and the poor—that cast their ballots mainly for Democrats. 

But it’s worth remarking that beneath these crass political motives are some deeper moral issues. Proponents and opponents of these changes agree on one thing: Voting will be harder, and turnout will be lower. But is that necessarily a bad thing? Proponents think not. Speaking for many others, Florida State Senator Mike Bennett said, “I don’t have a problem making [voting] harder. I want people in Florida to want to vote as bad as that person in Africa who walks 200 miles across the desert. This should be something you do with a passion.”

There’s something to this, of course. It is morally gratifying to witness the joy of peoples who are able to vote for their own representatives after decades of authoritarian governments—even more so when they have won this ability through sacrifice and struggle that have cost some their lives. In the United States, the movement that enabled long-disenfranchised African Americans to cast their ballots represented a moral high point in American history. African Americans who participated or lived through that struggle have never taken voting for granted, and they have worked hard to pass on that sentiment to their children.  At the same time, they insist—undeniably—that their struggle should not have been necessary: The struggle was simply the means to attain a civic status that every citizen should enjoy.

That is why African Americans have a problem with making voting harder, as should we all. It’s common knowledge that poorer and less educated citizens have a harder time navigating a system that is already the most complex least voter-friendly of all the Western democracies (which helps explain why our turnout is so low). Facially neutral registration and voting requirements will have asymmetrical effects, a fact that only the willfully blind can deny.

But this argument raises another question: Are these effects necessarily a bad thing, morally speaking? Some arch-conservatives have gone so far as to argue that encouraging the poor to vote actually undermines just and limited government, because the poor will use their political power to take economic resources from those who are not poor. One such conservative, Matthew Vadum, put it this way:

Why are left-wing activist groups so keen on registering the poor to vote?  Because they know that the poor can be counted on to vote themselves more benefits by electing redistributionist politicians . . . .  Registering them to vote is like handing out burglary tools to criminals.

This is a classic argument against democracy that traces all the way back to the Greeks. It disappeared from serious American political discourse when states eliminated their property qualifications for voting nearly two centuries ago.  In practice, America’s poor have opted for the American Dream of equal opportunity over aggressively redistributionist politics—witness their rejection of stringent estate taxes, a stance most liberals regard as patently self-defeating and view with incomprehension.

The deepest argument revolves around the moral status of voting. Last year, Minnesota House Speaker Kurt Zellers said, “I think [voting is] a privilege, it’s not a right. Everybody doesn’t get it because if you go to jail or if you commit some heinous crime your [voting] rights are taken away. This is a privilege.”

This claim rests on an obvious confusion. Anybody who believes in the Declaration of Independence will affirm that liberty is among our inalienable rights. Nonetheless, certain sorts of crimes are thought to warrant incarceration, which is a deprivation of liberty. Does that transform liberty from a right into a privilege? Of course not.

The real logic is different. Our society presumes (as some do not) that all human beings are equal in their possession of both human and civil rights and that the burden of proof in restricting those rights must be set very high. Some people argue that no reason is compelling enough to override the right to life, for example, which is why the death penalty will always be a contentious issue.

Hardly anyone makes that argument about liberty, which is why life sentence without parole is widely regarded as a legitimate substitute for the death penalty. Without the ability to deprive some law-breaking citizens of their liberty, our entire justice system would come crashing down. But no one thinks that turns liberty into a privilege.

Voting is much the same. All citizens are presumed to be equal in their right to vote. Yes, most felons do forfeit their right to vote, at least temporarily. (We argue about whether permanent forfeiture is legitimate, even after felons have “paid their debt to society.”) But if we take the equal right to vote seriously, we must not pass laws that implicitly treat voting as a privilege some are fitter than others to enjoy.  To confuse that right with a privilege is to change the understanding of American citizenship, and not for the better.

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59 comments

So readers do not forget, the constitution does not include a right to vote. Rather, several amendments prohibit a denial of the right to vote for reasons of race or gender. Demoracy in America did not arise out of thin air but by virtue of the force of will of many men and women over the course of the nation's history. See Sean Wilenz's great book on the subject for the period from Jefferson to Jackson. Many of today's Republicans wish to turn back the clock, and not just in matters of voting. In a democracy no right is more fundamental than the right to vote. Unfortunately, many Republicans are not lower case d democrats, no matter how pious they may be in their claims of patriotism.

- rayward

August 3, 2012 at 1:33pm

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"Unfortunately, many Republicans are not lower case d democrats, no matter how pious they may be in their claims of patriotism." Hear, hear, Ray. I am the only one who recalls that old Reagan-era nostrum, "We're a republic, not a democracy"? There was much more truth to that one-liner than meets the eye.

- wildboy

August 3, 2012 at 1:50pm

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"Because they know that the poor can be counted on to vote themselves more benefits " And the rich won't? Give me a break. They'll use it to get politicians in office that will lower their taxes, vote them subsidies, and make sure workers are not empowered in any way to demand fair compensation for their labor. And don't get me started on the middle-class and older people generally, who will use it if at all possible to make sure politicians provide for their comfortable old age, whether they were smart enough to actually save for their own retirement or not. "But if we take the equal right to vote seriously, we must not pass laws that implicitly treat voting as a privilege some are fitter than others to enjoy. " Well, I would disagree with this in theory, although probably not in practice. I do think that there is justification for making voting a bit more dear, and much more focused on the general welfare, rather than our individual welfare. I just don't know how to do it - although I have long toyed with the notion that we ought to give extra voting authority to younger people, who have a greater stake in the general future of the nation than do those of us on the downhill side of life. Maybe give everybody a number of votes proportional to their remaining life expectency ....

- IowaBeauty

August 3, 2012 at 6:32pm

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Gee whiz, this is an issue that befuddles me as a Canadian, who has to show some kind of paper ID to vote. I can't for the life of me see the common sense of most of the arguments Galston rehearses. They seem either or both overblown and abstract, not to say remote. Anyone making arguments about the virtue of making qualifying to vote more difficult and hence restricting the right to vote, anyone confusing rights and privileges in relation to the right to vote, anyone holding up the examples of going through hell and high water to ensure exercising a newly acquired and hard fought right to vote as infoming policy decisions about voting needs to get in touch with their travel agent for the return tickets from Mars. Too, analogies from denying felons permanently the right to vote, an entirely separate and discrete issue, to voter ID laws seem misconceived. All that said, even if the effect of voter ID laws may be some disenfranchisement of the most marginal amongst us, I can't see the principled objection to them. I don't understand how most people who can otherwise function, albeit somewhat minimally, in North American society with sufficient wherewithal to identify themselves for such purposes as they need to, being unable to get some kind of minimal identifying documentation for voting. For those so without the intellectual ability and social functionality to do so--and decidedly not the physical inability, and for whom some provision must be made-- I'd wonder about their competence to vote. It's not using walking 200 miles in Africa as a model or making voting an unreasonably difficult right to exercise to require the physically able to get minimal documentary ID proof for voting, something they may do, voting, once a year if that often. And let the parties and community organizations help those in this who need help. It'd be a great civics project.

- basman

August 3, 2012 at 10:49pm

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The benefit of voting is very little that it ensures the most effective government. [No system yet developed reliably provides for effective government, from philosopher king to mob rule and everything in between.] Democracy mainly makes it more difficult to oppress by diffusing the power to do so (the instinct to be corrupted and oppress probably in most of our hearts) among so many people it's difficult for any one or 5,000 of us to get in the saddle.

- skahn

August 3, 2012 at 11:12pm

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I agree with you, Iowa, about old people, of which I am one. We have way too much political clout in relationship to our contribution to society. And there are many among us who vote only for those who promise to keep the free benefits coming. And then there's the problem of extreme dishonesty among the elderly. Some of the scams that seniors whom I know personally are pulling drops my jaw. And it's not just poor seniors. Many retired people hide their sometimes-substantial life savings by giving it to relatives years before they retire for safe keeping, so they can claim upon retirement that they're poor and entitled to collect every government benefit under the sun, including food stamps and Medicaid subsidies to pay their Medicare premiums and co-pays. Then they slyly go to relatives for withdrawals on their accounts for "luxuries." Those relatives are going to get the remainder of that money anyway, so it works out well for everyone, except everyone who isn't slimy, like the taxpayers. But, Iowa, these old scammers learned to do this kind of thing from youth on. They were just scamming others than the government when they were young--their family, friends, landlords, merchants, the medical industry for free care, etc. Human nature has never changed, and it starts kicking in early in life. Seniors just don't jump up and start scamming when they retire. It's in their DNA. It probably started with our distant ancestors, the hominids. Young people don't vote for the general welfare any more than seniors do. Why didn't youth turn out in waves in 2004 and put the brakes on G.W. Bush's disastrous war in Iraq? Because there was no draft and they weren't in any physical danger. They turned out to vote for Obama in 2008, because they identified with his youth and believed his promises to help them in particular. I do agree with you that the rich vote government benefits for themselves, just as the poor do. But they do it differently. They vote for both major parties--with money.

- magboy47.

