Harrop: Payroll tax cut a threat to Social Security, Medicare

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

By Froma Harrop / syndicated columnist

By the time you read this, President Trump’s latest economic stimulus plan may be largely forgotten. But it has revived an unpleasant idea that the right fringe has been peddling for years: killing Social Security and Medicare.

We speak of an executive order that would cut payroll taxes. Payroll taxes fund virtually all of Social Security and much of Medicare. Without this money, Americans would have neither.

Oh, but Trump says these taxes wouldn’t exactly be cut. Rather, they’d be “deferred” through Dec. 31 for workers making less than $100,000. Workers would be on the hook for the taxes at some later date.

Can you imagine slapping low- and middle-income workers with a bill for the back taxes? Neither can I.

Which explains why Trump says that he might actually extend the deferral or forget about collecting these taxes. As Stephen Moore, a member of his White House Economic Recovery Task Force, writes in The Wall Street Journal, Trump could sign a bill “to forgive these repayments.”

The obvious long-term goal is to destabilize funding for Social Security and Medicare. For Social Security, this would be a more direct hit than the right’s previous privatization schemes.

https://www.heraldnet.com/opinion/harrop-payroll-tax-cut-a-threat-to-social-security-medicare/

[SharonAnn]

1. Of course. It's the right-wing and Koch brothers dream.

https://www.ssa.gov/history/ikestmts.html
"In my message to the Congress on the State of the Union, I pointed out that there is urgent need for making our social security programs more effective.

I stated that the provisions of the Old Age and Survivor's Insurance law should cover millions of our citizens who thus far have been excluded from participation in the social security program.

Retirement systems, by which individuals contribute to their own security according to their own respective abilities, have become an essential part of our economic and social life. These systems are but a reflection of the American heritage of sturdy self-reliance which has made our country strong and kept it free; the self-reliance without which we would have had no Pilgrim Fathers, no hardship-defying pioneers, and no eagerness today to push to ever widening horizons in every aspect of our national life.
...
The systematic practice of setting aside funds during the productive years are over--or to one's survivors in the event of death--is important to the strength of our traditions and our economy. We must not only preserve this systematic practice, but extend it at every desirable opportunity. We now have both such an opportunity and a definite plan. I commend it to the Congress for its consideration."

[SharonAnn]

2. "Should any ... party attempt to abolish social security ... you would not hear of that party again

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/social-insecurity/

"President Dwight Eisenhower, Republican, uttered these words on November 8, 1954:

"It wasn’t something he uttered but rather something he wrote, and the version reproduced above omits Ike’s reference to a specific Texas oil tycoon (H.L. Hunt), but it otherwise is taken verbatim from a letter President Eisenhower penned to his brother, Edgar Newton Eisenhower, on 8 November 1954:
"... Should any political party attempt to abolish social security, unemployment insurance, and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history. There is a tiny splinter group, of course, that believes you can do these things. Among them are H.L. Hunt (you possibly know his background), a few other Texas oil millionaires, and an occasional politician or business man from other areas. Their number is negligible and they are stupid."