  Martin Feldstein absolutely slaughters John Kerry on Social Security in today's urlLink Wall Street Journal (subscription site -- sorry; will try to link to OpinionJournal when available): Mr. Kerry has said that he would consider "making sure that high-income beneficiaries don't get more out than they pay in" as taxes during their working years. In practice, the Kerry plan would mean cutting Social Security benefits by about 80% for those whose benefits are reduced. ... Mr. Kerry has not said which "high income" retirees would be hit by these drastic cuts. If it is limited to the same top 3% of income earners as the $200,000-plus group that Mr. Kerry has targeted for an income tax increase, the number of individuals and the cut in total Social Security outlays would be very small. Even the 80% cut in benefits for that group would reduce total Social Security outlays by less than 5%. A benefit cut targeted in that way would be more of a gesture against high earners than a serious attempt to reduce Social Security's fiscal shortfall. It would, moreover, be unfair to cut the benefits by 80% for someone who earns $200,000 and not to cut the benefits of someone who makes only slightly less.
What logic could there be to cutting the benefits of those who had preretirement incomes over $200,000 to $4,100 a year while still paying benefits of $22,000 a year to someone with a pre-retirement income of $190,000?
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The Kerry Web site also emphasizes that "current law revenues would be sufficient to pay 73% of scheduled benefits after trust fund exhaustion in 2042. " So is Mr. Kerry willing to accept an expected benefit cut of 27% for all future retirees ? If that's the plan, it would be good for younger workers to know.
And those who may be in line for drastic cuts in the near term would also welcome some clarification from Mr. Kerry. "Clarification"? How about some abject apologies and some honest discussion about privatization? I broke the story about the Kerry "rich get no more than they put in" outrage urlLink here about three weeks ago. My bookie is taking bets for how long it will take for the soak-the-rich proposal to vanish from the Kerry website. Meanwhile, I have other Social Security posts urlLink here , urlLink here and urlLink here . And if you haven't already, be sure to check out urlLink the flying pigs , who continue to spread the lies of the urlLink Forces of Darkness .
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