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Social Security Musings


I recently read a letter to the editor about Social Security in the Wall Street Journal that irritated me. Not the letter writer per se, but more by the Wall Street Journal choosing to print a letter that perpetuates a widely perceived myth about Social Security.

The letter was simply this: “Oh, please don’t blame older Americans for “eating up the budget” through payments of Social Security and Medicare benefits. It is the federal government that raided the Social Security Trust Fund. Older Americans have contributed to this for years. Where is the money now?”

The problem with this letter writer is that they really just don’t understand the truth that people who have paid into Social Security are getting many, many more times the actuarial value than what they put into it. It’s not a simple misunderstanding on this. It really, truly is just a flat-out lie that people who put 30-40 years worth of payments are merely getting back just what they put in.

The politicians need this lie to survive because they risk alienating a large voting bloc of older Americans if they merely even suggest that Social Security needs reform. But it does; the egregious state that Social Security is hidden by the way the federal government accounts for it. They even have a special name for it. Social Security is repeatedly described as a pay-as-you-go (“PAYGO”) system, which gives credence to something that is terribly incorrect. PAYGO is not a system at all; rather it is a method of reporting that hides earned realities, making it totally unacceptable to accounting professions, the SEC, and virtually everybody outside the government.

Calling it PAYGO helps to perpetuate the fallacy that beneficiaries are merely receiving what they paid into to. I don’t want to pick on the poor letter writer, as she doesn’t seem to really know how Social Security works (or hasn’t worked). But the Wall Street Journal should know better.

I suppose it is fitting that the 1936 Bulletin announcing Social Security ends like this: “What you get from the Government plan will always be more than you have paid in taxes and usually more than you can get for yourself by putting away the same amount of money each week in some other way.”

This is why we have accrued trillions in unfunded liabilities such as Social Security. If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.

An Education Loan Bailout — And The Backstory


On Monday, the Department of Education announced student loan debt forgiveness for students at the now-closed Corinthian College system in California. At the end of April, the Department of Education slapped the for-profit college group with $30 million in fines for allegedly misrepresenting post-graduation job prospects and/or placement rates to some 900 students in 12 schools since 2007. Read the letter here.

Never mind that in 2010 (a year for which I have numbers), 110,000 students were enrolled in 100 schools in their system. That means the total transgressions represent less than 1% of the entire school population. And yet, the DoE decided that 40,000 students in the shuttered college system were eligible for immediate loan forgiveness for Corinthian’s misdeeds; all the students need to do is fill out a form, and their loan will be covered. By taxpayers, to the tune of an estimated $500 million dollars.

But why? That’s where it gets interesting.

Enter Kamala Harris. She’s the current Attorney General in California and she’s running for retiring Senator Barbara Boxer’s seat. Harris worked in conjunction with the Department of Education specifically targeting the Corinthian College system. According to the Wall Street Journal, “Last summer the Education Department began to drive Corinthian out of business by choking off federal student aid for supposedly stonewalling exhaustive document requests. The Department claimed to be investigating whether Corinthian misrepresented job placement rates as California Attorney General Kamala Harris alleged in a lawsuit.”

Corinthian agreed to turn over their education centers to other non-profits, but Kamala Harris refused to release any buyer of potential future liability, meaning anyone purchasing would be under constant threat of a lawsuit. Last November, “the nonprofit Education Credit Management Corporation (ECMC) “agreed to buy more than 50 Corinthian campuses for $24 million plus $17.25 million in protection money to the feds for a release from liability. But ECMC passed up Corinthian’s 23 schools in California because Ms. Harris wouldn’t quit.” The alternative to having no buyer for these particular schools would ultimately be to shut them down.

It was in April 2015 that Corinthian was slapped with the $30 million fine, which effectively drove the final nail in the coffin of the remaining schools because no one in their right mind would shoulder the liability. As for the hefty penalty, “The Department assessed the maximum fine of $35,000 per regulatory violation, which its bureaucrats count as each student that was improperly counted.” By the end of the month, all the rest of the schools indeed closed, throwing out of employment and school, thousands of people.

For those affected, “to mitigate the political damage, DoE [deputized] financial aid counselors to help Corinthian’s student refugees. Yet most community colleges don’t offer Corinthian’s vocational programs and flexible schedules, and many for-profits don’t accept Corinthian’s credits. Ms. Harris and the feds have also made clear they intend to continue their persecution of for-profits, so students could enroll in another political target.” How generous of them.