August 3, 2012 at 11:40pm

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Iowa writes: "And the rich won't? Give me a break. " The difference, of course, is that the rich pay for those benefits. The poor do not. When the rich vote, it is to control the allocation of THEIR money THEY have paid to the government. When the poor vote, it is the control the allocation of OTHER's money that THEY have not earned. Europe is very different here. The working poor are paying enormous taxes, and thus deserve a voice in where their money goes. our working poor are paying ZERO taxes. Should they have a say in where the money goes? Pre-emptive: SS and medicare aren't taxes. A person earning $40K/year does pay state, gas and sales taxes to the tune of $4 to $5K each year, but what they get from government FAR surpasses that $4 to $5K they pay in. Want a voice in government? Do like Europe does and pay tax.

- seattleeng

August 4, 2012 at 12:27am

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Basman writes: "I can't for the life of me see the common sense of most of the arguments Galston rehearses. " Amen. A person with any any ID is frozen in US society. They cannot work. They cannot have a bank account. They cannot send or receive money. They cannot even rent DVDs. They are forced into a cash economy and cannot even pay an electric bill without a trip to the utility company. And to the dems, that is just fine. A more rational argument argument would be "OK, everyone needs an ID to vote. And as dems, what we are going to do is ensure every single person in this country as the basic ID needed to at least have a checking account..." But it seems dems don't really give a crap about arming the least fortunate with the tools needed to minimally function. Instead, I suspect they are most keen on ensuring the great dem tradition of allowing the dead to vote remains strong.

- seattleeng

August 4, 2012 at 12:31am

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Seattle: Your math is challenged in the extreme. First, the working poor, and the mast majority of all voters who live on earned compensation, pay at minimum 14% of their compensation in taxes in the form of the payroll tax, and then in most states pay out another chunk in sales taxes. (And don't bother to argue that the payroll tax isn't a general tax - it's is by law parked in Federal notes, the proceeds from which were then spent in the general fund, and which will be repaid from the general fund. It's a general tax thinly disguised as an old age insurance premium). Second, the policies favored by the Republican rich at least have unequivocally resulted in a net income transfer from the working class (whose real income in society has not show net growth commensurate with the economy's growth under these policies for many years) to the well off (whose income has grown significantly in that same period. It is not just THEIR money the spending of which they are directing, it a substantial fraction of the work product of the entire society, and they are beyond argument in favor of spending on themselves. Now, I'll be the first to admit that they've had plenty of help at the voting booth from working people in getting those results - a fact which says more about the stupidity of working class voters than about the lack of cupidity on the part of the well off. So, yeah, "give me a break."

- IowaBeauty

August 4, 2012 at 8:27am

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magboy, My argument about proportional voting was of course only partly serious. There are of course people on the make at every age. And of course, our younger set are notoriously poor voters compared to the older folks. But by and large, in my experience at least, those younger people who do vote do so with an eye toward where society may end up 30 and 50 years down the line. One need only look at school bond issue votes in our local communities. Places with large elderly populations struggle like hell to fund education investment compared to those with more balanced demographies.

- IowaBeauty

August 4, 2012 at 8:32am

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basman, having lived in China (which has no rights to vote and requirements to have papers is odious in the extreme, though the hukou system is thankfully walling by the wayside) to Mexico, where voting participation is 62%. They also have id but unlike Mexico, whose voting rules are set by the federal government, the United States leaves many voting requirements up to individual states. Therefore in Mexico getting an id is very easy, even in the smallest towns in the middle of nowhere have stations. They also cost nothing and the government makes a concerted effort to aid everyone as this type of id is generally the only id that millions of poor indigenous people will ever have. It is far more a pain in the ass to get such things done in the states, every state has its own rules as to what it requires. And without a car, forget about it. In Pa. most DMV's are located in out of the way places or on strip malls. And there is one social security office in my city with long wait times (I had to fix my youngest son's social security card as they spelled Francis Franics on it, and I had to basically waste two whole days to get their eff up fixed) And the funny thing is, as someone who has voted absentee the last few elections I need provide not a shred of proof that I was the person who mailed in the ballot, yet it has never been a problem. God forbid any expat (who are usually white and well off) not be taken at his word at all times but an in person vote by a black person...that can not stand. Here is another rule from Pa.: If you have a religious objection to being photographed you can still vote by presenting a valid without-photo driver’s license or a valid without-photo ID card issued by PennDOT. What the hell would stop me from using someone elses non photo driver's license? Absolutely nothing. But since statistically speaking such religious people vote Republican so of course they get a pass. Here is more info: The new voter photo identification cards are scheduled to be available at PennDOT’s Drivers License Centers beginning the last week of August. The identification cards can be issued to registered voters who may not have all of the documents necessary to obtain a non-driver’s license photo ID from PennDOT, primarily a birth certificate. The IDs, which are free, will be issued to voters for a 10-year period and can only be used for voting purposes. For Pennsylvania-born voters, PennDOT will still use the process of confirming birth records electronically with the Pennsylvania Department of Health to issue non-driver’s license photo IDs for voting. When requesting these IDs, voters will need to affirm they do not possess any other approved identification for voting purposes. They will be asked to provide two proofs of residence, such as a utility bill, along with their date of birth and Social Security number, if the customer has an assigned number. PennDOT will validate the voter registration status with the Department of State while the voter is in the PennDOT office. Upon confirmation of this information, the voter will be issued the voter card before leaving the PennDOT facility. As I wrote above all of the local PennDOT facilities in my area require a car to get to. ALL OF THEM (them meaning a grand total of ONE in Easton Pa. area, and we are talking about quite a lot of people) Needless to say, wait times are also a genuine pain in the ass. These Republicans are fundamentally evil rat bastards. This is voter suppression pure and simple. I am truly ashamed of this country.

- blackton

August 4, 2012 at 12:38pm

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Iowa is right, Seattle. There are those pesky sales taxes that the working poor pay (10% in WA State), and if an individual makes $17,000 (about the poverty line), he or she pays about 10% federal income tax on net income. And a self-employed person like I was pays about 14% more in S.S. and Medicare taxes. And where did you get the idea that payroll taxes aren't taxes? If a person dies in middle age, the government keeps all the payroll taxes that he or she paid up to that point, before the person gets a penny back in retirement benefits. And the surviving relatives don't get that payroll tax money back. seattle, you have to get over your jealousy of the poor. Become a UW football fan like me. When I'm cheering for the Huskies, I forget about all my resentments, except my hate for the opposing team . Please don't tell me you're a Cougs fan. GO DAWGS!

- magboy47.

August 4, 2012 at 12:43pm

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seattle: A person with outy any ID is frozen in US society. They cannot work. They cannot have a bank account. They cannot send or receive money. They cannot even rent DVDs. They are forced into a cash economy and cannot even pay an electric bill without a trip to the utility company. Absolute utter bullshit. This is a required photo id. It is not a Social security card, or credit card, or check (do your checks, social security card, or credit card have your picture on it?) and as I showed above you can even get a non photo drivers license in Pa. This is a clear, evil attempt at voter suppression. In fact, until the late 80's Pa did not even have photo drivers licenses, yet somehow our Democracy functioned. If Pa. opens up photo id stations within walking distance of a majority of city residents, then and only then will this be acceptable. If Mexico can do it then so can America. I will never, ever vote for another Republican until this brand of fascists exit the scene.

- blackton

August 4, 2012 at 12:47pm

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Iowa writes: "First, the working poor, and the mast majority of all voters who live on earned compensation, pay at minimum 14% of their compensation in taxes in the form of the payroll tax, and then in most states pay out another chunk in sales taxes." As I noted, the payroll tax isn't a tax. it's a forced retirement program. The contributor gets 100% of the contribution back. And not a penny of it goes to run the government. Thus, to call it a tax is ridiculous. Yes, the $40K earner pays sales tax. But if they spend every dime of the $32K left after the forced retirement program, then that is just $3200 in sales tax. However, they receive far more in benefits from the government. Thus, they have a net gain from the government. They are not paying a dime to run the country. Iowa writes: "Second, the policies favored by the Republican rich at least have unequivocally resulted in a net income transfer from the working class" Not true. The middle class (at least before Obama) earned more in 2007 than they did at any time in history in constant dollars. This is easy data to see as it's in every CBO report on taxes. What you are upset about is that the wealthy have vacuumed up the NEW money at a rate faster than the everyone else. Since the wealthy create that new money, that shouldn't be a surprise. If the facebook guys create $50B of new wealth out of nothing, of course they will be the ones to benefit. That has always been true. The fact is, it is better to be middle class living in the US versus Europe. Yes, we have higher income disparity, but the middle class income DOES grow faster in the US than in Europe. A staggering data point: Since 1990, a post-crash middle class family in the US has posted more wealth gain than a pre-crash French family. Think about that. That is a staggering data point. In other words, it's better to be an American middle class family AFTER the crash than a French family BEFORE the crash. Our middle class family earned that much more money. And thus before the crash our middle class were absolutely KILLING the French middle class. So, what do you prefer: 1) Rich and middle class grow at almost the same rate, roughly 0.8 to 1% per year. This is Europe. or 2) Rich grow at 2.5% per year, and the middle class grow at 1.5% per year. This is US.

- seattleeng

August 4, 2012 at 1:04pm

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Blackton writes: Absolute utter bullshit. This is a required photo id. It is not a Social security card, or credit card, or check (do your checks, social security card, or credit card have your picture on it?) and as I showed above you can even get a non photo drivers license in Pa. That Penn allows a non-photo DL is not right. Even Seattle/Washingon State requires anything on year head to be removed while getting your photo ID. Again, a person without any ID cannot function in this country. They cannot get a job, and they get a bank account. Focus on getting these people the necessary tools they need to function in society, and as a side benefit they can also vote.

