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Title: The Looting of Social Security : How the Government is Draining America's Retirement Account by Allen W. Smith ISBN: 0-7867-1281-3 Publisher: Carroll & Graf Pub. Date: 10 December, 2003 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 3 (7 reviews)
Rating: 2
Summary: It is difficult to give this two stars
Comment: You are buying a contemporary history book by a economic professor on a political platform. The back of the book elicits your interest in one agenda, subject talks about another, and the book is really articles that remind you of a nun and a ruler. Bad, bad, bad-bad. So, much so, that it hurts to read it. I cannot agree w/his numbers and stories because of his strong bias. It says the book was re-written just for this purpose and if you are of sound mind in either political party you simply cannot take much of this. It is too bad. He had a lot of good things to say. Watch the marketing next time, and stick to the facts. Try, "Let's Get Rid of Social Security", by Myers; Or, "Retooling Social Security for the 21st century", by Steuerle & Bakija. I don't believe in getting rid of it, but really like the way that 1st book was written. Agreed that politics is the problem, but the constant stilting of the story is what causes a problem like this to continue.
Rating: 5
Summary: The truth hurts?
Comment: Smith is absolutely correct in his main contention, which is that Bush II paid for his tax cuts by using the Social Security surplus. This is all the more appalling when you consider that Social Security is a regressive tax (it only applies to the first $85,000 of everyone's income, including Bill Gates), while the Bush II tax cuts mostly benefit the rich. David Cay Johnston makes a similar point in his excellent book, Perfectly Legal. And can anyone doubt that the right wing will use this to bolster its claims that Social Security is "broke," paving the way for privatization or other ways to dismantle it?
I see from reviews here that the freeper attack dogs are nervous about this line of argument. Sadly, their (his?) understanding of economics does not match their (his or her?) passion. Yo, Reader from California: anyone who reads reviews for a book such as this knows that it's not the "Democrats' fault" that the Reagan and Bush II tax cuts led to deficits. Reagan wanted his huge increase in military spending, and Bush II enjoys a Republican House and Senate. And Micsca (are you the same person as "Reader" -- same state, same posting date, same dogma): your vaunted increase in tax revenues several years after the Reagan tax cuts was due merely to a growing population and workforce. Yet the tax cuts caused revenues to be lower than they would have been. Which Smith clearly explains and which you would know if you had actually read the book. Why bother to spin such nonsense to an educated audience?
As for the rants about supply side economics, I have a degree from one of the 10 best graduate schools in this country, and supply side economics is dead. The only "data" showing that it works come from nordic countries that had marginal tax rates over 70% -- not our country at all.
Brookings and other economists have pointed out that the Bush tax cuts make up the same percent of our economy (GDP) as would be required to fix both Social Security and Medicare. Drag corporations back from their overseas tax havens (the 35% statutory rate is a joke), and where's the problem?
The book was a little repetitive, but I give it 5 stars because I revile these freeper "assassination" attempts.
Rating: 1
Summary: Terrible book
Comment: This book is a pathetic smear attempt at the Republicans in general and George W. Bush in particular. He thinks that presidents are the ones that decide how the federal government spends money. Apparently he has never read the Constitution.
He rants that he never heard of "supply side" economics. He apparently was taught that Keynesian economics was the only acceptable theory.
On the back cover of the book, the author blames Reagan and the Bush's and Clinton for the problem, but inside the book he blames Bush I, Clinton and Bush II.
Reagan was a so-called supply-sider because he had studied economics as a young student (10 years before Smith was born) at a time when ONLY the economics of production (supply) was taught in college curricula. Keynesianism did not exist at the time, nor did "monetarism," both of which displaced classical economics and the economics of production with the economics of consumption (demand).
Smith rants about the Reagan tax cuts and does the typical nonsense about how they caused the deficits. The tax cuts caused the rich to pay a larger share of income taxes, it caused the total tax revenues to increase, and they spurred job creation by the tax incentives for businesses to increase capital expenditures, which helped workers. Real wages increased under Reagan's term. They decreased in the Bush-Clinton years. Smith regurgitates the same hackneyed explanation that tax cuts didn't increase tax revenues because the debt ballooned. Smith does the typical rant about how the debt increased under Reagan and how he didn't know anything about economics. Professor Smith never bothered to find out that President Reagan earned his degree in Economics and understood economics far better than Professor Smith.
College textbooks written by liberal professors like Smith also attempt to discredit Reaganomics. They even go as far as to use the wrong years to make their comparisons, comparing data from 81 to 84, or 80 to 83, then claimed the tax cuts didn't work. (The Reagan budget years were 82-89) There was a recession in 1982, which was caused by the economic policies of the prior administration. By picking 81-84, the dishonest economics professors try to make it appear that the tax cuts didn't work. Why don't they compare 82 to 89 instead? They don't because it would show that the tax cuts did exactly what Reagan said they would. Reagan wasn't the first to cut taxes to increase tax revenues. Kennedy did it in the 1960's and Coolidge did it in the 1920's. The effect was the same.
Professor Smith mentions that Keynesian economic theory was the prominent theory in his time. Smith apparently doesn't know that Keynesian economics has been thoroughly discredited. Smith claims not to know or understand that cuts in marginal tax rates increase tax revenues. Even Keynes knew that, but he believed that inflation would grow faster than the economy and it would be a net loss in real income. Supply-side economics believes that when marginal tax rates are cut, the economy will grow faster than inflation.
The Mellon tax cuts in the 1920's and the Kennedy tax cuts in the 1960's produced a similar increase in tax revenues, just as the Reagan tax cuts did.
Not once does Smith mention the excessive spending far above what Reagan proposed. A president has no control over how the federal government spends money. Presidents PROPOSE a budget, but Congress is under no obligation to do what the president proposes. The first seven budget proposals Reagan submitted to Congress where never even voted on, let alone passed. His last budget for 1989 was voted on in Congress, but did not pass. In 7 out of 8 years, Congress spent more money that Reagan proposed. Congress spent an average of 2.8% percent per year more than Reagan wanted to spend. The cumulative effect was that by 1989, Congress was spending $275 billion more than if Congress had passed Reagan's proposed budgets. The actual deficit in 1989 was $152 billion, so that means that if Congress did what Reagan wanted to do, there would have been a $122 billion SURPLUS in 1989 instead of the $152 deficit.
Smith is correct on the main point that the Social Security "trust fund" has been looted, but he does not understand that is was the Democrat-controlled Congress who looted it.
The so-called Professor of Economics Smith doesn't mention how the unfunded liabilities of Social Security and Medicare changed after eight years of the Reagan administration. Besides the marginal income tax rate cuts that Smith incorrectly blames for the increase in public debt, Reagan also signed a big tax increase, the Social Security Reform Act. This tax increase significantly reduced the "off-the-books" unfunded liabilities of Social Security and Medicare. Even though the "public" debt increased during Reagan's 8 years, the total debt burden of the taxpayers DECREASED because of the Social Security/Medicare tax increases. The problem is that Congress doesn't show the unfunded liabilities Social Security on the books (ala Enron). Is the good Professor Smith so ignorant as to not even know that, or is he not mentioning it to support his nonsensical bashing of president Reagan.
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