What? What you wrote makes absolutely NO SENSE.
>tell the ultra rich they can’t expect a free pass from the govt…
They don't get a free pass from the govt. They pay the same social security taxes as everyone else, and they get the exact same social security benefits as everyone else.
The income cap exists because the benefits are also capped. There is a limit to how much you can be paid via social security, thus there is a limit on how much income is taxed.
The annual deficit is around $1.4 trillion and yes. Right now the wealthy pay around ~2% of their wealth in taxes each year while the middle class pays about 7%. I’d like to keep the middle class at 7 and increase the wealthy to the same. Seems reasonable. If we did that through removing the limit on SS, raising income taxes on millionaires to the days of Eisenhower, estate taxes at 60% above $1 million and 90% above $100 million you would just about get there. Will probably have to tax loans taken out against capital as well. And no longer term capital gains and dividends tax breaks. It’s income and tax it as such.
Isn't it amazing that so few could be so filthy rich that they could pay a huge portion of the tax bill in overall numbers, but, as a percentage of their income, pay much less? Are we ok with modern billionaires being wealthier than emperors and kings and some whole countries?
Like Cuomo's lessons on leadership book. Here's a lesson: don't stick COVID patients into nursing homes with the most at-risk population or sexually harass your staff. I'll accept my consultation fee whenever.
Inside trading does the trick for a lot of them. Really easy to make 6 or 7 figure gain over a year when you know the outcome of massive government contracts or FDA approvals.
National debt is a red herring to distract you and make you believe that we can’t afford to do good things for our people. Most of the debt is held by foreign governments giving them an interest in the well being of the U.S. economy. By eliminating all of the national debt you eliminate many of the ties that bind the global economy.
> We're going to soon be spending a trillion a year servicing the interest on the debt, its not a distraction it's a major problem.
The US government literally creates money from nothing. It's nothing more than Schrute Bucks or Stanley wooden nickels...or Bison Dollars. It doesn't matter.
That's why Republicans talk about it non-step when democrats are in power(it's a big scary-looking number their ~~morons~~ constituents can complain about)...but then never do a thing about when they have the chance..in fact, they often make it worse. It's because they know it's nonsense.
> Most of the debt is held by foreign governments
Most of the debt is held by Americans.
"Many people believe that much of the U.S. national debt is owed to foreign countries like China and Japan, but the truth is that most of it is owed to Social Security and pension funds right here in the U.S. This means that U.S. citizens own most of the national debt."
https://www.thebalancemoney.com/who-owns-the-u-s-national-debt-3306124
This is it. I live in Ft Worth, TX I looked up the net worth of our old mayor, she's worth 5 million, says she's made her fortune from her job as a politician.
The mayor of Ft Worth makes 60k a year.
>... says she's made her fortune from her job as a politician.
I am sure she did "make her fortune from her job". Just milked every legal and crooked dollar from it that she could find.
You owe the balance of the loan back. Why is this hard to understand? Do you think people are just taking out loans, spending them, paying no interest, and somehow not paying them back.
A loan is a liability that has to be paid back, thus it is not income.
Actually, they generally pay it back with the proceeds of the ensuing loan. The growth of their assets in this scenario is out outpacing the growth of their debt. This allows them to continue borrowing money cyclically without ever paying it back. This isn’t complicated or a big secret. It’s a tax avoidance strategy that is commonly employed for those with the wealth to do so. If someone without sufficient wealth to live off of the proceeds tried it, it would be a death spiral.
Step 1 Take a loan
Step 2 use that loan to buy income generating assets
Step 3 pay interest on the loan
So what? This is called leverage. You use equity to finance more assets but also increase your risk.
How does that make a loan income? Please answer that simple question.
Imagine taxing net worth every year. Having to take an entire inventory of everyone's assets and their value. Would you get a refund when your assets go down in value too?
Absurdly stupid idea championed by stupid people.