- seattleeng

August 4, 2012 at 1:12pm

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Is there some point to this article?

- mlottman

August 4, 2012 at 1:39pm

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seattle, you might have a point if not for a little thing called the deficit. The government is paying out way more than it is taking in. It is taking in a lot of taxes from the middle and lower class and yes a fair bit from the upper class. It's paying out far more, and what it pays out disproportionately goes to the Romney's of this country. Your argument, of course, presumes that the wealthy will be the ones who pay down the deficit, while you and your friends do everything in your power to prevent this from happening.

- miceelf

August 4, 2012 at 6:23pm

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Miceelf writes: "seattle, you might have a point if not for a little thing called the deficit. The government is paying out way more than it is taking in. It is taking in a lot of taxes from the middle and lower class and yes a fair bit from the upper class. It's paying out far more, and what it pays out disproportionately goes to the Romney's of this country." Magboy writes: " There are those pesky sales taxes that the working poor pay (10% in WA State), and if an individual makes $17,000 (about the poverty line), he or she pays about 10% federal income tax on net income. " MiceElf and Magboy, why don't you humor everyone with a guess of what you think the effective tax rate, all up, of someone earning $50K in this country is? Not FICA and Medicare, but how much the $50K earner actually pays to build bridges and roads. And then why don't you humor us with a guess of what the $50K earner in Europe is paying in taxes? And Magboy, I'll tell you your numbers posted above are so wrong they aren't even funny.

- seattleeng

August 4, 2012 at 8:01pm

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That Penn allows a non-photo DL is not right. You miss the point, it is not the photo id that bothers me, it is the lack of availability to get it. In Pa. it is only done at PennDOT, and in my area of around 70,000 people there is just the one office located in a suburban strip mall. As I wrote above in the small city of Ixtepec getting ID is extremely easy, buses go by the office all the time. They also have them in small towns like Chihuitan and Laollaga. And as I said it took me two days to get my USA son's social security card straightened out and his birth certificate has wrong information on it getting his mothers name wrong. I was given a run around for so long I gave up fixing it as they told me it was our fault and we have to pay to fix it, as though my wife does not even know her own name. OTOH getting my other two sons registered at the US consulate in Shanghai was a breeze. And how the hell do you know what the lives of middle class French people are? I lived in Salzburg Austria going to University there and I will tell you point blank the average middle class life of a citizen there is superior (for me vastly so) to that of a person living in the states, any state. You know the cost of things, but have no concept of the value of things. Life is not just an accumulation of consumer goods. And I am not just talking about the sheer beauty of Salzburg or its culture and music. Taxes in Western Europe buy a superior way of life than the states. If you lived outside of America for any length of time you would understand this. Now before you get huffy and jingoistic I will say there are things about America that I feel are greatly superior to most of Europe, but those things you probably despise, like our openness to other cultures, and our progressive nature which created our Constitution.

- blackton

August 5, 2012 at 1:48am

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Blackton, writes: And how the hell do you know what the lives of middle class French people are...Life is not just an accumulation of consumer goods. And I am not just talking about the sheer beauty of Salzburg or its culture and music. Taxes in Western Europe buy a superior way of life than the states. If you lived outside of America for any length of time you would understand this" As I've noted before, I spend a week per month on international flights. I've accumulated a year of stay throughout the EU, including Paris, Nice, London, Copenhagen, and years of stay in Asia. Your assertion that the taxes buy a superior way of life is debatable. The population-adjusted immigration from France to US is higher than US to France, for example. I think the summary is likely this: Those that value leisure over work will likely find France more comfortable than the US. And those that value work over leisure will likely find the US more comfortable than France. What is frustrating for the EU is just how much the US values work, and just how much that translates to more $ for our general population (including middle class).

- seattleeng

August 5, 2012 at 1:57pm

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I would like to know how the government can have the power to draft it's youth to fight in a war and perhaps lose life and limb, but if that same group asks for something from government, it's some sort of cheating? And now we are told that we must all pay for defense or the industrial military complex will suffer. Those sponges! Why is money paid for something we might not need or use more valuable than a welfare payment to someone who badly needs it and also spends it in the economy?

- Nusholtz

August 5, 2012 at 3:28pm

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Nutz, FWIW, the top 40% of the earners in this country are disproportionately supplying the recruits to the military. The top 40% of earners in this country supply 50% of our recruits. The bottom 20% of earners supply just 10% of our recruits. Incredibly, the data shows the more you earn, the more likely you are participate in the military. A surprise to most here, I'm sure. Not to me. But it enforces the point that the country is morphing into the two distinct groups: The doers and the moochers. www.freakonomics.com/2008/09/22/who-serves-in-the-military-today/

- seattleeng

August 5, 2012 at 6:22pm

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"Some arch-conservatives have gone so far as to argue that encouraging the poor to vote actually undermines just and limited government, because the poor will use their political power to take economic resources from those who are not poor." I've heard this argument over and over again, the fear that the 99% will just vote to tax the 1% into oblivion. And while I understand the theory, it has utterly failed over and over in reality. Despite hundreds of years and numerous regimes here and abroad, that outcome has never come to pass in a democratic society. So I'd say based on a lot of evidence that the fear is unfounded. But I know facts have a limited effect on some people's ideological commitments.

- dsimon

August 5, 2012 at 8:07pm

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seattleeng: "As I noted, the payroll tax isn't a tax. it's a forced retirement program. The contributor gets 100% of the contribution back. And not a penny of it goes to run the government. Thus, to call it a tax is ridiculous. Seattle, we've been through this before. Social Security is not a forced retirement program, it's a program that provides some income security to the elderly. Today's revenues go right out to today's retirees. If we ended the program today, those who pay today would get nothing. Thus, to call it a forced retirement program is simply incorrect. "Rich grow at 2.5% per year, and the middle class grow at 1.5% per year. This is US." From when to when? Cherry-picking data points? Median household income is about where it was in 1996. http://www.davemanuel.com/median-household-income.php What would justify using peak numbers instead of today's numbers? Again, we've been over stuff like this before. But I've learned that not even compelling data will change some people's minds. "When the poor vote, it is the control the allocation of OTHER's money that THEY have not earned." There is just about zero evidence to support this assertion. Running the government and providing services cost money. Those costs must be "fairly" allocated. Few people think that those who are having trouble buying food or paying the electric bill should have to pay much if anything, hence the concession to a progressive tax system. It's not about envy, or bilking the rich. But again, we've already had this discussion several times before, apparently to no avail. So it's not worth having again.

- dsimon

August 5, 2012 at 8:25pm

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When I saw that spectacularly stupid quote from Matthew Vadum I was certain that I would find in the comments section equally spectacularly stupid defenses of this mindset from Mr. Rat and/or Seattle. Glad to see there are some things you can count on in this world. I suppose rather than hurling insults I should engage the 'arguments', but it is hard to muster the will to bother (kudos to everyone has thus far). To be honest, I couldn't even drag myself any further than Seattle's remark early in the thread, "When the rich vote, it is to control the allocation of THEIR money THEY have paid to the government." This is one of the most profoundly naive and ignorant statements I have read about American politics in, like, several hours -- which is saying a lot. I wouldn't even know where to begin responding, because need for extensive remedial education is so daunting. I am not going to waste the rest of my Sunday evening making a list for Seattle of the hundreds of thousands of ways the rich manipulate our government for favorable laws -- and favorable enforcement -- for the sake of the CREATION of their wealth, not just the allocation of their taxes. For crying out loud, you can hardly swing a dead cat these days without hitting someone who has written a great book on the subject; just learn how to use a library card. If getting a photo i.d. is so freaking easy, it shouldn't be that hard for conservatives to learn how to check out a book.

- Fishpeddler

August 5, 2012 at 10:30pm

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Fishpeddler: "I am not going to waste the rest of my Sunday evening making a list for Seattle of the hundreds of thousands of ways the rich manipulate our government for favorable laws -- and favorable enforcement..." Absolutely. Anyone who thinks the very wealthy somehow don't have more than their fair share of political power and influence in this country is simply ignoring a very explicit reality. The results speak for themselves.

