[kabar]

1. Dean actually wants to raise payroll taxes, and increase taxable income from the current 85,000 dollars to 100,000.

The cap on FICA wages are raised every year now. The cap is tied to inflation. It will reach 100K eventually by itself. Of course, higher contributions also mean higher payouts.

[nwrep]

Exactly, he came across as having no clue about FICA, the military, foreign affairs, taxes, and guns. Yet he wants to be CIC. What a schmuck!!

[daviddennis]

You're right that "contributions" will go up. But higher contributions don't mean higher payouts, at least not per retiree. The problem with SS is that the number of retirees per SS "contributor" is going down. So SS taxes have to increase substantially just to meet present benefit levels, let alone increase them.

A disaster in the making, and we've been tragically slow in trying to deal with it :-(.

D

[FLCowboy,]

The cap on FICA wages are raised every year now. The cap is tied to inflation. It will reach 100K eventually by itself. Of course, higher contributions also mean higher payouts.

Higher payouts are not a function of higher inputs with social security. Higher inputs will only lessen the amount of the underrun now forecast for social security.

[Bernard]

And the cap in 2003 is 89,400 USD, not the 84,900 USD he must be using as his reference material. So this guy is only one year behind reality? Sounds like an informed politican. When I see one who can claim that they did their own tax return (even if it's just using Turbo Tax) I will start to believe any comments about fair taxes.

In the meantime, it's just limosuine liberals and conservatives talking about something they don't understand.