Harold Ford of Tenn., via Talking Points and Brad DeLong, points the way to a likely consensus on Social Security reform (politics being the art of a compromise to tax you more, and all that): in exchange for private accounts, the cap on FICA taxes will be lifted, so that the 20% of the population that earns more then $87,000 has to pay the 6.8%x2 tax on the full paycheck.
This soak-the-rich approach will pay for the transition. This is the favorite plan of Daily Kos and many Democrats who otherwise oppose reform. We might ask how long the privatizers are going to ride this train as it plunges further and further into the abyss. My guess is all the way, since financing the reform requires “tough choices by the president and the Congress.”