- dsimon

August 5, 2012 at 11:37pm

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dsimon writes: "Seattle, we've been through this before. Social Security is not a forced retirement program, it's a program that provides some income security to the elderly. Today's revenues go right out to today's retirees." Yes, and you failed to convince me then. Those are implementation details: The difference between Maddoff and a 401K doesn't interest me. One is right, the other isn't. It was sold by FDR to the country as a retirement program. If it were restructured into a trust with the contributor getting near market rates, it'd be better for all involved, don't you agree? The fact is, a $50K earner paying 16% of earnings into a retirement fund should retire a millionaire given historic returns. That SS fails to delivery anywhere near that is the crime of the century. That these monies cannot be left to children is a crime. That these monies cannot be used to cover a lost job is a crime, because it requires the government to confiscate another 1% of your lifetime income to cover a month or two of salary in the event lose a job. ? At some point, DSimon, even you must say, "yeah, that is a pretty crappy rate of return, I'd hope we could do better" When would you bitch? An effective -1% RoR? A -5% RoR? At what point do you say "My god, that rate of return is pathetic and it's screwing working people hard" Dsimon writes: "What would justify using peak numbers instead of today's numbers? " We've been through this to. Do you really expect our brightest and most sought after workers will see the same annual raise as the cashier working at 7-11? You really, really think that the next Steve Jobs will get an annual 1.5% raise, just like the guy working at McDonalds? Should the guy that cures cancer get the same raise as a waitress? Does a crappy waitress get the same tip as a great waitress? No to all. DSimon writes: "Few people think that those who are having trouble buying food or paying the electric bill should have to pay much if anything, hence the concession to a progressive tax system." Very few are in this position. If a person has a $300/month smoking habit and they are getting $250 in foodstamps each month, then they really shouldn't be getting foodstamps, right? If someone is getting foodstamps and yet has the money to get $1000 tattoos, then that's a problem, isn't it? Of course if someone is in bad shape we should help them. But what if someone has just made a lot of bad choices and they don't want to work at a boring job for $10/hour. Should we help that person? Do you really want to tax our $80K earner so someone can slack and get $30K in free benefits? DSimon writes: "Absolutely. Anyone who thinks the very wealthy somehow don't have more than their fair share of political power and influence in this country is simply ignoring a very explicit reality. " Of course the rich have this. And they get it from government. And the best way to take it away is to get rid of every deduction and shrink the size of government and tax everyone at the same rate after a certain threshold has been reached. Get rid of corp taxes, and tax investment income as regular income. The bigger governments gets, the more opportunity government has to pick winners. And the more chances there are to pick a winner means the more it makes sense to lobby. And the rich will beat us at that game all the time. There has never been a time where the little guy has leverage UNLESS the employment rate gets to zero. Unfortunately, if you want the unemployment rate to get to zero, then a lot of rich people are going to be making a lot of money too. It has never sucked to be rich in this country. Ever. When it sucks for the middle class, it's still good to be rich. Your problem (progressive in general, I should say) is that you are so obsessed with screwing the big guy that you hurt the little guy in the process. Clinton had it right: Take care of the rich and everyone else does well too.

- seattleeng

August 6, 2012 at 1:29am

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"The top 40% of earners in this country supply 50% of our recruits." That sentence is absolute gibberish. If you are earning in the top 40% income, you already have a job and are not likely to join the military. Do you even read what you write? Here are the facts, 66% of the military is white out of a US population that is 64% Blacks are at 16 and 12, while Hispanics are at 10 versus 16 and Asians at 3 versus 5% So hispanics and Asians are underrepresented and blacks over. As to the gibberish report, the simple fact is the military recruits largely from the middle 50% of the population. The middle has the necessary verbal and math skills, is far less likely to have criminal records, etc. This quote above is highly arbitrary, to put a truly middle class income level family with the highest earners and equate them the same is odious. I come from a middle class family, in my extended family there have been quite a few who have gone into the military, and I have a number of friends who are vets. Everyone of my relatives who joined were, in fact, not earning in the top 50%, their parents might have been but they were not. And again, your statement above is patently ridiculous, if you join the military you will not be in the top 50% of income earners. Ipso facto you are middle class. Of course taxes buy a superior way of life. Go to a country with few taxes and see how superior that way of life is. We spend a tremendous amount of money at the federal, state, and local level...we might be borrowing for a hell of a lot of it but that is another issue, take away all that federal, state, and local spending and you will feel your lifestyle go right to the toilet (which, unless you have a septic tank and well, will no longer flush) The difference between the US, and a country like Japan, is that we spend 16% of our income on medicine which is financed half by taxes and half by premiums, versus 8% of Japan, which is all federal. And have you ever heard of purchasing power parity? I lived far better off in Mexico then I do here in the states though my family's aggregate income is much higher. This is a factor you seem to ignore. But even ignoring that, I pay 7,200 for insurance premiums a year for health insurance, I have a deductible of 1,200 per year that has copays up to 8,000. In France they pay far less for healthcare per person, those savings are passed directly onto the people. That is the thing with Conservatives, they use highly restricted data (counting income taxes only) but leave out my state, local, property, sales taxes, and my hidden taxes of paying bastard insurance companies that gouge the hell out of me. In Mexico I paid healthcare taxes but I never had to have a copay, everything was 100% covered and they have results pretty damn near what the US has by way of outcomes. And this was Mexico. Oh, and lastly this: The population-adjusted immigration from France to US is higher than US to France, for example. This is just idiotic. You do know how hard it is to get a long term, work visa in France, do you? And you are also aware you generally have to be near fluent in French. I can't get a work visa in France...I can't do it. I could get one in Poland, or the Czech Republic, etc. but not France. You come up with the most bizarre conclusions from data. Last year only 65,621 Mexicans legally emigrated to America. There are quite a few retirees and other Americans like myself who have visas for Mexico, and it is probably greater than that number. You should also be aware that that number means nothing, it does not mean more Americans want to live in Mexico, it just means moving to Mexico legally is a hell of a lot easier.

- blackton

August 6, 2012 at 2:54am

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" If it were restructured into a trust with the contributor getting near market rates, " Well, I couldn't have made the point on taxes better. Not the subjuctive "if" with which you begin your sentence. Social security is not a system of individual trusts. It's a pay-as-you-go system of income transfer from workers to retirees. "The fact is, a $50K earner paying 16% of earnings into a retirement fund should retire a millionaire given historic returns. That SS fails to delivery anywhere near that is the crime of the century. That these monies cannot be left to children is a crime. That these monies cannot be used to cover a lost job is a crime, because it requires the government to confiscate another 1% of your lifetime income to cover a month or two of salary in the event lose a job. ?" So you favor a different system that allows someone to "own" their contributions, and use them in these ways. Great. But that's not the system we have. You can't argue that the payroll tax is not a tax by telling us what you think it should be. As for rates of return - mileage varies, precisely because SS is a tax-funded income security insurance. My parents' rate of return would make the market look like a piker's game. He paid the majority of his self-employment taxes - and not a lot of those, because farmers in those days were really good at showing very little profit regardless of how they lived - before the Reagan era reforms at an effective rate below 4%; she paid in more after because she joined the work force later in life. But both have been retired since before Clinton was elected - he for 25 years. We did the math some years ago and they were already in double digit RoR then. It's only gone up in the interim. On the other hand, had he died in a tractor accident (that he survived unhurt by sheer dumb luck) when he was in his early 60s, his RoR would hve been negative. No survivor benefits for his grown children, and no payout for his wife (notwithstanding her contributions to their farm income, the self employment tax was in his name). As YOU say, Seattle, maybe his survivors, had he dies, should have been entitled to his payments plus accrued interest. But again, since SS is a tax-funded income security insurance program, not a pension or retirement plan, they were not. Then there is the plain reality that the money paid in in payroll taxes for the last 30 or 40 years has all been spent in the general fund (by passing IOUs from the general fund to the SS trust fund), and will be repaid from general tax revenue, if it is repaid at all, from general taxes. The payroll tax has functioned as a regressive base rate to the federal income tax all that time - to the shame of Republicans and Democrats alike). All of this too, is a matter of law. I'm sure someone sometime told you that you were entitled to get you payroll tax plus interest back with interest - maybe as a fairy tail - and you seem bitterly disappointed that it's not true, but while we can disagree on how a national income security system should would, the facts about how ours actually does work are indisuputable. There is no account with your name on it drawing interest anywhere. Just a list of your contributions to be used in a one-time calculation of what your insurance payout will be, should you be fortunate enough to live long enough to collect it.

- IowaBeauty

August 6, 2012 at 8:21am

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"Clinton had it right: Take care of the rich and everyone else does well too." O. M. G. 'Let them eat cake' has never worked as a governing philosophy, and it never will.

- Fishpeddler

August 6, 2012 at 10:05am

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"you failed to convince me then. Those are implementation details." No, it's the law. If we ended Social Security, today's workers would get nothing. So it's not forced retirement program. "It was sold by FDR to the country as a retirement program." Doesn't matter how it was sold. The law matters. I could call SS a duck, but that wouldn't make it a duck. It's a way of cross-subsidizing our parents' retirement to reduce the uncertainty that we'll get stuck supporting them on our own. That's how it actually works. "If it were restructured into a trust with the contributor getting near market rates, it'd be better for all involved, don't you agree?" Those who retired after the fiscal collapse might not agree because they wouldn't have gotten those rates. That's why "security" is in the title. Plus no one has come up with a way of managing the overwhelming transition costs. "Do you really expect our brightest and most sought after workers will see the same annual raise as the cashier working at 7-11?" That wasn't my point. Your claim was that middle class incomes had gone up at an annualized rate of 1.5%. I was questioning what time periods you were using, because median household income has not gone up if you use 1996 as your starting point. What determines what time periods are the most relevant? "Your problem (progressive in general, I should say) is that you are so obsessed with screwing the big guy that you hurt the little guy in the process. Clinton had it right: Take care of the rich and everyone else does well too." Seattle, it's truly useless. There is no "screwing the big guy" going on. There are few if any examples. Even that "socialist" Obama is talking only about raising income taxes to where they were under Clinton. So I truly don't know where you're getting your assumptions. Plus the evidence doesn't back up your assertions. Want to reference Clinton? He raised income taxes, particularly on the wealthy. And everyone did fine. And W lowered taxes, particularly on the wealthy, and the wealthy did fine--but everyone else, not so much.

