OK. I have now watched Cain’s Social Security answers in the replay, and I still have a question.
It seemed in his discussion of voluntary privatization that he kept talking about taking the payroll taxes that the company and the individual pays, and allowing individuals to direct parts of those dollars to a private account. That’s fine.
But Cain’s 9-9-9 plan eliminates those payroll taxes. So how would Cain create a partial privatized social security using employer/employee payroll taxes, when there are no payroll taxes? Would he have to fund it from general revenue, since under 9-9-9 social security has to move into general revenue, as it’s dedicated funding stream is eliminated?
Gingrich called for separating Social Security back out of the budget, so it wouldn’t get caught up in the debt debate and so congress wouldn’t keep spending the SS “trust fund”. Obviously you can’t move SS off the budget under Cain’s 9-9-9 plan, because SS becomes a general program.
At least, that’s how I understood 9-9-9. But Cain’s talk on Social Security sounded like there would still be payroll taxes. So I’m confused.
Could one of you kind Cain supporters, who understand the details of 9-9-9, tell me what if anything I got wrong there?
Instead of paying payroll taxes, those funds could be used for a personal retirement account.