The argument over whether or not we can afford Social Security is becoming unanchored from reality.  The cited deficits are imaginary under almost any real world scenario.

From Dean Baker over at the Center for Economic and Policy Research, some common sense arithmetic.

“The projected shortfall in 2033 is $623 billion, according to the trustees’ latest report. It reaches $1 trillion in 2045 and nearly $7 trillion in 2086, the end of a 75-year period used by Social Security’s number crunchers because it covers the retirement years of just about everyone working today.”

To make sense of these numbers it would be necessary to know how large the economy is projected to be in 2033, 2045, and 2086. GDP in these years is projected to be approximately $41 trillion, $72 trillion, and $440 trillion. Providing these GDP numbers would have allowed readers to put these projected deficit figures in some context.

If the Globe was interested in conveying information instead of pushing its agenda for cutting benefits it might have told readers that the tax increase needed to keep the system fully funded over its 75-year planning horizon is just over 5 percent of projected wage growth for the next 30 years. (This is using the Social Security trustees projections. It would be less than 4 percent of projected wage growth using the projections from the Congressional Budget Office.)

While many readers would point out that most workers have not been seeing wage growth in recent decades, that complaint would highlight the absurdity of the Globe’s piece. The upward redistribution of income over the last three decades has done far more to hurt the living standards of ordinary workers than any possible tax increases associated with Social Security.

Beezer here.  Just another negative effect of the income inequality trend of the past 30 plus years.  So let’s give Mitt another tax break, shall we?  Why can’t we have a better press corps?

Got to love the chutzpah of Paul Ryan and Mitt Romney.  From an article by Atlantic magazine associate editor Matthew O’Brien.

Under Paul Ryan’s plan, Mitt Romney wouldn’t pay any taxes for the next ten years — or any of the years after that. Now, do I know that that’s true. Yes, I’m certain.

Well, maybe not quite nothing. In 2010 — the only year we have seen a full return from him — Romney would have paid an effective tax rate of around 0.82 percent under the Ryan plan, rather than the 13.9 percent he actually did. How would someone with more than $21 million in taxable income pay so little? Well, the vast majority of Romney’s income came from capital gains, interest, and dividends. And Ryan wants to eliminate all taxes on capital gains, interest and dividends.

Romney, of course, criticized this idea when Newt Gingrich proposed it back in January by pointing out that zeroing out taxes on savings and investment would mean zeroing out his own taxes.

Almost. Romney did earn $593,996 in author and speaking fees in 2010 that would still be taxed under the Ryan plan. Just not much. Ryan would cut the top marginal tax rate from 35 to 25 percent and get rid of the Alternative Minimum Tax — saving Romney another $292,389 or so on his 2010 tax bill. Now, Romney would still owe self-employment taxes on his author and speaking fees, but that only amounts to $29,151. Add it all up, and Romney would have paid $177,650 out of a taxable income of $21,661,344, for a cool effective rate of 0.82 percent.

But what about corporate taxes? Aren’t they a double tax on savings and investment, so Romney’s “real” rate is higher than his headline rate? No. As Jared Bernstein of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities has pointed out, Romney has structured his investments as “pass-throughs” that avoid corporate tax. In other words, the 0.82 percent tax rate is really a 0.82 percent tax rate.

It might seem impossible to fund the government when the super-rich pay no taxes. That is accurate. Ryan would actually raise taxes on the bottom 30 percent of earners, according to the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center, but that hardly fills the revenue hole he would create. The solution? All but eliminate all government outside of Social Security and defense — a point my colleague Derek Thompson has made in incredible chart form.

Maybe Harry Reid’s mysterious source that Romney didn’t pay taxes for a decade was really a time-traveler from the future. If Romney wins, it could very well be true.