- dsimon

August 6, 2012 at 11:46am

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Getting back to the topic, I would like to see a response to blackton's post about the difficulties of getting ID in PA. Just because it's easy for some of us to get ID doesn't mean it's easy for those in different locales, far from offices with limited hours, and where taking a day off or more from work may not be so affordable (or subject one to detrimental treatment). seattleeng: "I suspect they are most keen on ensuring the great dem tradition of allowing the dead to vote remains strong." Which number do people think is actually greater: the number of people who are eligible to vote who would not be able to do so under PA's new requirements, or the number of people showing up at the polls impersonating dead people? Richard Hasen says in today's NYT: "I have not found a single election over the last few decades in which impersonation fraud had the slightest chance of changing an election outcome — unlike absentee-ballot fraud, which changes election outcomes regularly. (Let’s face it: impersonation fraud is an exceedingly dumb way to try to steal an election.)" http://campaignstops.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/08/05/a-dtente-before-the-election/?smid=pl-share I have nothing against valid voting procedures, but one has to look at the costs to those who can and should be able to vote as well. And it's valid to ask why there's all this to-do about supposed in-person fraud when there is more fraud elsewhere that is apparently not being addressed.

- dsimon

August 6, 2012 at 12:03pm

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Blackton, from the link I shared the data was very clear: The more your family earns, the more likely you are to join the military. Our federal spending has no bearing on the quality of life for most. If your assertion were true, then doubling, tripling, quadrupling frederal spending would make things even better, which is certainly not true. Not sure why you brought race or medical expenses into this. Must be habit I guess. Iowa writes: "So you favor a different system that allows someone to "own" their contributions, and use them in these ways. Great. But that's not the system we have. You can't argue that the payroll tax is not a tax by telling us what you think it should be." But I can tell you how FDR sold it to the country. And he sold it to the country as a retirement program where the money was put into a trust fund. And that was true up until Johnson. See Myth #4 on the SSA administration web site link below. Call it what you want, but it's screwing people. Hard. That you don't seem to care it screws a $50K earner so hard is telling. Iowa writes: "We did the math some years ago and they were already in double digit RoR then. It's only gone up in the interim." Well, the SSA administration also does the math, and they end up at low single digits. See the other link below. The SSA office says the two income worker born in 1955 is seeing an annualized rate of return of 2.38%, and a single male born that year is seeing 1.96%. Iowa writes: "I'm sure someone sometime told you that you were entitled to get you payroll tax plus interest back with interest - maybe as a fairy tail - and you seem bitterly disappointed that it's not true" And DSimon writes: "Doesn't matter how it was sold. The law matters." Ah, yes, the ends justify the means. If you are going to take such a massive part of a persons paycheck, shouldn't it come close to achieving what that person could achieve on their own? I mean, the point of government is to achieve what otherwise could not be achieved by the individual. But I could make my own SS program better by myself, then what is the purpose of government? DSimon writes: " I was questioning what time periods you were using, because median household income has not gone up if you use 1996 as your starting point. What determines what time periods are the most relevant?" Pick any time period. The point is to look at the difference in terms of annualized gain. You'll see over and over that the top 1% got a higher raise each year than the middle 20%. And to me, that is no surprise at all. I'm looking at the CBO dataset from 1979 to 2005. Median post-tax income in 1996 was $44.5K (your dates). In 2005 it was $50.2K. It went up 12.8% during these 9 years. That is about 1.3% per year. At the same time, the top 1% went from $290K to $413K, which is 42%, or 4% per year. What is the surprise here? The most amazing among our population saw 4% raise year over year, the most common workers saw 1.3% raise year over year. Is this data a surprise to you? Our top 1% are in the top 1% because SOMEONE finds what they do very valuable. The ability to replace a heart valve, or the ability to engineer a bridge on time and under budget, or the ability to jump higher than anyone else and cram a ball into a hoop better than anyone else. Whereas, the $50K earner came to work every day on time, did his job without complaint and delivered a dollar of work for a dollar of wage. Still very admirable. But there is a difference, right? You don't expect the the wages of those that do something rare to track the wages of those that do something common, do you? www.ssa.gov/OACT/NOTES/ran5/an2004-5.html www.ssa.gov/history/InternetMyths.html/

- seattleeng

August 6, 2012 at 12:39pm

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Re: the availability of getting an ID, I am painfully reminded of an instance of helping my mother about two years ago. She's disabled, rarely leaves her residence, and when she does, is confined to a wheelchair. She's very politically interested and votes absentee almost every election. Her driver's license expired years earlier (3-5), but she'd simply never needed a replacement ID, rarely going out and often having her business conducted by me or others, until an obscure financial issue required a visit to the bank in person and the presenting of ID; not imagining this to be particularly troublesome task, I took her to her closest DMV. Virginia's DMVs are, compared to what I hear of most states, pretty well-organized. Despite their tendency in recent years to unsubtly push people towards online services, when you do have to go, they take care of you reasonably efficiently, and though you usually have to wait a while (maybe 30 minutes) they typically offer plenty of seating in fairly comfortable conditions. Since this was in a fairly major urban area, there wasn't any great difficulty locating one. Where where we found difficulties were in physical accessibility. In one of the most thoughtlessly idiotic setups I've ever seen, the camera for ID photos was locked & bolted into position, pointing at an immovable cutout of a plain white background, itself attached to the floor less than three feet from the counter, allowing not nearly enough space to fit a wheelchair. The staff, while not themselves malicious, were of no help whatsoever, apparently having never actually encountered a disabled person before and generally being unclear on what we thought was unreasonable in this situation. I'm sure any Fox News anchor worth her salt would have laughed at the scene that resulted, with my mother only able to get her picture taken in a manner reminiscent of a Marx Brothers movie: me wedging the wheelchair as far I could into that ridiculous space, tilting the wheelchair further while trying not to tip her over, capped by my mom stretching her head into the frame of the picture, trying hard to hold down her confusion and anger to give the DMV the blank expression now required for an official Virginia ID. All that dealt with, we then discovered that a final idiocy awaited us: the electronic signature pad, also immovably bolted to the top of the counter, sat far out of reach of a person in a wheelchair. The helpful staffer at least was nice enough to have an apologetic expression on her face as she explained that unless my mother was able to make some kind of mark on the pad, they simply would not be able to issue her an ID. Both my mother and I expended a lot of effort keeping our cool at this; she can stand, but only for brief periods, and only has use of one hand, which she would normally use to stabilize herself. In the end, I helped her stand up and then physically held up her body while she signed. I don't know much of anything about the difficulties of getting an ID in rural Pennsylvania, or Alabama, or Wyoming, but in suburban northern Virginia, only because my mother had patience, was willing to endure indignities, and had a son with available leave from work who was willing to literally hold her up, was she able to get a photo ID. There are a lot of problems that went into creating the barriers that my mother faced; some of them are obvious (everything I described above violated the Americans with Disabilities Act, but pointing that out didn't change what we were looking at that morning) and some of them I can only guess at (what the hell goes through someone's mind when they look at someone in a wheelchair and can blithely say they'll have to stand to get service?). But a lot of people face many more barriers to getting ID than she did; in the worst of cases, we could have just gone to another Virginia DMV five miles away and tried our luck there. Other people with offices 30, 40, 60 miles away and bosses counting the minutes until they get back to work don't have that kind of luxury. I don't have a problem with requiring ID to vote-if an ID is an easy thing to get for everyone. Right now, it's not. Pretending that it is only makes sense if you're trying to make sure that the people you don't like can't vote, and that counts pretty much as treason in my book.

- janus

August 6, 2012 at 1:12pm

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seattleeng: "I mean, the point of government is to achieve what otherwise could not be achieved by the individual. But I could make my own SS program better by myself, then what is the purpose of government?" I imagine you left an "if" out of that sentence, but the "if" is what makes it a pointless question. If you could absolutely guarantee better results, we could have a meaningful debate, but you can't. You can play around on the stock market yourself and maybe get better results, yes, but there's also the chance that you'll gamble your future on the next New Coke, get suckered by the next Madoff scam, or lose all your gains due to just plain bad luck. Social Security exists to make sure that you have a safety net even in the event of such unfortunate happenings, and if you think you'd be happier betting absolutely everything rather than having such a safety net...well, your relatives are probably glad it goes on existing anyway. Oh, pre-emptive: your response is probably wrong. And probably the response after that, too. See how effective that is?

- janus

August 6, 2012 at 1:29pm

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Seattle, how much of your life are you going to devote to convincing us that you know absolutely nothing about the realities behind the creation of disparities in income and wealth in this country? We're convinced already! You can take a rest.

- Fishpeddler

August 6, 2012 at 1:37pm

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Seattleeng -- You are simply ill-informed. Federal income taxes currently account for only 40% of government revenue. Another 39% is provided by federal payroll taxes. The rest is covered by a variety of other federal taxes. Income taxes haven't provided a majority of the funding required for the operation of our federal government for some time. The share of government revenue supported by payroll taxes has increased steadily since the 1980s, when tax reforms were instituted that increased payroll taxes while decreasing income taxes. Not all contributors to Social Security receive benefits, of course. (My own father died one month short of his 65th birthday and 6 weeks after my 56 year old mother's death -- he paid into the system for his entire working life but neither he nor my mother ever received a penny in benefit. He didn't resent this fact -- he understood that SS is a tax that contributes to the general social welfare and not a private savings account. But even though he didn't receive a monthly benefit himself, he and his siblings did benefit from the program -- their mother, a conservative Republican who objected to the creation of Social Security, collected benefits for 31 years.)

