[Red Jones]

the upper limit on income for the Social Security tax. That is NOT the income tax

oh now I understand what you're saying. You are actually saying that the payroll tax is not a tax. Republican robots frequently can't think. Let me explain. The federal government collects about 35% of its' revenue from the income tax. It collects about 25% of its revenue from the payroll tax. Some people have to pay both the payroll tax and the income tax. Some people don't. There are other taxes and fees too that the government collects besides payroll and income tax and those are real taxes too. If you want to actually measure the tax rates that people pay, then you have to add up all of these various taxes and divide by total income of the individual.

[John Valentine]

Sure, and there are sales taxes, excise taxes, tarrifs, fees and levies of all sorts, local, State and Federal, direct and indirect, and the wage earner/consumer bears the costs of them ALL, one way or another..

And so?

It is no secret that taxes are too high and that they support bloated, inefficient, useless, bueaucracies. It is agreed that basically, inequitable taxation is theft. Although some taxation is a necessary evil, it must be apportioned equitable among ALL citizens and not made to fall disproportionately on the "rich".

But any analysis of all this needs to proceed from some point of clairty, and that is not served by lumping the Federal Income Tax together with FICA, even if it is a fact that the wage earner bears the cost of both.

As for the inclusion of non-citizens in FICA, yes, this is something that has recently come about for Mexico, although it has been a fact of life for more years than that for other countires, such as Korea. That's why I can collect a Korean pension, as well as my US social security when the time comes. Rationalization of the national pension schemes of different countries has been going on for a long time and ultimately it will reduce costs by eliminating pension overlap. As part of this rationalization it is necessary to deal with those individuals that may have participated in multiple schemes. This is the grandfathering I am talking about and it is self-limiting.

Look, Social Security reform MUST be advanced on the Bush agenda, but it doesn't serve anyone to scare people with unrealistic scenarios.