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Just read your column online Joe Six Pack. I Agreed with everything you concur but you mention that a retiree enjoyed tax free benefits.

Not anymore.  That Social Security benefit can be taxed up to 85% now.
That's what I have to look forward to when I start to collect this coming May at age 65 and 10 months.

Thanks,
Bill

Bill,

                You’re right, of course, and it’s an issue I’ve written about many times. I probably should have phrased it “largely tax-free” for greater accuracy. When first passed, the legislation that caused SS benefits to be taxed affected an estimated 3 percent of all retirees. Today, it has reached about 20 percent.

Scott
 

Scott,

In Sunday's article, you reiterated the problem we face with
rising health care costs and inflation in general.

My question is, how much of the problem is fueled by the
gigantic increases in the payscales of upper income
management? 

It seems to me that while talent and ability needs to be
amply rewarded, we could help the situation our nation as a
whole faces by putting more of our income stream to work on
the bottom end of the payscale ladder.  At the very least,
raising the Social Security Cap on taxable wages would help
to relieve some of this pressure.

I really don't want my grandchildren living in a third world type
nation where the rich get by quite well and the rest struggles
to just exist......

What are some of the soulutions?

Mike

 Mike,

While I am appalled at executive salaries, the tenuous relation to performance and the incredible rewards for failure, in the vast majority of cases a redistribution of top salaries would do very little for workers’ wages or healthcare benefits. Similarly, raising the wage base cap would hurt upper middle income workers significantly. About 6 percent of all workers earn over the $97,600 wage base cap with most of the clustering in the next $100,000. They are affluent, to be sure, but few consider themselves rich and most quite rightly see themselves as highly taxed already.
                
The real issue we have to address is the cost of healthcare in America. We spend more as a percent of GDP but our life expectancy and disability adjusted life expectancy figures rank us about 25th in the world and it is already very beneficial to arbitrage advanced medical care available at far lower cost with the delivered cost of medical care domestically.

Scott