Social Security is essential to save with viable solvency plans

The Social Security Act, signed into law by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1935, created Social Security, a federal safety net for elderly, unemployed and disadvantaged Americans.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt 

Nancy J. Altman opinion echo and analysis published in the The Southern Illinoisan: Social Security’s future is a question of values, not affordability.

Social Security is conservatively financed and managed. It has no borrowing authority and cannot spend itself into a deficit. To ensure that all benefits can be paid in full and on time, Social Security’s Board of Trustees reports to Congress annually, projecting the program's income and expenses over three-quarters of a century. That is a longer valuation period than private pensions or most other countries project for their counterpart programs.

When such a long period is employed, projections will sometimes show unintended surpluses or shortfalls. Unsurprisingly, the Social Security trustees are reporting a manageable shortfall more than a decade away. It should be closed by increasing Social Security’s dedicated revenue.

One widely mentioned and popular approach is to eliminate the income cap on which Social Security’s insurance contributions are assessed. Currently, most workers contribute to Social Security all year long. But the highest-paid workers stop contributing after their earnings reach the cap — $147,000 in 2022. Depending on how quickly the cap was phased out and to what extent the additional contributions are credited toward future benefits, eliminating it would significantly close the shortfall.

As one example of that approach, Social Security 2100: A Sacred Trust (H.R. 5723 and S. 3071), which has more than 200 cosponsors in the House of Representatives, expands benefits while phasing out the cap over 30 years, starting with earnings of more than $400,000. It eliminates more than 60% of the projected shortfall.

Another example is the Social Security Expansion Act (S. 4365 and H.R. 8005), which increases benefits by $200 a month and eliminates the 75-year shortfall. It does so by phasing out the cap over 20 years, starting with earnings over $250,000, and assessing Social Security contributions on unearned investment income and earned income.

Both bills expand benefits with no cuts. That is crucial. Restoring Social Security to a long-range actuarial balance is important. But we also should ask if the benefits are large enough, and how to fund those benefits fairly.

Social Security is more universal, secure, fair and efficient than its private-sector counterparts. Its one shortcoming is that its benefits are too low by virtually any measure. As a result of its inadequately low benefits, together with the disappearance of private-sector pensions, the nation is facing a retirement income crisis. Cutting Social Security’s already low benefits would exacerbate that crisis.

While eliminating the cap on Social Security contributions is both popular and sound, it is crucial to recognize that it simply requires the highest-paid workers to pay the same rate on all their earnings as 94% of all workers now do, including the lowest paid. Progressive revenue, where the wealthy pay a higher percentage, now constitutes only 3% of Social Security’s total dedicated revenue. Additional progressive revenue should be dedicated to Social Security.

The nation is facing rising, destabilizing income and wealth inequality. In addition to its other harms, rising inequality has cost Social Security billions of dollars of revenue every year due to increasing amounts of earnings exceeding Social Security’s cap. Expanding Social Security’s modest benefits while requiring the wealthiest to pay more is a solution to the retirement income crisis and the economic squeeze on working families. It also addresses inequality.

There are numerous options. The late Robert M. Ball, the longest-serving Social Security commissioner and widely recognized as the foremost expert on our nation’s Social Security system at the time of his death, proposed that the estate tax should be dedicated to Social Security. Other possibilities include a financial transactions tax, a wealth tax and a surtax on incomes in excess of $1 million.

Expanding Social Security is unquestionably affordable. Social Security’s cost as a percentage of gross domestic product is close to level for the next three-quarters of a century and beyond.

Whether to expand or cut benefits is a question of values, not affordability. Fortunately, as polarized as the nation is over many issues, polls reveal that Americans overwhelmingly agree that Social Security should be expanded, not cut. They also agree that the wealthiest, who have benefited greatly, should pay more* toward the common good. This is the best policy.

*To Whom Much is Given, Much is Expected (Luke 12: 48)

Echo opinion - Trumpziism: intensity of the anger, fear and disaffection Americans feel

This echo opinion by columnist Leonard Pitts was published in the Southern Illinoisan newspaper. 

Leonard Pitts: Donald Trump got what he deserved

Those Trumpzi bubbles were popped at the Nationals' World Series Game!

By the way- the Nationals won but DJtRump lost his cool!*

Oh My God! Somebody in the White House let Donald Trump out of his bubble on Sunday. As expected, it did not go well.

Granted, every president lives in a bubble, due to security concerns. But Trump lives in a bubble within a bubble, one that has less to do with protecting him from assassins than with protecting him from reality. That's why his public appearances are largely confined to friendly rallies with true believers where nary a word of dissent is heard. And his handlers go to remarkable lengths to keep that bubble intact.

Take last week's speech at historically black Benedict College in South Carolina; Trump is about as popular as polka music with African Americans, so it might have seemed a brave outreach on the surface. But students were reportedly asked to stay in their dorms during the speech. Thus, Trump's appearance at a "black college" was actually an appearance before an audience of political allies with maybe seven actual students.

All this, to protect him from the fact that he is widely despised. Well, Sunday night during Game 5, of the World Series, the bubble popped. When Trump was introduced, the crowd at Nationals Park in Washington erupted in thunderous boos, followed by a chant: "Lock him up! Lock him up! Lock him up!" His grin shrank to a grimace as the magnitude of this public rejection sank in.

It was an immensely cathartic moment. For some of us, at least.

