…Which is here.

Pay of Top Earners Erodes Social Security (You can get the full version if you search through Google News)
Ellen E. Schultz, The Wall Street Journal

Executives and other highly compensated employees now receive more than one-third of all pay in the U.S., according to a Wall Street Journal analysis of Social Security Administration data — without counting billions of dollars more in pay that remains off federal radar screens that measure wages and salaries.

Highly paid employees received nearly $2.1 trillion of the $6.4 trillion in total U.S. pay in 2007, the latest figures available. The compensation numbers don’t include incentive stock options, unexercised stock options, unvested restricted stock units and certain benefits.

Just try to stomach the outrage over the huo-hum fact that executives receive more than 33% of total pay in the US and read down to this:

The growing portion of pay that exceeds the maximum amount subject to payroll taxes has contributed to the weakening of the Social Security trust fund. In May, the government said the Social Security fund would be exhausted in 2037, four years earlier than was predicted in 2008.

The data suggest that the payroll tax ceiling hasn’t kept up with the growth in executive pay. As executive pay has increased, the percentage of wages subject to payroll taxes has shrunk, to 83% from 90% in 1982. Compensation that isn’t subject to the portion of payroll tax that funds old-age benefits now represents foregone revenue of $115 billion a year.

So because these behemoth assholes are getting paid so outlandishly, Social Security is drying up. What kind of ridiculously regressive tax policy is this, anyway????!?!?!?

The Can’t Do Blue Dogs
Harold Meyerson, Washington Post

Watching the centrist Democrats in Congress create more and more reasons why health care can’t be fixed, I’ve been struck by a disquieting thought: Suppose our collective lack of response to Hurricane Katrina wasn’t exceptional but, rather, the new normal in America. Suppose we can no longer address the major challenges confronting the nation. Suppose America is now the world’s leading can’t-do country.

Every other nation with an advanced economy long ago secured universal health care for its citizens — an achievement that the United States alone finds beyond the capacities of mortal man. It wasn’t ever thus. Time was when Democratic Congresses enacted Social Security and Medicare over the opposition of powerful interests and Republican ideologues. In fact, our government used to actually pave roads, build bridges and allow for secure retirements by levying taxes on those who could afford to pay them.

To today’s centrist Democrats, this has become a distant memory, a history lesson they cannot grasp. The notion that actual individuals might have to pay to secure the national interest appalls them. In the House, the Blue Dogs doggedly oppose proposals to fund universal coverage by taxing the wealthiest 1 percent of the nation’s households. Their deference to wealth — whether the consequence of our system of funding elections or a byproduct of the Internet generation’s experience of free access to information and entertainment — is not to be trifled with.

Also, you def need to see this on the Republican / ignorant White person outrage surrounding the Sotomayor nomination.

Tags: blue dogs, bullshit, colbert report, dailykostv, executive compensation, GOP, headlines, health, health care, health reform, near rant, reform, required readings, right wingers, social security