Max replied: > >Unlike welfare, and like insurance, beneficiaries make > >earmarked payments into the program. ... > > since funds are shifted about between various government budgets, the > "earmarked" part is pretty unimportant. . . . The earmarking gives rise to the Trust Fund balance, including its dates of cash deficits, overall deficit, and exhaustion of the fund balance, all of which are key to the current debate. As I said, accounting may be dull, but it is political. It is the Right which is demeaning the significance of the Trust Fund. We should be upholding it. These are funds collected from workers for the program. Bonds held by the fund should be liquidated with general revenue (mostly income taxes) from the Federal funds, not payroll taxes. Whether or how this is done is also important. > (relative to the size of their incomes) and the working poor pay the > regressive payroll taxes. These, indirectly, help pay for welfare. So _in > effect_, welfare has insurance-like aspects. There is also a lot of > temporary poverty, where people fall below the official poverty line for > only a year or so. When they're doing well, they help finance a "safety > net" which they may need. This is well-taken. Unfortunately most people don't see it that way. (Accounting is political.) > >From a pure market insurance standpoint, DI is one > >of the best parts of the Soc Sec 'deal.' The > >equivalent for Survivors insurance, particularly > >for younger workers, is pretty cheap and ubiquitous. > >Why do you liken it more to welfare? > > The reason can be seen from the context of what I said. SS follows a very > simple formula in distributing old-age benefits. On the other hand, DI > involves much more bureaucratic and paternalistic criteria, where the > disabled have to justify themselves as being the "deserving disabled." Any insurance program would have rigid criteria about eligibility for benefits as well. Probably more rigid ones. To me, that makes DI more like insurance. mbs