What makes this whole affair particularly odious is that that “the federal government doesn’t specify how for-profits calculate their job placement rates. States and accrediting agencies have disparate and often vague rules, which notably don’t apply to nonprofit and public colleges.” Thus, Corinthian Colleges was really just a part of the larger assault on for-profit colleges by the Obama Administration, all tied to his new “Gainful Employment” rules. You can read the regulations released last October.

Part of this new regulation change deals with colleges and federal aid. “In particular, Obama intends to change the parameters of what’s known as the “90-10 Rule”—a federal law that bars these schools from receiving more than 90 percent of their revenues through federal student aid, including loans and grants.” The affect of these changes on the for-profit college system has been noted by Forbes. Though the regulations don’t actually take affect until July 1, 2015, it appears Corinthian was a ripe target. What’s more, the Department of Education found a ready and willing partner in Kamala Harris, who just happens to be running for a very important Senate seat in California.

On can debate the merits of the for-profit college system, but that would be fodder for another post. The fact remains that certainly, the generous student loan forgiveness/bailout will resonate with these 40,000 young, impressionable voters who suddenly got their college costs covered by someone else, even if they weren’t an actual victim of alleged “misrepresentation”. Will there soon be another for-profit college chain shut down and subsequent loan bailout by the Feds in another important election state?

Presidential Race 2016: Taxpolitix Scorecard


The upcoming Presidential Election Cycle is beginning to get crowded already. Since I’m undecided right now, I’ve chosen to do a scorecard of sorts of each of the major candidates in four policy areas:

*Taxes
*Immigration
*Free Trade
*Entitlement Reform

These issues are among the most crucial for me. Over the next couple of weeks, I’ll be posting about what I believe is the best, most optimal policy in each of these four areas, and then I’ll score the candidates on their positions.

I’ll also post when I have decided to eliminate a candidate, and why. I welcome your thoughts on these particular issues too. The scorecard will be up soon.

Unions Want Exemption From $15 Minimum Wage Hike


We have entered the Twilight Zone. Because there is virtually no other explanation of the latest crusade by labor leaders in Los Angeles. Union leaders are lobbying Los Angeles city council members to be EXEMPT from paying a $15 minimum wage in workplaces where unions exist. Tim Worstall from Forbes got it right in his opening salvo on the matter: “This is really quite glorious as a display of sheer naked chutzpah.”

The unions themselves have been some of the biggest supporters of the wage increase, not just in Los Angeles, but around the country. Now when it comes to actually paying that wage in Los Angeles, which is poised to be approved by city council, the unions want to retain their right to collective bargaining — which means paying a lower wage if they want. Here is the sheer hypocrisy:

“Rusty Hicks, who heads the county Federation of Labor and helps lead the Raise the Wage coalition, said Tuesday night that companies with workers represented by unions should have leeway to negotiate a wage below that mandated by the law.

“With a collective bargaining agreement, a business owner and the employees negotiate an agreement that works for them both. The agreement allows each party to prioritize what is important to them,” Hicks said in a statement. “This provision gives the parties the option, the freedom, to negotiate that agreement. And that is a good thing.”

You can’t make this up. Currently, businesses are not mandated to pay a $15/hour minimum wage and therefore really, truly, actually have, right now, what Mr. Union Rusty Hicks is asking for: “the option, the freedom, to negotiate” an agreement between a business owner and an employee for their wages, allowing “each party to prioritize what is important to them”. That’s what exists now. No mandated wage. Unions seem to be following the “Do as I say, not as I do” playbook.

What is really happening is that the unions want to be able to retain exclusivity on certain contracts. The exemption they are seeking is in places where unions exist in the workplace. By being exempt, this will give the unions the upper hand on contracts. If you were an employer who now will have to pay a $15/hour minimum wage, and the unions can come in and undercut that wage amount by negotiating $13/hour, which do you think an employer will pay? The $15/hour mandated wage for non unions, or the $13/hour union contract? The unions are fearful that leveling the playing field by mandating a $15/hour minimum wage for all will mean that they will lose some (or many) contract — meaning less money in the union’s pockets.

Now I’m not a fan of the proposed $15/hour minimum wage hike, ironically for some of the same reasons that the unions are pleading — a business owner and an employee ought to have the right to agree on wages without an artificial, arbitrary price floor. However, I’m even less of a fan of the idea that unions, or any other group, should be able to claim an exemption. If the city of Los Angeles is going to pass this legislation, then it should be binding for all. Either $15/hour is good for everyone, or no one. Shame on the unions for their brazen hypocrisy.