- esmense

August 6, 2012 at 1:39pm

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seattleeng: "Our federal spending has no bearing on the quality of life for most." I missed this line earlier. In line with what Fish just said, it's good to know that you believe you inhabit an entirely different reality than the rest of us, where most citizens do not, in fact, use the government-created internet, drive on government-maintained interstate highways, bank at FDIC-insured banks, use the government-created GPS for navigation, or eat USDA-inspected burgers. I'm sure that you will, as before, proclaim that if government hadn't created these things, private industry would have; except they didn't (except in alternate realities that certain individuals inhabit), did they? Strangely enough, actual reality has far more bearing on most citizens' quality of life, so I think the rest of us will go on discussing it.

- janus

August 6, 2012 at 1:58pm

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settleeng: "I'm looking at the CBO dataset from 1979 to 2005." And why pick those dates? Does it happen to be a trough to a peak? A peak to a trough? Are they representative? What makes that time frame the relevant one from which to draw conclusions? I could pick a more recent peak to trough and get numbers that look a lot worse. "Is this data a surprise to you? Our top 1% are in the top 1% because SOMEONE finds what they do very valuable. The ability to replace a heart valve, or the ability to engineer a bridge on time and under budget, or the ability to jump higher than anyone else and cram a ball into a hoop better than anyone else." Again, that wasn't my question (which I've now made twice). But I'll answer it anyway: not necessarily. Some people are well-paid because of skill, but that doesn't mean the rates of growth should be higher. And for a counterexample, it's very hard to make the argument that CEOs are in greater demand than they were before, or that their jobs are very different than before. And the supply of MBAs is certainly higher than they were before which should drive down pay. "You don't expect the the wages of those that do something rare to track the wages of those that do something common, do you?" Again, that doesn't mean the rate of growth should be higher. If the numbers of people competing to do those rare things is growing, then the rate of growth might be less. Supply and demand, right? I see valuing rarer skills. I'm not so sure about growth rates. "And DSimon writes: 'Doesn't matter how it was sold. The law matters.' "Ah, yes, the ends justify the means." On the SS front, this has nothing to do with ends and means. It has to do with the assertion that SS is a "forced retirement program." You seem to want to believe it is despite the clear fact that it is not. If it were a retirement program, wouldn't retirees have benefits if the program ended today? But the amount they would actually get is zero. So how can it be a retirement program? You keep talking about return on investment. OK, where is the money to invest? Nowhere. We can't take today's payments away because they go today's retirees, so there is nothing to invest. The only way to get money to invest is to make workers pay again--for today's retirees and for themselves. But that's new money, not today's system. So again, it's not a retirement program. It's an intergenerational compact subject to revision or elimination at any time. "he sold it to the country as a retirement program where the money was put into a trust fund." Yes, when money coming in exceeds money going out. The "trust fund" means that the money is segregated for the program and isn't used for the general operating budget. That doesn't make it a retirement program for current workers, nor does it mean that it was "sold" to the country as such. You can keep calling it a forced retirement system if you want, but that won't make it one. I have little hope that the facts will matter here, but I'm not going to let such a miscaricature go unchallenged. These are not mere "implementation details." They are how the system works. "I mean, the point of government is to achieve what otherwise could not be achieved by the individual. But I could make my own SS program better by myself, then what is the purpose of government?" SS has achieved what could not be done by the individual. Poverty among the elderly was a national embarrassment before SS. We could have alleviated it through a forced retirement payment system, but that would have taken decades and abandoned the elderly at the time and many near retirement. So we adopted a different system. Again, if you have a way of handling the huge transition costs (which would not be necessary if SS were a forced retirement system with only "implementation details" to be addressed), I'm sure there are many Republicans would love to hear them.

- dsimon

August 6, 2012 at 2:03pm

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"What is the surprise here? The most amazing among our population saw 4% raise year over year, the most common workers saw 1.3% raise year over year." And this is right how? Surely you're mathematician enough to understand that a 2.7% differential growth rate, compounds into substantial marginalization of those receiving the lower growth in a relatively short time. If the common workers started out sharing 80% GDP, and experienced those differential growth rates, in less than 4 decades, they would be sharing only 60%. In a century, the proportions would have completely reversed to 20% for the "common worker" and 80% for the "amazing" few. So, suppose the common workers are 95% of the population, and the amazing are 5%. Given these assumptions (80/20 split of earning, 95/5 split of population, your differential increases) an individual in the 5% would earn about 4 times as much as a common worker at the outset, and 68 times as much after a century. Again, I ask, this makes sense in what universe?

- IowaBeauty

August 6, 2012 at 2:05pm

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Just to add that seattleeng has not backed up with any evidence how returning to Clinton-era tax rates somehow amounts to somehow wanting to "screw the big guy," nor has it been contested that his claim that "Clinton had it right: Take care of the rich and everyone else does well too" is not borne out by what Clinton actually did (raised taxes on the rich and everyone did well) or what W did (lower taxes on the rich and the rich did very well but everyone else not so much). But I guess any evidence that might be troublesome can be ignored. Plus I'd still like to hear seattleng's guess as to which is greater: the number of people who are eligible to vote who would not be able to do so under PA's new requirements, or the number of people showing up at the polls impersonating dead people (since he's the one who says there are substantial numbers of dead people voting). But again, that answer might be inconvenient if it conflicts with one's ideological preferences.

- dsimon

August 6, 2012 at 2:14pm

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Esmense, payroll taxes also go out as direct benefits. So, these payroll taxes are not doing things like building schools and bridges or arming the military. They go 100% back to the contributor. When the president talks about how society builds bridges and roads for businesses, he's incorrect. The top 20% of earners are the only ones paying taxes that build these things. The other 80% only pay to fund their own retirement generally. But they aren't contributing much to infrastructure. A $50K earner has $35K after SS and medicare taxes. If he spends all of that, then he's likely faced ~9% sales tax, gas tax, property tax. But still, we're looking at perhaps $4K to $5K in state and local taxes each year. If he has 2 kids in school, then he's getting a $20K benefit each year for the K12 education. So, I ask: How is the $50K earner funding anything except his own retirement? He is not. That is a problem, isn't it? Fishpeddler: Answer a simple question for me so I can understand where you fall on this topic. Employee #1 works at 7-11 as a cashier. He's a reliable employee, reasonable with customers. Think of him as a proxy for all the cashiers. Employee #2 also works at 7-11 as the CIO. He conceived of and put a team of 50 people in place to build software that can track inventory across the US, and to smartly use a truck fleet to reduce fuel waste and ensure stores don't run out of inventory. In its first year, it saved the company $20M in fuel and trucking costs, improved inventory availability and resulted in an addition $28M in revenue for the company. He has big plans on how to improve this program for next year and the savings might approach $40M if the estimates are right. You are the CEO of 7-11. Both employees are thinking of quitting. How much of a raise do you give each to retain them? The total of their raises must equal 4%.

- seattleeng

August 6, 2012 at 2:40pm

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How did this article devolve into yet another tit-for-tat on how great the wealth-earners are and how much of an utter waste of life those earning under $40K a year are? Oh...wait. Seattle posted something about taxes and that the working poor haven't yet earned the right to have a say in how the country, they happened to be born and raised in, is run.

- singlspeed

August 6, 2012 at 3:02pm

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seattleeng: "So, these payroll taxes are not doing things like building schools and bridges or arming the military. They go 100% back to the contributor." But they don't go to the contributor. They are going to today's retirees. We know that's how the system works. There is no dispute over it. So why keep misstating the facts? "When the president talks about how society builds bridges and roads for businesses, he's incorrect. The top 20% of earners are the only ones paying taxes that build these things. The other 80% only pay to fund their own retirement generally. But they aren't contributing much to infrastructure." And...so what? Programs need to be funded. That SS happens to be segregated out due to a dedicated financing system doesn't diminish their contributions. (And again, they're not funding their own retirement. They are funding current retirees.) "You are the CEO of 7-11. Both employees are thinking of quitting. How much of a raise do you give each to retain them? The total of their raises must equal 4%." How many other people are willing to do the CIO's job, maybe for less? That might be kind of important, no? Maybe what the CIO would be fairly obvious to anyone who got the job. Just because that person saved a lot of money doesn't mean that person did anything special. But hey, I'm just that crazy person who thinks that maybe there are other factors involved....

