Washington Post Whopper on Trumka, Social Security &
Taxes

By Mike Hall
AFL-CIO blog
July 7, 2010

http://blog.aflcio.org/2010/07/07/wapo-whopper-on-trumka-social-security-and-taxes/

Here's a great way to save some Social Security money.
Let more folks die before they can get a check.  Cold?
Maybe. But pretty darn effective according to
Washington Post columnist Ruth Marcus.

Marcus seems to have taken offense at AFL-CIO President
Richard Trumka's objection to raising the retirement
age and his call for the better-off among us to pay the
Social Security tax on all their income, just like the
rest of us do.

Trumka recently meet with the Post's editorial board,
including Marcus, and also testified last week before
the federal budget deficit commission. In her WaPo
column today, Marcus writes that Trumka "erupts" during
the editorial board meeting when asked about raising
the Social Security retirement age. She says he tells
the board that would have been be a "death sentence"
for workers like his late coal mining father whose 44
years in the mines left him with a case of black lung,
but also a union pension check and Social Security.

Marcus writes that maybe there's room for a little
sympathy for coal miners, but then holds up the example
of the "middle age assembly" sitting around with her at
the "gleaming conference table," as great evidence that
boosting Social Security's retirement age wouldn't be
so tragic.

Well, not all of us go to work around "gleaming
conference tables" or enjoy what are probably pretty
darn decent health benefits and not-too-shabby
paychecks as do Marcus and her colleagues. And good for
them. They've no doubt worked hard to get there.

But they probably are not counting on that Social
Security check as a major element of their retirement
security as are tens of millions of workers beyond the
Beltway-heck, here within the Beltway, too.

BTW, those grocery clerks, truck drivers, teachers,
road crews, nurses, factory workers and other regular
folk are paying a big part of  Social Security's bill.
Yet Trumka's call to even out the fairness of the
Social Security payroll tax doesn't sit too well with
Marcus.

Currently all workers pay the Social Security payroll
tax on the first $106,000 of their earnings. Earnings
above $106,000 are exempt from the Social Security
payroll tax. A nice tax cut for those on the top side
of $106,000. But that 6.2 percent tax takes a good
chunk out of the salary of most workers.

Trumka, and many economists, say that raising or
eliminating that cap not only would be more fair, but
would also be a hefty boon for the Social Security
Trust Fund that deficit hysterics are making such a big
fuss over. Marcus however, calls it Trumka's "one-
sided, tax-the-rich reflex" solution to all economic
problems.

Let Dean Baker at the Center for Economic and Policy
Research (CEPR) explain. http://tinyurl.com/2cytwnp

	Marcus also implies that Trumka believes that
	the country's fiscal problems can be solved
	exclusively by taxing the rich. This is not
	true. Trumka and the AFL- CIO have consistently
	been strong proponents of measures that would
	make the U.S. health care system more
	efficient, such as a public health insurance
	option and negotiated prices for prescription
	drugs.

	If per person health care costs in the United
	States were the same as in any other wealthy
	country, the United States would be looking at
	huge long-term budget surpluses rather than
	deficits.

	It is important also to note that measures that
	reduce the trend toward growing inequality,
	such as improved corporate governance that
	reins in CEO pay or a trade policy that is not
	designed to increase inequality, would also
	have beneficial budgetary impact. As more
	income goes to those at the middle and bottom,
	there would be less need for various government
	transfer programs. It would be useful if Post
	columnists would try to directly address the
	agenda of the unions, rather than caricature it
	in order to discredit it.

Well said.

One last thing to set the record straight. As Trumka
told the budget deficit commission, Social Security is
not related to nor the cause of the nation's budget
deficit. We need to solve the nation's pressing short
term problem of creating jobs, that will go a long way
to solving the long term debt problem.

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