Another IRS Civil Asset Forfeiture, Return

The media recently profiled another large civil asset forfeiture case, much like the Hirsch Brothers and the restaurant owner. This particular case involved a North Carolina man who has owned a convenience store since 2001. Last July, the IRS seized $107,000 from his bank account.

The owner, Lyndon McLellan, was visited by the FBI, who informed him that his habit of depositing less than $10,000 cash on repeated occasions drew suspicion by the government, also known as “structuring”. What started as a means to go after drug trafficking and money laundering has entangled many American citizens in recent years who have had their money seized under suspicion of criminal activity.

Recently, several cases have received substantial news coverage, resulting in the IRS, and then the Department of Justice changing their policy of asset forfeiture; now, no assets will be seized without an actual tie to a crime. Suspicion of activity is not enough anymore.

The plight of his latest victim of asset forfeiture was given several “opportunities” to settle with the government for a partial return of his money. The owner, who had done nothing wrong — since much of his business was run in cash — refused each offer. Three days after his story gained national coverage, the government dropped their case against him, citing the IRS and DoJ policy change. The owner had never been charged formally with anything. McLellan was fortunate; in such cases, the burden is on the victim to prove his innocence.

The Institute for Justice has been successfully representing many of these victims of civil asset forfeiture. However, “though the government will return all of the money it seized from McLellan, it dismissed the case without covering the store owner’s legal fees and expenses, as well as interest on the money.

In 2000, Congress passed a law that entitles McLellan to those fees and expenses, which total more than $20,000.

Additionally, government policies require the $107,702 seized is kept in an interest-bearing account. Though McLellan will receive the money, the government wants to keep the interest earned.”

Though the new policy reforms will hopefully keep from ensnaring more innocent Americans, others have not been so lucky.

In recent years, seizures executed because of structuring violations have increased dramatically. In 2005, the Internal Revenue Service made just 114 structuring seizures. By 2012, that number had risen to 639. During that same time period, the agency seized $242 million for structuring violations.

While banks must submit reports to the Department of the Treasury for cash deposits of more than $10,000, the government also receives “suspicious activity reports” on deposits below that threshold.

It’s likely the government received a suspicious activity report detailing McLellan’s deposits, which is how he “came onto the government’s radar.”

Also, “the IRS frequently teams up with local law enforcement to look through suspicious activity reports. By seizing property and money through the Department of Justice’s Equitable Sharing Program, law enforcement agencies share the proceeds of the forfeiture.”

Though Lyndon McLellan is supposed to receive his $107,000, he may still have to wait several more months. By July, the government will have held his money for a year. It’s amazing what a little sunlight and media coverage on these unconstitutional seizures can do for the government to come to its senses.

The Ninth Circuit Thinks The Raisins You Grow Aren’t Protected By the 5th Amendment

In recent years, the Ninth Circuit Court has provided the lion’s share of the cases that have come before the Supreme Court. A full ¼ of the cases (25.7%) come from the Ninth while the other 3/4ths come from a combined 10 other Courts. During the last four terms, the Supreme Court has vacated or sent back nearly 80% of the cases it has reviewed from the Ninth Circuit.

Far more cases come to the Court from the Ninth Circuit than any other court, and — not surprisingly — Ninth Circuit rulings make up a sizeable portion of the docket of argued and decided cases – 75 cases, or 25.7% for the last four Terms including the current session. During that period, the Court has reversed or vacated and sent back 79.5% of the Ninth Circuit decisions it has reviewed.

The Ninth Circuit seems to have particular ideas it wishes to push, making no difference as to what the law is. They reach a particular conclusion and then use a court case that comes before them as an example. In a consummate instance of their ineptitude, “in one per curiam opinion last month, the Supreme Court even rejected the Ninth Circuit’s reasoning in a single word: “No.”

Take the recent raisin case (Horne v. Department of Agriculture) as another example. The Ninth Circuit decided that the “Taking Clause” under the 5th Amendment applies less to personal property than real property — as if you can take someone’s gold to regulate the market but not their land. What’s more, under “just compensation”, if the government does take your property, it creates a scarcity which (could) raise prices, so a confiscation produces compensation for property in that manner. Does that mean if I steal one of your two cars, I can argue that the remaining car is potentially worth more now because there are less cars on the market? Of course not. But the Ninth Circuit seemed fit to argue so.

