Many Republicans want cuts to what they call entitlement programs mentioning Social Security as one of them to lower the deficit. House Speaker John Boehner is one leading the push for the cuts. It is pretty scary when we have leaders in our government that are making decisions that affect our daily lives that don’t even know how Social Security works.

“Social Security has nothing to do with the deficit. Social Security is totally funded by the payroll tax levied on employer and employee. If you reduce the outflow of Social Security, that money would not go into the general fund to reduce the deficit.”—Ronald Reagan, October 7, 1984 (quoted by Sen. Bernie Sanders on Democracy Now)

The fact is Social Security brings in more money than it pays out. In 2011 the government received $819 billion which was 36% of the federal income and paid out $725 Billion that was 20% of the budget. Since people that make over the required amount don’t have to pay into Social Security so it is the lower wage earners that pay the cost. Although part of the Social Security for some workers is paid by their employers that is still part of the workers wage package in which they have earned from their labor.

What is also obscene is the wage earners in 2011 paid $1,092 billion in income tax which is another 47% or the federal income that alone with the S.S. they pay is 83% of the Federal Income while the corporations that are the only ones benefiting from the economic recovery only paid $181 billion or only a miserly 8% of the federal income.

“In their newly released study, the Northeastern economists found that since the recovery began in June 2009 following a deep 18-month recession, 'corporate profits captured 88 percent of the growth in real national income while aggregate wages and salaries accounted for only slightly more than 1 percent' of that growth.”

So now that the corporations and the 1% rich get most of our GDP, in which we are number one in the world, why haven’t the honest, hard working people seen any of this? The workers get far less services and benefits from the taxes they pay than any other industrialized nation in the world, and they want to cut us back even more.

So how come the corporations have more power and receive more money than the majority of Americans that are wage earners? The answer is simple: after our taxes, mortgage or rent, food, and all the expenses of providing for our families we have nothing left. But the corporations have plenty left to contribute billions to political campaigns and lobbyist. We used to have organizations that advocated on our behalf that were called unions and over 60% of the American workers were in unions but now only 7% are in unions and we really have nobody advocating on our behalf with any power anymore.

Sources:
http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/06/30/the-wageless-profitable-rec...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_federal_budget

Income is income, No matter where it came from. Capitol Gains should be taxed just like any other income.

Thank you for finally saying it! The words CAPITAL GAINS seem conspicuously absent, even taboo, in the politico-economic conversation! Why not take the money you would get by raising that rate from 15 to 20% and use it to help small businesses, or if you prefer some other important work such as paying down the deficit. Such a move would barely be felt by the poor and lower middle class, falling, appropriately, on the back of those who have enough to let their money just sit and "earn" unearned income. I totally agree with MICKEYB59, who put it very well.

This is the watershed moment for President Obama. Elected to a second term by wary progressives who, in many instances, simply feared Romney worse. The tax cuts were "agreed" upon in '01 and '03, by everyone connected to the decision, to end in'10. The President could of, and should of, ended them right then and there.
His capitulation simply emboldened Conservatives to believe they could extend their pilfering ways indefinitely. We've had nearly "ten years" of a massive transfer of wealth from the poor and working class to the upper stratum of society. If this action was intended to create jobs it would have done so long ago. Reagan/Friedman economics only work for one class. They knew that back in '80 and the "myth" of "trickle down" still inundates us with its fetid waters.

The President has a clear mandate. That mandate is to restore tax rates on the wealthy to the levels they were before the Bush tax cuts. And polls show the American people favor this action.

One of the reasons the Republicans were soundly defeated, despite the money they spent on election misinformation, is because the American people are tired of Republican obstructionism.

Wake up Republicans! The American people sent you a clear message. Abandon the Grover Norquist pledge so you can do what the people want.

The piece about changing the capital gains tax seems like a great place to start. No single piece of the tax code more clearly illustrates the way the code is skewed in the favor of the rich. The most valuable thing we all have is our time on earth. When you tax the income people make from their labor at a higher rate than the income from their investment, you're giving capital a higher value than human life and labor. You also increase the odds of creating the kind of vast income disparities we see today. Even though I've benefited from the current tax levels because of investments, I think the first fair thing to do is tax capital gains the same as any other income.

If we're going to broaden the base, let's start including carbon taxes to pay for keeping oil shipping lanes open in the middle east, and make corporations start paying a fair share of taxes. Yeah, some of the costs will trickle down to consumers, but tax breaks to the wealthy certainly haven't trickled down...