- dsimon

August 6, 2012 at 3:19pm

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DSimon writes: "But they don't go to the contributor. They are going to today's retirees. We know that's how the system works. There is no dispute over it. So why keep misstating the facts?" Slice it however you wish. let me re-state my point in terms that will make you happy: today's $50K earner isn't paying a much for bridges, roads and schools. They are paying exclusively for a current retiree with the promise that a future worker will fund their retirement. Does that make you happy? Hopefully. Does it change my point? Nope. You can see this in the CBO data. The middle 20% ($50K earner) is paying 16.7% of the Social Insurance liabilities. They aren't even paying their fair share for retirement. And they are paying 4.4% of the individual tax liability. These numbers seem fine to you? They seem sustainable? Dsimon writes: "How many other people are willing to do the CIO's job, maybe for less?" But there is a fixed amount of domain expertise needed to do that job. it doesn't matter how many people are willing to do a heart transplant for less. If they aren't qualified, it's a moot point. I'm qualified to do a heart transplant after 10 years of training. But I don't have that training right now, do I? So my price for a heart transplant is irrelevant. This was a very illuminating point for me in the discussion with Roid on the topic. He believed that a large number of the population could helm a high-tech company (which requires enormous amounts of domain expertise to run) and learn on the job. It's probably true, but why on earth woudl a company wait 2 years for someone to learn everything the new CEO needs to know to become effective? We saw a soda maker take over Apple. And how did that go? Not well. We saw an engineer take over Ben and Jerrys. Again, not well. Domain expertise matters. Understanding the space and customers matters. Understanding the technology matters. And in big business, time is money, and waiting for a generically smart person to learn the ropes isn't an option. Roid argued the CEO could rely on the expertise of others in the company. But why? If others in the company already had the expertise, why not just promote them to CEO (which is often what happens). But make no mistake, there is not a large supply of people that can step in and be a CEO. That is why they are paid so much. So, to get back to teh question at hand, assume the number of people able to do the CIO job at that point in time with equal effectiveness is very, very small. Those that are qualified are happily working for other companies doing the same thing. Those that aren't qualified (but are smart) aren't qualified. They could GET qualified, but they aren't qualified right now.

- seattleeng

August 6, 2012 at 4:30pm

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Singlespeed writes: "Oh...wait. Seattle posted something about taxes and that the working poor haven't yet earned the right to have a say in how the country, they happened to be born and raised in, is run." Taxation should include representation, right? But representation should also bring taxation, should it not? How can half our population not have a dime (other than their own retirement) vested in this country????

- seattleeng

August 6, 2012 at 4:37pm

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No, representation does not necessarily bring taxation. Our relationship with our government is not one where we receive rights (like representation) only when we pay. That way lies children and paralyzed veterans not being citizens, amongst many other evils that we should avoid. Half our population can not have a dime vested in this country when you conveniently define things so as to have an invented problem to kvetch about. You might as well ask, "How can people tolerate that the government hasn't spent a dime on our defense (other than that included in the federal budget)???" As above, the rest of us will continue to deal with reality as it is, not as you imagine it to be.

- janus

August 6, 2012 at 4:55pm

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"But representation should also bring taxation, should it not?" Seattle, I started out by writing all these clever (to me) natural corollaries to this comment, as well as the goofy one about half the population not being vested in the country, but I ran out of steam when I remembered I'm wasting this on a total doofus. Do you not even spend 5 seconds thinking about this stuff before typing it? What in the world could possibly make you believe, for example, that someone who happens to have too little income to be subject to federal income taxes has nothing invested in this country. Have you never heard of families, homes, and communities? How about the investment of an entire lifetime, an entire life's work? Can you really conceive of no investment other than surrendering a few bucks to the IRS? This is truly pathetic.

- Fishpeddler

August 6, 2012 at 5:06pm

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seattle asks seriously "Taxation should include representation, right? But representation should also bring taxation, should it not? How can half our population not have a dime (other than their own retirement) vested in this country????" The answers are yes, yes and yes. But Seattle seems too distracted by the false claim by the Right that half our population doesn't have a dime vested in this country as the reason for denying half the Constitutional right to vote. Apparently there is a some qualifying level of taxes one has to pay in order to be deemed worthy enough to vote that I wasn't aware of. Does Seattle think these GOP voter purges under the guise of voter IDs is narrowly focused solely on National elections? Apparently he would like us to by distracting us with his focus on Social Security. But what about local elections? These GOP voter ID laws overwhelming effect local elections as well. Does a person making $40K a year, who does pay Federal taxes, State taxes and Sales taxes not have the same vote rights and privileges as someone making $75K a year? In Seattle's own words the answer is apparently No. Clearly the working poor don't have equal rights under the U.S. Constitution. It doesn't surprise me but it certainly is insulting to say the least, that someone who so valiantly praises the virtues of how great America is, is willing to deny the right to vote to half of America's citizens. I'm glad we have gotten this out of the way because it paints a clearer picture of what Seattle's vision of America is. There is America for those with the economic means to rise above it all and then there is the America for the rest of them...you know who they are. Those moochers...why we should just ship 'em off somewhere where we won't be burdened by their presence or mere existence. The next thing you know these people will be asking for clean water and air and safe food to eat. Arbeit macht frei!

- singlspeed

August 6, 2012 at 7:04pm

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seattleeng: "They are paying exclusively for a current retiree with the promise that a future worker will fund their retirement. "Does that make you happy? Hopefully. Does it change my point? Nope." No, it does not "make me happy" because it's still wrong. There is no promise that a future worker will fund their retirement. There is the hope, but there is no promise. And it does affect whatever "point" you have about funding government services. Providing assistance for the elderly is a service we have decided to provide. Building roads and bridges is a service we have decided to provide. That we have also decided that payroll taxes will be a dedicated funding stream does not diminish the contributions that these workers make to the overall funding of government (if we didn't have a dedicated funding source, then it would come from somewhere else). "How can half our population not have a dime (other than their own retirement) vested in this country?" And that's my argument above: they do invest in this country. Every working person does. And even if you segregate the programs that people pay for, those funds do not go to their own retirement. They go to providing security for the current elderly, a program which costs far more than the roads and bridges that we pay for. I will note yet again that there has been no response to the perhaps inconvenient points that I explicitly noticed above (comment at 2:14 pm. and previously at 11:46 am). If it looks like someone's mind will not be changed, and that person won't even address contrary evidence after repeated requests, then a real discussion is not possible and both parties are wasting their time.

- dsimon

August 6, 2012 at 9:16pm

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Janus writes: " Our relationship with our government is not one where we receive rights (like representation) only when we pay. " Agree. But conceptually, don't you think it's better if an entire country is vested in the future via some form of taxation? Our $50K earner are among the wealthiest 1% in the entire world. And you believe they owe this country nothing in taxes? If the wealthy would increase their effective tax rate by 10%, would you accept increasing the effective tax rate on the $50K earner by 10%? I'm not saying I want to see everyone's effective rates go up by 10%, but I'm trying to udnerstand where you are on this. Janus writes: "As above, the rest of us will continue to deal with reality as it is, not as you imagine it to be." Yes, I'm sure. What you really mean is you'll continue to focus on the minutia (a rich guy that you envy) while ignoring the larger issue. You will not accept any improvement to the middle class IF it means the rich guy might do a little better. And this is why the economy sucks today, because I think the president feels the same way you do. Fishpeddler, you didn't answer my question related to 711 CIO and cashier. Conveniently. No more discussion with you until you do. Singlespeed writes: "The answers are yes, yes and yes. But Seattle seems too distracted by the false claim by the Right that half our population doesn't have a dime vested in this country as the reason for denying half the Constitutional right to vote. Apparently there is a some qualifying level of taxes one has to pay in order to be deemed worthy enough to vote that I wasn't aware of." Wrong. Read my first comment here. A voter in the top 20% is merely voting to control how his hefty taxes are allocated. A voter in the bottom 80% is voting to control how others taxes should be spent on him. There is a big difference. Singlespeed writes: "n Seattle's own words the answer is apparently No. Clearly the working poor don't have equal rights under the U.S. Constitution." Oh please. Re-read what I wrote. Starting at the top. Dsimon writes: "I will note yet again that there has been no response to the perhaps inconvenient points that I explicitly noticed above (comment at 2:14 pm. and previously at 11:46 am)" Rather that being so outraged that 50 sentences weren't all rebutted one by one, why don't you just type the question you have and say "please answer this before we proceed any further" and then I will. Dsimon writes: "No, it does not "make me happy" because it's still wrong. There is no promise that a future worker will fund their retirement. There is the hope, but there is no promise." Fine, there's hope. That's even worse. DSimon writes: "And that's my argument above: they do invest in this country. Every working person does" Yes! Agree. Let me re-phrase: They aren't paying their share in taxes. If they are ~20% of the workforce, earning 15% of the income (per CBO), then shouldn't they be paying close to 15% in taxes instead of 2%?

- seattleeng

August 6, 2012 at 11:50pm

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AP has an article on SS stating that todays average workers will get less from SS than they put in. The article backs most of what I've been saying: A typical worker will pay $598K into social security over their lifetime. They will get back $556K. That is less than 0% ROI. Had that money gone into some place with even 4 or 5% return, the average worker would be a millionaire and then some upon retirement. www.knoxnews.com/news/2012/aug/05/is-social-security-still-a-good-deal-for-workers/ DSimon, I think you the only guy here that really grasps the notion of RoI, so I'll ask you again: What RoI do you think requires us to re-think SS? In other words, at -1% (where we are today according to the AP) you still think this is fine. What about -10%? -20%? Note that SS is morphing into a tax for wealthier earners. Today's it's a 15% contribution. But if you means test out of SS, then that 15% becomes a lifetime tax. Which means the effective tax rate on the top 10% increases by another 10%..