The only positive thing that could come out of this egregious display of legal impropriety by the Ninth is that it could hopefully clarify property rights. As the Wall Street Journal contends, “The Horne case is one of the most significant property rights cases in years—probably since the Court’s infamous 5-4 ruling in 2005 in Kelo v. New London…The majority Justices in Kelo have a lot to answer for. This is a chance to make partial amends.”

It’s Not Kosher: The IRS and Z Street

The recent Z Street Case against the IRS before the D.C. Court of Appeals is a notable example of egregious behavior by IRS employees.

Z Street is a group that was created in order to educate “the public about Zionism; about the facts relating to the Middle East and to the existence of Israel as a Jewish State; and about Israel’s right to refuse to negotiate with, make concessions to, or appease terrorists.”

In December 2009, the group submitted an application to the IRS in order to gain 501(c)(3) status. By July 2010, Z Street spoke to the IRS about the unusually lengthy process; the “IRS agent said that auditors had been instructed to give special attention to groups connected with Israel, and that they had sent some of those applications to a special IRS unit for additional review.”

The interesting thing about this case is that it hearkens back to the early years of the Obama Administration beginning in 2009. That’s more than three years before the IRS scandal blew wide open in 2013, which goes to show you just how deeply entrenched the culture was at the IRS — it seems no one considered actions against certain groups (but not others) to be discriminatory or punitive. Why did the IRS not recognize their own audacity?

Incidentally, according to documents, IRS inspectors were instructed to “be on the look out” (BOLO) for groups that would fit the description of “occupied territory advocacy”; that instruction was sent on August 6, 2010, merely a few days after the Z Street application file was examined. After the IRS scandal broke, and during subsequent investigations, it was revealed that the file containing “occupied territory advocacy” groups listed exactly one such group: Z Street.

The IRS manager involved with the Z Street case stated under oath by documents submitted during the initial court proceedings in 2013 that he concluded Z Street might be involved with terrorism funding because “there is a higher risk of terrorism in Israel.”

The Circuit Court was patently outraged at the IRS’s illegal actions on the matter, and further chastised the IRS and the DoJ for ridiculously implying that there can be a holding period of up to 270 days before a decision is made for a 501(c)(3) application. One judge remarked, “If I were you, I would go back and ask your superiors whether they want us to represent that the government’s position in this case is that the government is free to unconstitutionally discriminate against its citizens for 270 days.”

Why are heads still not rolling at the IRS? Why is the IRS defending this behavior? The tactic to appeal last year’s halted discovery that would potentially embarrass the IRS. This “would have allowed Z Street to examine IRS officials, under oath, and to receive internal communications from the agency regarding the special unit and special procedures for handling pro-Israel groups.”

In other words, the IRS and the government are more worried about protecting themselves than fixing the problems, thus continuing to clog up the court system until the waning days of the Obama Administration. This maneuver shows that corruption is evidently still alive and well at the IRS.

Baltimore is a Microcosm for Failed Democrat, Anti-business Policies

Recently, a business owner in the heart of Baltimore penned a piece describing some of the excessive and burdensome government policies business owner face. His piece gave an eye-opening view of the reality that is decades of fiscal and governmental mismanagement in the city.

For instance, he notes there a fee or fine for a ridiculous amount of infractions: “When the building alarm goes off, the police charge us a fee. If the graffiti isn’t removed in a certain amount of time, we are fined. This penalize-first approach is of a piece with Baltimore’s legendary tax and regulatory burden.”

As for taxes, “Baltimore fares even worse than other Maryland jurisdictions, having the highest individual income and property taxes at 3.2% and $2.25 for every $100 of assessed property value, respectively. New businesses organized as partnerships or limited-liability corporations are subject, unusually, to the local individual income tax, reducing startup activity.” This policy is especially anti-business; a company’s early make-or-break years are impeded by an excessive tax burden.

And regulations? “State and city regulations overlap in a number of areas, most notably employment and hiring practices, where litigious employees can game the system and easily find an attorney to represent them in court. Building-permit requirements, sales-tax collection procedures for our multistate clients, workers’ compensation and unemployment trust-fund hearings add to the expensive distractions that impede hiring.” People go into business to make things, to provide a product, a service, not to comply with government red tape.

