Our reason why we included SS is because it's included in the federal budget, which we're not striking any accounts from. We view it as money in and money out.

We have also heard the argument that we should not include mandatory spending for similar reasons - it's allocated to one specific thing and can even have a separate source of funding other than individual income taxes. The case to remove SS from view seems more political than not, but if you can convince us otherwise we'll be happy to change it.

hanleybrand wrote:

You are correct that social security withholdings are capped at $106,800 for 2011 and 2010. However, I think that whatwepayfor.com is returning the allocation of our tax dollars at different income levels, which is different from the amount of taxes withheld from our paychecks.

It is misleading to include Social Security in the federal totals. Social Security should have its own separate presentation, especially for allocating my taxes to “what I’m paying for.” Social Security has its own sources of income, and its income isn’t related to the income tax I pay. The federal govt. can’t just use SS’s revenue. SS is a separate, closed fund. It has to invest the money it receives, of course, and it could theoretically invest in anything, but it invests in U.S. govt. securities, thus making funds available to the federal govt. However, if it didn’t invest in U.S. govt. securities, the U.S. govt. would sell them to someone else, e.g., China, Japan, European countries. That doesn’t make SS’s expenses part of China’s budget. So neither SS’s receipts or expenditures should be lumped in with the U.S. govt. total.

It's a (perhaps not so small) thing, but social security withholdings are capped according to the wage base, which is $106,800 for 2011. Anyone earning above that amount should pay the same to social security as someone who earns the base, if I understand how it work correctly (I don't earn that much, so I can't confirm from personal experience


I bring it up because Bernie Sanders recently pointed out that the wage base being maintained (or put another way, having billionaires pay the same as someone making 100K/year) is the difference between social security being solvent or going broke in the next 30 years.



Sources:
http://www.ssa.gov/pressoffice/colafacts.htm


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Security_Wage_Base


http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/heather/bernie-sanders-lift-income-cap-social-secu


example incomes/line items from the WWPF data set:
$106,800
Social Security$6397.36
150,000
Social Security$8958.16


250,000
Social Security$15671.00

500,00
Social Security$33509.95