- seattleeng

August 6, 2012 at 11:57pm

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"Fishpeddler, you didn't answer my question related to 711 CIO and cashier. Conveniently. No more discussion with you until you do." I'm not sure what question you're talking about. You apparently missed my broader point that I find you to be such a doofus that I couldn't be bothered to read all of your attempts to deflect everyone from the primary issue of the post. I just happened to spot my name in this post, which is why I forced myself to read at least one more line of drivel. The most insightful comment in this whole thread is when singlespeed said, "How did this article devolve into yet another tit-for-tat on how great the wealth-earners are and how much of an utter waste of life those earning under $40K a year are?" We all recognize that your attempt at a defense of the pro vote suppression agenda fell flat, so you are using your usual tactic of swamping us in statistics unrelated to the core issue of the original post. I learned a long, long time ago that you rarely use statistics honestly, rarely stay on topic if it isn't going well for you, and never show any basic compassion, empathy or moral courage when talking about the most vulnerable and suffering of our citizens. I find you hideously immoral, which gives me little patience for your posts, but mostly you just bring so little intellectual rigor or integrity or capacity to these discussions to make it worth sorting through all all the minutia you throw at us. When talking about vote suppression, I really don't care enough about what you may have interjected about 711 employees' pay to go back and read it now.

- Fishpeddler

August 7, 2012 at 8:37am

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"What you really mean is you'll continue to focus on the minutia (a rich guy that you envy) while ignoring the larger issue. You will not accept any improvement to the middle class IF it means the rich guy might do a little better." As fish pointed out, this is rather baffling, as, from all appearances, you're the one who focuses on minutiae, waves and waves of it. Aside from your excellent debate technique of telling other people what they mean, I find it interesting that you assume that underlying all the things I say is some bitter, ugly, seething envy of the rich. Very interesting, because I'm rich. Whether or not I meet your definition of rich, I don't know, but I make more money than I could have conceived of growing up-and I'm simultaneously aware that I am grossly undertaxed. So where, praytell, do you see this envy that you think drives me? BTW, are you conscious that the readership of TNR, being largely well-educated, politically interested, and with enough leisure time to discuss and argue on here, is skewed to include a hell of a lot more rich people than the population at large? You are aware that the rest of us aren't tapping out comments on stolen laptops as we huddle in shantytowns, right?

- janus

August 7, 2012 at 9:40am

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seattleeng: "Fine, there's hope. That's even worse." You may think so. But that doesn't even start to address the claim that you did not, again, accurately describe how Social Security works. "If they are ~20% of the workforce, earning 15% of the income (per CBO), then shouldn't they be paying close to 15% in taxes instead of 2%?" Not if they're the bottom 20% and having difficulty putting food on the table. As you must know, the only way to have those making 15% of the income paying 15% of the income taxes is with a true flat tax. But just about no one believes in a true flat tax. Even Steve Forbes advocated a substantial exemption. So it should be no surprise that those at lower incomes pay a lower percentage of their income in income taxes. "Rather that being so outraged that 50 sentences weren't all rebutted one by one, why don't you just type the question you have and say 'please answer this before we proceed any further' and then I will." Seattle, those involved in serious discussions shouldn't need a prompt to address contrary reasoning and conflicting evidence on substantial points. Moreover, I have pointed out several times questions and issues that have gone unanswered, and still have not gotten a response--and the latest post can be added to the list. I shouldn't have to do your homework for you. "What RoI do you think requires us to re-think SS?" There is no RoI in SS because there is no money to invest to produce a return (except when it happens to be running a temporary surplus). It is a pay-as-you-go program. We chose not to enact an individual retirement program. As I wrote before, the transition costs to such a program would be huge (which is another factor showing that SS is not a forced retirement program--that it would cost a lot to make it so). News reports from 2004 said that Bush's proposal for partial privatization would be $2 trillion. http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2004-11-10-social-security_x.htm And, as I wrote before, if you've got a way of financing that transition, I'm sure Boehner, McConnell, and Romney would be very appreciative if you shared it with them. I've used up too much time here. Without serious engagement, it's not worth it.

- dsimon

August 7, 2012 at 12:45pm

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By minutia, I mean the distorted focus on a few rich people and corner cases. For example, 75% of the top 1% pay over 25% in taxes (effective tax rate), and pay far more than any other group. But rather than focus on that, everyone wrings their hands over a handful of wealthy people with exceptional circumstances that paid much less. But I do understand ideology drives your thinking, and rather than looking at facts you tend to look for anecdotes that support your rigid world view. And that when confronted with numbers that disagree with your world view, you tend to revert to name calling as you have above. The root issue we have here is that our middle class is among the top 1% in all the world earners. They are fabulously wealthy beyond the rest of world standards. And yet they pay no taxes. They are 20% of our families, and they pay just 4% of our tax burden. And they pay just 15% of our retirement burden. The retirement burden is in the ballpark, as they also earn 15% of the income. But the income taxes for such a wealthy group are not. Our top 20% earns 50% of the of the income, but pays 85% of the taxes. The dividing line between givers and moochers has never been brighter in this country. We have the most progressive tax system in the world. We need to broaden our tax base. Yes, that will reduce our tax progressivity. But at the same time, maybe that will wake some up that buying smokes with their food stamps isn't such a good thing for anyone.

- seattleeng

August 7, 2012 at 12:52pm

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DSimon writes: "You may think so. But that doesn't even start to address the claim that you did not, again, accurately describe how Social Security works." I know how social security works. Money comes in and goes out the same day. And as of LBJ, the funds are comingled with the general fund. Still, there is a reason that the government accounts for federal income taxes and social security as separate line items. They treat them differently, and 99% of the people in this country believe there is a trust fund. There is also a reason the SSA computes an ROI. And until 30 years ago, they gave a good ROI. The reason ROI is sucking more and more is because that is the only lever they have to manage the inevitable collapse: They just reduce the benefit. You are pointing to horrid practices (putting it all into a single pile) and using the new entrants to pay for the early exits as something good. It is not. It is why Maddoff is in jail. DSimon writes: "Not if they're the bottom 20% and having difficulty putting food on the table. As you must know, the only way to have those making 15% of the income paying 15% of the income taxes is with a true flat tax. But just about no one believes in a true flat tax. Even Steve Forbes advocated a substantial exemption. So it should be no surprise that those at lower incomes pay a lower percentage of their income in income taxes." But we aren't talking about the bottom 20%. We're taking about the $50K earner. You know, the top 1% of world earners, AKA, the richest 1% of humans to ever walk on this planet. No matter how you want to slice it, the $50K earner gets more from government than he puts in. That is unprecedented. It wasn't that way 20 years ago, and it wasn't that way 50 years ago. DSimon writes: "There is no RoI in SS because there is no money to invest to produce a return (except when it happens to be running a temporary surplus)" Of course there is ROI. There is ROI with every thing. 50 years ago, SS used to deliver an reasonable ROI even for new entrants. Again, bad practices dont' justify the result. If you are asking a working family to put aside half a million dollars, don't they deserve better than the government giving them a -1% return? Will you at least acknowledge the lost opportunity? DSimon writes: "Seattle, those involved in serious discussions shouldn't need a prompt to address contrary reasoning and conflicting evidence on substantial points. Moreover, I have pointed out several times questions and issues that have gone unanswered, and still have not gotten a response--and the latest post can be added to the list. I shouldn't have to do your homework for you." If you really want a question answered, then write (as I do) "Answer this for me: " followed by your question. Otherwise, do I respond to every sentence? To every question mark? To every paragraph? Don't be so intellectually needy. Ask a specific question and I'll give you a specific answer. Otherwise, I'll pick the most disagreeable parts of your argument and go after those. DSimon writes: "And, as I wrote before, if you've got a way of financing that transition, I'm sure Boehner, McConnell, and Romney would be very appreciative if you shared it with them." Well, yes, with every Ponzi scheme it is difficult to transition to something with above board accounting. It will always be best done over generations. But it must be done. As a starting point, we should get broad consensus on 1) How redistributive should it be 2) What ROI should be expected on contributions 3) How many workers will support each retiree? 4) What age should we expect to retire? These are simple questions with simple answers. If someone can answer those, it defines the benefit precisely just like computing life insurance. The problem here is that if your goal is "massively redistributive" then gettign pinned down on the specifics is not a good thing.

- seattleeng

August 7, 2012 at 3:08pm

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I think that as an absolutely basic starting point, we should get broad consensus on the reality that Social Security taxes actually are taxes. Somehow, I doubt that's going to happen (at least today, with the current participants in this conversation).

- janus

August 7, 2012 at 4:01pm

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If someone paying $1 in taxes gets $1.50 or $3 in benefits, then I'm not sure how you can call that a tax. That's a sweet deal. Taxes reflect a net negative. even the French treat them separately. You've got your "social charges" for health et al, and taxes for bridges et al. One is for the person, the other is for society. NYT has a great article today on the coming tax rates for the rich. They note taht median salary in France is just $19K euros ($24K) which is half of US median. The median marginal tax rate is 30%, on top of 20% for social services. All up, the median earner is France is looking at nearly a 30% effective tax (social + income) rate. Thus, his take home is $18K with all of France's social programs at his service. The median earner in the US has 14% SS and 2% income tax = 16% effective tax rate, or $42K take home, and he must find his own social programs. This is really the argument isn't it: $18K takehome with everything taken care of for you, or $42K take home and you buy everything yourself. I know what I'd pick. Of course, I'm sure you think we can swing the $42K takehome AND the lavish benefits. Uh huh. Search NYT for "Indigestion for ‘les Riches’ in a Plan for Higher Taxes"

- seattleeng

August 7, 2012 at 11:15pm

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