So what is the solution? Typically more money is the stock answer from the Democrats but in the case of Baltimore, even that’s not true. They’ve already tried that. “The Maryland state and Baltimore city governments are leveraging funds to float a $1 billion bond issue to rebuild crumbling public schools. This is on top of the $1.2 billion in annual state aid Baltimore received in 2015, more than any other jurisdiction and eclipsing more populous suburban counties. The financial problem Baltimore does face is a declining tax base, the most pronounced in the state. According to the Internal Revenue Service, $125 million in taxable annual income in Baltimore vanished between 2009 and 2010.”

A declining tax base can be reversed once the climate for business growth and opportunity changes. Instead of approaching businesses merely as a source of revenue for a fiscally mismanaged city, give them breathing room. Loosen the regulations. Repeal fees and fines. Lower the tax burden. Give them the tools necessary to grow their companies and create more jobs.

Baltimore has suffocated under the failed progressive policies of the last few decades — the city and the state and local government all run by Democrats. What they’ve done is bad, but what they haven’t done for businesses is even worse.

Quickly Noted: The IRS Scandal, 2 Years Later

From the Hill:

Exactly two years after the IRS first admitted improperly scrutinizing Tea Party groups, congressional investigations into the tax agency show no sign of drawing to a close anytime soon.

Congressional Republicans say they are deeply irritated that they haven’t finished off the investigations launched after Lois Lerner apologized for the IRS on May 10, 2013, and insist that President Obama’s Justice Department has stonewalled their efforts.

Top lawmakers like Senate Finance Chairman Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) note that they’ve only just received thousands of emails to and from Lerner that the IRS said were unrecoverable close to a year ago.

Hatch recently said he hoped a bipartisan Finance report, which members once thought could be released more than a year ago, could come out by the end of June. But congressional investigators maintain that they’ll need to make sure they have a fuller accounting of Lerner’s email trail before any reports are circulated.
Asked about the repeated delays, Hatch said simply: “Every time we turn around we get more emails.”

Congressional committees have received about 5,000 of the roughly 6,400 newly recovered Lerner emails they expect from Treasury’s inspector general for tax administration, a GOP aide said Friday. The aide said that there appears to be little new in the emails, and that the inspector general is expected to issue a broader report on the emails in the coming weeks.

Hatch is far from the only GOP lawmakers fuming about the status of the IRS investigation.

“That’s so egregious, for the tax collection agency of the United States to be in that kind of shape,” said Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan.). “They have nobody to blame but themselves. I’d just like to see some accountability, you know?”

But even some Republicans acknowledge that the IRS controversy wasn’t quite the slam dunk case they thought it was two years ago, and House Republicans at least have seemed to put more emphasis on their investigation into the Benghazi attacks over the last year.

Still, Republicans aren’t the only group frustrated by the IRS investigations – underscoring that the partisan divisions marking the inquiries aren’t going away, and that controversy will linger long after any reports are issued.

Tea Party groups say some organizations are still facing delays from the IRS, and that they believe Lerner and other agency officials are getting off easy.

“It’s clear the IRS would like this scandal to disappear,” Jordan Sekulow, whose American Center for Law and Justice represents dozens of groups challenging the IRS in court, said recently.

Congressional Democrats, though, say that two years’ worth of investigations, costing millions of taxpayer dollars, have found what they long suspected – that the IRS’s scrutiny of Tea Party groups was caused not by political bias, but by bureaucratic mismanagement.

The IRS itself says it took pride in a recent inspector general report that found the agency had cleaned up its act when processing tax-exempt applications. But the IRS, and their Democratic supporters, are also facing down budget cuts from Republicans who have shown no signs that they’ll forgive an agency which was unpopular even before Lerner’s apology two years ago.

John Koskinen, the IRS commissioner, has said that the roughly 10 percent budget cut – from $12.1 billion to $10.9 billion – the agency has absorbed in recent years has only hurt its ability to help taxpayers.

Koskinen said in a March speech that the improper scrutiny of Tea Party groups was “from a prior era,” and has urged Congress to allow the IRS to put that era to rest and provide more funding. “It’s not the IRS of 2010, 2011 or even 2012,” Koskinen said in the March speech.

Republicans themselves, frustrated especially by the Justice Department’s investigation into the IRS, have started focusing more heavily on preventing a “Lois Lerner 2.0” situation, as Rep. Peter Roskam (R-Ill.) calls it.

