Is Roger Ach in charge of the Federal Budget?

[Kahns Krazy]

So I'm looking over my first pay of the new year, and my Social Security withholding looks too low.

I google it, and find that the employee's withholding rate for Social Security has dropped from 6.2% to 4.2%. Employer's share stays at 6.2%.

Are you friggin kidding me? Everyone in the entire country is well aware of the impending Social Security funding deficit, so we go and reduce the revenues coming in by 16%?

When will someone have the balls to stand up and demand that we as a country start paying for some of the shit we've been putting on the credit card.

Who's idea was this? Is this 2% in my paycheck supposed to create "stimulus"? What the Frankenstein?

[dc_x]

The explanation was that the "making work pay" credit expired at the end of 2010 so they came up with this to not reduce peoples' paychecks. However, the 2% cut in SS tax is better for the rich since the making work pay thing phased out at certain income levels.

It's a 1-year deal. The funny part will be at the end of the year when politicians describe the move back to 6.2% as a "tax hike".

[Emp]

It's insane, I agree. But so is continuing the Ohio income tax reductions with an $8M budget hole. Tax hawks either want something for nothing, or nothing for nothing. Either way, the deficits never get paid back. If "leaving our children and grandchildren" with a huge deficit is so bad.......start paying it down, now.

[coasterville95]

At which point there will a bug fuss about how we have to protect the people. Congressman will take it on (on the verge of an even numbered election year, just pure coincidence) as a "We're fighting for you! Don't vote us out, we have your paycheck and life at heart" move.

i recall a financial planner type teling a room full of people that the fear of Social Security going away is unfounded - not for lack of merit or because the program is losing funds fast, but because no Congress with a sense of their own job security wants to be the Congress that shuts down FICA. He said the program may look different in the future, and may not pay as well as it does today, but it will be there in some form. See: Sacred Cow.

I have to say the FICA rollback was almost missed by me until Kahn's brought it up becuase it offset the increase in things like health insurance pretty well.

[Pete Delkus]

It's insane, I agree. But so is continuing the Ohio income tax reductions with an $8M budget hole. Tax hawks either want something for nothing, or nothing for nothing. Either way, the deficits never get paid back. If "leaving our children and grandchildren" with a huge deficit is so bad.......start paying it down, now.

Yes, let's turn into New York...or even better yet, do the exact opposite of the states that are somewhat succeeding, like Texas, and be contrarians to the feelings of people this past November. If keeping companies like American Greetings in Ohio (versus Illinois...thank You Illinois for your tax hike!!) along with another Cincinnati based company that was looking to hightail it out of Ohio (who thus far has remained nameless) , is not your cup of tea, keep raising indivdual and corporate taxes.

...and your children and my children can remember the days when they lived in Ohio.

[Snipe]

A good first step in dismantling social security is taking away the direct payments into the system. It will make it easier to cut benefits down the line because people didn't pay in.

[X-band '01]

Even last year, there were limited circumstances in which EMPLOYERS didn't pay any Social Security taxes depending on which workers they hired; if they were unemployed 60 days prior to their date of hire (starting around the 2nd quarter, I think) the employer didn't have to pay SS taxes but still had to pay Medicare taxes. The employee still paid the regular 6.2% SS and 1.45% Medicare taxes.

I don't know if Congress is looking for alternative sources of funding to make up for the lost 2% of SS taxes that come from the employee share, but I question the wisdom of employees only paying 4.2% at this point. Shit, why not just add a box to Form 941 that says "Please donate $x amount of money to help overcome the Social Security windfall."

[Kahns Krazy]

Even last year, there were limited circumstances in which EMPLOYERS didn't pay any Social Security taxes depending on which workers they hired; if they were unemployed 60 days prior to their date of hire (starting around the 2nd quarter, I think) the employer didn't have to pay SS taxes but still had to pay Medicare taxes. The employee still paid the regular 6.2% SS and 1.45% Medicare taxes.

I don't know if Congress is looking for alternative sources of funding to make up for the lost 2% of SS taxes that come from the employee share, but I question the wisdom of employees only paying 4.2% at this point. Shit, why not just add a box to Form 941 that says "Please donate $x amount of money to help overcome the Social Security windfall."

There is a huge difference in offering an incentive to an employer to hire an out of work employee and giving an existing employed worker a cash payout from an insolvent fund.

Stupid. Stupid stupid stupid.

[X-band '01]

I understand that Social Security is losing more money by lowering the employee rate to 4.2% for a year as opposed to offering employer incentives for a much smaller segment of the working population. I was merely pointing out that we're already seeing less money go into Social Security than the typical 15.3% per worker (counting employer and employee share).