>And we're talking about doing so before we ask the rich to pay (as Warren Buffet says) the same tax rates as their secretaries, and before we trim the military budget back to the levels requested by the military.
Yes, there are issues with Social Security and Medicare. Not least of which is that, at least for the next thirty years or so (at least until the baby boomers are mostly all dead -- not because I wish them ill, but because later generations are smaller, constraining the pool of contributors to SS/Medicare).
A simple fix (that would give us ~50 years to figure out how to do this better) would be to remove the income cap on SS/Medicare contributions. Currently, that's $176,100[0]. Doing so would keep SS/Medicare solvent long enough to figure out how to structure the safety net appropriately, without jeopardizing the health/well being of those who paid in expecting it to work for them too.
That is not actually a simple fix. You're proposing a 15.3% tax increase -- on top of all existing taxes -- on everyone who makes more than that amount of money. They're obviously going to lobby against that or otherwise take measures to thwart it using tax avoidance strategies etc., making it both less effective than anticipated and no easier to pass than actually reforming the programs.
On top of that, tax incidence is more complicated than "well the people paying it have higher incomes". Federal revenue has been a stable percentage of GDP since WWII, whereas that's an enormous increase in government collections exceeding all historical precedent, and the money had previously been going somewhere else, and the somewhere else (investment markets) would notice it going away. In other words, a tax hike that big would crash the stock market and the housing market etc.
There is no simple fix for this. People voted for a government willing to write them a check it couldn't cash and your only real choices are "don't give that much to wealthy retirees" or "take it from the economy at the expense of the kids".
>That is not actually a simple fix. You're proposing a 15.3% tax increase -- on top of all existing taxes -- on everyone who makes more than that amount of money
No. Not even close. It's not increasing anyone's taxes. It's just making them fairer. Most folks have to pay those taxes on all their income. Why should it be any different for the folks with the highest incomes?
What's more, I can say from experience that not paying SS/Medicare taxes over the arbitrary limit makes exactly zero material difference in my quality of life.
Whereas keeping SS/Medicare solvent while we figure out a better way will have a significant positive impact on my life and the lives of millions of others.
Don't be disingenuous. If there isn't anyone paying more than they are now then there isn't any additional government revenue.
> Most folks have to pay those taxes on all their income. Why should it be any different for the folks with the highest incomes?
The way social security works is that you pay in proportion to your income and then you receive social security payments in proportion to what you paid. There is a cap on both of these. You're proposing to only remove the cap on one of them. That's the same "fairness" argument for not solving the problem by making social security payments according to need or in fixed amounts, so if you're not concerned about that fairness equation then you already have a way of solving the problem without raising taxes.
> What's more, I can say from experience that not paying SS/Medicare taxes over the arbitrary limit makes exactly zero material difference in my quality of life.
This is what I mean by tax incidence. It's not your life which is affected. You're just putting the extra money in your IRA or whatever. But at scale that has consequences for other people. What do you expect happens if you take literally trillions of dollars out of capital markets?
>What do you expect happens if you take literally trillions of dollars out of capital markets?
What a ridiculous trope.
Where do you think those fairer taxes will go? They don't just disappear from existence as you imply. Rather they get plowed right back into the economy. Into the hands of Social Security recipients (so people like your grandmother may not have to go without eating or eat cat food to survive) who will spend most of it almost immediately, and for medical/healthcare products and services.
In that scenario, will such moneys be a net positive for you personally? Probably, as millions of folks won't be starving in the streets and dying of preventable causes because their only means of sustaining themselves has been co-opted so you can have your "number go up."
More economic activity from fairly collecting existing taxes (that's what buying groceries and shoes and prescriptions is) will increase the velocity of money and grow the economy faster than the hoarding you're advocating. And "number go up" will continue.
Don't care about anyone else but you? Enjoy seeing people suffer and die for your marginal benefit? If so, come out and say it. It's at least a defensible, if evil and selfish, argument -- unlike the ridiculous one you made.
Yes, there are issues with Social Security and Medicare. Not least of which is that, at least for the next thirty years or so (at least until the baby boomers are mostly all dead -- not because I wish them ill, but because later generations are smaller, constraining the pool of contributors to SS/Medicare).
A simple fix (that would give us ~50 years to figure out how to do this better) would be to remove the income cap on SS/Medicare contributions. Currently, that's $176,100[0]. Doing so would keep SS/Medicare solvent long enough to figure out how to structure the safety net appropriately, without jeopardizing the health/well being of those who paid in expecting it to work for them too.
[0] https://www.irs.gov/taxtopics/tc751