Social Security is not a ‘little cost’
Re “Another silent spring,” Opinion, April 9
The steps Nancy Altman suggests to fix Social Security would not come at “little cost.” Dedicating estate tax revenues to Social Security would break the historical link between taxes paid by workers and benefits received by them, a link that differentiates Social Security from so-called welfare programs.
Increasing the maximum taxable wage would raise the top marginal tax rate by 12.4 percentage points, and although it would hit only about 6% of workers each year, it would affect more than 20% of workers over their lifetimes.
Investing the trust fund in stocks would involve “transition costs” and the risk of market downturns in the same way as President Bush’s plan to introduce personal retirement accounts.
While Altman claims these steps would “restore Social Security to balance,” the Social Security actuaries found these three steps would not address about one-quarter of the program’s 75-year deficit. To reach “sustainable solvency,” meaning that Social Security would be solvent through 75 years and financially healthy thereafter, would require changes roughly twice as large as those proposed by Altman.
Fixing Social Security will depend on insight, compromise and the ability to make difficult choices, not on lowering the bar for success.
Andrew G. Biggs
Washington
The writer is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute.
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Altman addresses a subject that has been needling me since the Republicans started misnaming the estate tax the “death tax.” Suggesting that revenue from the estate tax be dedicated to Social Security, Altman writes, “seems a reasonable minimum to ask of those who have benefited so greatly from the common wealth.”
It has always amazed me how Americans assume that their wealth comes out of thin air. Few expend much sweat in accumulating wealth but rather gain it from the sweat of others or simply from the system to which we are all contributors.
Zena Thorpe
Chatsworth
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Altman has presented a common-sense approach to maintaining the long-run solvency of Social Security. Those gullible Americans who favor Bush’s attempt to privatize the program -- with the goal of eliminating it -- need to be reminded of the many poor houses that existed in this country before the passage of the Social Security law.
Altman’s suggestion to use the estate tax to help fund Social Security is an excellent one. The proponents of eliminating that tax have been claiming for years that it has cost families their farms and businesses, but there is little evidence of that.
For almost 70 years, Social Security has lived up to its credo: partial replacement of lost income. Just ask the millions of seniors, disabled and widows who would be destitute without it.
Joseph M. Ellis
Woodland Hills
