Climate Change Claims Lives, and
Social Security puts a North Korean style spin on new Tax provisions
Texas Hill Country
The death toll is over 50 and climbing in a terrible flash flood along the Guadalupe Rive in the Texas hill country. About 10 inches of rain produced 20 foot rises in river levels in some spots, and tragically a group of over 20 Girl Scouts camped by the river bank were swept away. Last summer my - mountainous - area experienced fiendish rain driven far inland by a hurricane. Over 100 people were killed in several states and in one locality that I pass through often, more than 50 died as a river rose 25 feet. Even now when I drive through it, it is hard to believe the water was 10 feet deep on the road I’m driving. Weirder still is the notion that it could happen again in my lifetime.
The EU’s climate group, Copernicus1, lists flooding and extreme heat and drought as the biggest obvious killers in inhabited areas. Rain last fall near Valencia, Spain, fell at a rate of about 30 inches in 24 hours (Spain does not get hurricanes on its Mediterranean side) and over 230 people died. Even this summer Europe bakes. This TREND will only get worse. At least Europe and other developed democracies are taking the problem seriously. Unfortunately, the US is taking a 2 - 4 year hiatus from being a serious country, from being a democracy even. Do what you can in your personal life to be more effective in countering waste, please.
Surprise announcement from Social Security Reminds US of Authoritarian Prevarication
Imagine my surprise at getting an email from the Social Security Director Frank Bisignano touting the new benefit in the otherwise execrable tax and budget bill passed by the House and Senate and signed into law last week. The bill has a provision that, instead of ending federal income tax on some parts of social security income, it gives a modest deduction instead. Lots of recipients, a majority of them, pay tax on some part of their social security (they pay for Medicare every month, too). Since not taxing this would cost the government too much, there is to be a $6,000 deduction in the new law for some households. If you’re in a 12% tax bracket, it means about $720 in your pocket next year (or a lower tax bill). If you are in a higher tax bracket, it is worth more to you but the deduction phases out at $75,000 income for an individual and $150,000 for a couple. These are for people who have other income in addition to their social security income, obviously. The provision does not benefit nearly as many people as Frank Bisignano claims, since he claimed 90% of recipients would benefit, which is nonsense. What I find more alarming is that social security is now sending out emails cheering partisan legislation.
There were no references to “Dear Leader” or Trump in the email. Hey, since I will probably qualify for this deduction, I’m not complaining about it as such, but I am complaining about families getting cut off from Medicaid, maybe food stamps (SNAP). That helps pay for all the new goodies in the Bill. Also, the letter is inaccurate, many people will not benefit. The Republicans (and economists, like me) are correct when they say, “People who don’t pay taxes don’t get a tax cut.” That is brilliantly true. Perhaps when one looks at the law in total, aside from a few crumbs thrown to working class people; the bill is viscous to the poor, comforting to the comfortable class, and generous to the wealthiest2.
https://climate.copernicus.eu/esotc/2024
Some critics of the 2025 budget bill say some provisions will deplete social security at a faster rate. As is the Old Age Survivors Insurance fund will have less income than outflow by about 2032 (or sooner). Just another problem to deal with later. One of the reasons I took social security earlier that what some planner say is ideal is not that I can’t do the math, it is that I do not see the US government as capable of solving a big problem like this, and they cannot be counted on to make the same level of payments when I’m in my 70s and 80s. Fortunately, I made additional plans.