Dana Perino of Fox "News" (yuk!) was simply shocked. "I never thought he would get booed," she said, adding that she had thought "Americans would cheer." Apparently, Trump is not the only one living in a bubble.

Joe Scarborough of MSNBC took exception to the chant. "We are Americans and we do not do that," he lectured, a claim that neatly refutes itself. We do not do that? Sorry, but those weren't Ukrainians in that stadium.

Meantime, Democratic Senator Chris Coons was also troubled. "I frankly think the office of the president deserves respect," he said. Which it does. Maybe someday, we'll have a president who understands that. (Maine Writer- IMO, the office of the potus deserves respect when the person in that position shows respect for others!)

Those who are wringing their hands over this fail to appreciate — or respect — the intensity of the anger, fear and disaffection Americans feel at what is happening to this country. They know that this is less a presidency than a crime wave. And in demanding quiet forbearance in the face of that, critics seek what free people cannot, ought not — and better not — give.

Trump is not the first president booed at a sporting event. It happened to the Bushes, Obama, Truman, Hoover. Nor is he the first to face a rude chant. In the depths of the Vietnam War, Lyndon Johnson was routinely serenaded with, "Hey, hey, LBJ! How many kids did you kill today?"

No, what happened Sunday only felt revolutionary because it broke the bubble, allowed reality into the reality show that is the Trump presidency. It forced him to face, if only for a few fleeting moments, the fact that most Americans — Gallup says Trump has a 39 percent approval rating — regard him with scorn. That's a truth he's been able to dodge in that bubble, where "many people are saying" counts as a factual basis, delusion and fraud are political strategy and storm tracks can be changed with a Sharpie.

Now some of us think he should be spared the consequences of an accidental brush with reality? No. When you have endured the frustration of seeing that reality daily mutilated, you have the right — indeed, the obligation — to vindicate it at the top of your lungs.

Sunday night, Donald Trump got what he deserved.

And some of us got what we needed.

Leonard Pitts is a columnist for The Miami Herald. 

*Washington Nationals fan Chuck Todd closes ‘Meet The Press’ with World Series trophy

Innocent children in cages- criminal!

Echo opinion letter: 

Protect and provide for the innocent children! 

Put Trumpzis in cages!

To the Editor of The Southern Illinoisan newspaper:

How many reading this letter would be outraged to visit a dog kennel and witness mans best friends infested with fleas and ticks? Or a litter of puppies left to fend for themselves without a mother? I believe it's safe to say that 99% would be appalled.

Everyone has an opinion of the situation on our Southwest border. But, whether you're a round-em-all-up-and-ship-em-back advocate, or have a this-country-was-built-on-welcoming-immigrants belief, we as a civilized nation share a common consensus: Protect and provide for the innocent children.

This is why whether you're a Democrat, Republican or Independent, Christian, Jew, Muslim or atheist you should not like what's happening to innocent children on the border. This is nothing short of criminal. When an adult is arrested in this country their children are placed in the care of DCFS  (Children and Family Services) until they're either reunited with their parents or placed in foster care with a relative. During this process they are assured of the basic needs, a bed, food, adequate health care and sanitary living conditions. We provide these same needs to our most dangerous criminals convicted of heinous crimes. This is not the case at many detention centers that now house children that have crossed the border, most didn't ask to be here. They are afflicted with lice, no access to showers, dental care, clean diapers, etc. 

When Vice President Mike Pence was asked about this, he blamed Congress for not providing the money for supplies. Well Mike, if each child was allotted a small percentage of accessories that the Boston Bomber receives, wouldn't this eliminate the problem?

Daryl Ice, Benton Illinois

Echo opinion from Illinois - Trump doesn't understand the US democracy

Echo letter to the editor from Carbondale, Ill:

June 11’s edition of The Southern Illinoisan reported that the “Donald Trump laments the Fed’s autonomy.” 

Trump would prefer, instead, to be autocratic, like one of his (evil) heroes, like President Xi of China, because “he can do whatever he wants.”  (Maine Writer- incredulously, stupid Trump says he could even shoot someone in the middle of Fifth Avenue and get away with it!)

There's obviously something about democracy that stupid Donald Trump just doesn't "get"!

The Illinois writer says, "I am no economist, but it seems to me that he is able to do enough damage to the economy (the entire world’s, by the way — not just our country’s) with his tariff wars without also being able to manipulate our currency as well."

Moreover, this seems like just another example of Trump’s failure to truly embrace this country’s democratic principles except when they work for him. He doesn’t like checks and balances, even when he gets to stack the deck in his own favor — he chose four of the five members of the Fed’s board, for instance. Considering his track record in business, having six bankruptcies and reported to have lost $1 billion over a 10-year period, imagine what he could do for us as a nation if he had the power he craves. No matter how you slice it, when a party walks away from debt, someone else is inevitably left holding it.

Meanwhile, Trump’s self-inflated sense of importance has not flagged. On June 15, he wrote on Twitter, “if anyone but me takes over in (the) 2020 (election)…there will be a Market Crash the likes of which has not been seen before!”

On June 21, he posted a video showing his influence continuing through future presidential campaigns into infinity — “Trump 4EVA!” Immortality? And since the Supreme Court didn’t decide on the citizenship question for the upcoming census to his liking, he had threatened to delay the census until they revisit the question. It seems that there’s (obviously!)  something about the democratic process that he just doesn’t get.

Jim Renshaw  Carbondale, Illinois