“Of course there’s not targeting going on right now, when the entire world is watching. It’s no surprise that they stopped the targeting for the time being,” said Roskam, the chairman of the House Ways and Means subcommittee overseeing the IRS. “But moving forward, the IRS hasn’t been able to demonstrate anything that it’s done to prevent the targeting from happening again.”

The Senate’s permanent subcommittee on investigations is the only panel to have rolled out a final report on the IRS’s handling of 501(c)(4) applications – and even that was notable largely for the split findings from former Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.) and Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.).

Roskam said he didn’t know whether Ways and Means Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), who has made trade deals and tax reform his top priorities, would be interested in releasing a broad report on the committee’s IRS findings.

Rep. Jim Jordan (Ohio), a senior member of the House Oversight Committee, said much the same thing about his panel’s chairman, Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah).

Jordan did note that the committee’s previous chairman, Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), released periodic reports on the IRS, including a broad final report in his last days atop the Oversight panel.

The Ohio Republican was far more confident that Justice Department investigators have never been serious about pressing criminal charges against anyone connected to the IRS, and knocked former Attorney General Eric Holder for declining to appoint a special prosecutor to look into the case.

Justice officials have said they want to complete their investigation “as expeditiously as possible.” But Republicans were also enraged last month when an outgoing U.S. attorney decided not to bring their contempt charges against Lerner to a grand jury.

“You’ve got all this history, and you’ve got the fundamental nature of the violation,” Jordan said. “I think it’s kind of natural to be skeptical about, well, ‘everything’s fine now.’ I do think there’s more to look into here.”

Republicans add that they’ll have to keep their focus on the IRS as long as it’s still working on new rules governing 501(c)(4) groups, after groups ranging from the Tea Party to the American Civil Liberties Union ripped the Obama administration’s first effort.

And while Republicans don’t want to speculate on when their IRS efforts might come to a close, Roskam dropped some hints that their interest in both the agency and Lerner won’t fade anytime soon.

“The statute of limitations doesn’t lapse until after the new administration comes in, so you could very easily see a newly constituted Justice Department having a new attitude about Lerner,” Roskam said.

Chris Christie’s Hail Mary

Chris Christie recently unveiled a plan to overhaul Social Security. This is his Hail Mary to get back in the game of running for President. Though I applaud his decision to make entitlement reform a major portion of his platform, his proposal is merely another veiled tax increase on the wealthy.

There are two portions to his reform plan. The first is to raise the retirement age from 67 to 69 over a phased in length of time. That is not such a bad idea. It is the second portion, related to reducing and even eliminating entirely the ability for a taxpayer to receive Social Security, into which he has paid during his working career, that is particularly heinous.

Chris Christie’s proposal to reduce and eliminate Social Security benefits for wealthier people is just a capitulation to the Left. He advocates reducing benefits for retired persons if they earn more than $80,000 and calls for eliminating outright Social Security benefits for retirees who earn $200,000 or more a year. This is basically another massive tax increase on the wealthy disguised as entitlement reform.

For many upper income earners, their income tax rates are already over 50%, especially when local and state taxes are factored in. Yet when one calculates that income tax rate, not included in that amount is Social Security (though Social Security is a separate tax). As reference, for those who are self-employed, one pays 15.3% to Social Security, but if someone is employed, the employer pays 7.65% while the employee pays the other 7.65%. The reason why this tax is not considered in the tax rate calculation is because it is considered to be “retirement pay”, something paid into “the system”, based upon the “promise” that it will be returned as benefits at a point in the future.

But now Christie proposes to change the game in a nearly fraudulent way. Social Security taxes would still be collected from taxpayers, but for upper income earners, you won’t get your benefits back in entirety or even at all after a certain income level when you are of retirement age. That’s practically criminal. It’s raising taxes on the wealthy yet again, because the Social Security tax would still be collected over the years, but you don’t receive the promised benefits anymore past certain income levels during your retirement years. Looked at it another way, if you are successful, if you do well and are able to retire with a decent income stream, you are now punished for that success and lose the funds you faithfully paid in over the years because the government now deems you to have too much money. It is wealth confiscation to cover decades of mismanaged funds that now need massive reform to be solvent.

I think Chris Christie’s heart is in the right place, but he really hasn’t thought his plan through. It plays directly to the Left playbook on class warfare, implying that the wealthy need to “pay their fair share” by now forfeiting their Social Security funds past a certain income threshold in order to help pay for government fiduciary malfeasance. That concept is repugnant and Social Security reform needs a better plan than what Chris Christie has to offer.