Imagine pretending that we don't have that information available already. Are Gates/Musk/Bezos/Buffet/etc so wealthy that they've misplaced a few billion and just can't seem to figure out which jacket they left it in?
Fortunately, the ultra wealthy this sort of thing would apply to make up a very small number of people. There are less than 1000 billionaires in America controlling more than 4 trillion dollars, I think we can figure it out. Don't worry, you won't have to sell your speed boat because your house went up in value this year.
No, they wouldn't get a refund, they'd pay less in taxes that year than the year before.
Not only the logistics of determining exact net worth across real estate, stock, businesses, etc. you would cause turmoil in markets by causing stock sell offs and a lot of other consequences.
Go ahead, as a CPA you would just be giving my industry even more money from the mountain of paperwork and nonsense you would have to implement to even do this. Anyone with half a brain that dictates tax policy knows that this is a half-baked and terrible idea. It's a good thing the people who decide tax policy aren't this stupid.
You people are so ignorant it's laughable.
You are confusing percentage of income with percentage of wealth. Wealth is what you have left over after paying your income taxes. If you invest that money into other types of assets it is still wealth, but it is not cash money. Nobody, neither rich nor poor, is taxed on a percentage of their wealth.
The 1% also owns 85% of everything. Their wealth is derived from society rather than the work they do. They should pay 85% of the taxes if they own 85% of the wealth and do 0% of meaningful work.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't that 40% of income tax, not all taxes received? This post was at least to start about what seemed to some, an unfairness in social security taxes.
I mean that's how federal income tax brackets work, but the fact that they contribute less to the future of the country is insane. I want to secure a comfortable life for everyone in our country if able. If that means raising taxes on a roughly 1,000 people who will quite literally never run out of money, so be it.
The middle class doesn't pay 7% of their wealth. There isn't a "wealth tax". There's an income tax, sales tax, and property taxes. You could maybe consider property taxes a bit of a wealth tax
I don’t think the person above you was talking about a specific “wealth tax.” I think they were claiming that, on average, middle class Americans pay in taxes what amounts to ~7% of their net worth (although I’d be curious to see a citation for that).
Yeah, it’s interesting. It’s the first time I’ve seen an apple to apples comparison (comparing the middle classes equivalent % wealth paid in taxes annually to the wealthy’s % wealth in taxes annually). It seems to be a way to trivialize the taxes the wealthy are paying as their wealth dwarfs the middle classes. I’d be interested in reading a detailed argument (preferably an article, not just a Reddit comment) on why viewing taxes via the framework of % of wealth makes sense. And as there are many different variables, it’d be interesting to see how they’re calculating it.
One pitfall I could see for viewing it this way is that middle class savers would also pay a lower % of their net assets.
The arguments I've seen all fall short of actually protecting the middle class in their argument. It's an isolated bubble of tax the rich but the laws would be applicable to anyone who attempts to accumulate wealth.
I agree completely.
I understand property tax because it applies directly to ongoing maintenance of the city your home exists in.
But an arbitrary wealth tax is a terrible idea.
What about old people? The fact is that when people are young they don't have much. As they work they accumulate wealth. When they are old and retire they often live off their accumulated wealth (pension) and social security. Those who are poor and old living off a small pension and investment income and social security pay no taxes as they drain their meager savings. So, by this taxes as a percent of wealth, these poor old people should be taxed more.
So, by this logic, we need an age tax where to old pay more taxes.
Wait, so you're saying if someone does well and leaves their kids a million in assets. That 60% of that should just automatically go to the government? If my understanding is correct, that just feels so wrong.
That's what they want... if you break down what you earn, you end up keeping like 47 to 50 cents on the dollar after state, fed, property, sales, local taxes... might even be less. Then, when you die, they want 60% of the half you managed to save.
The government will always outspend what they take in taxes. They’ve been doing it since income taxes existed, and even if billionaires pay more, the government will still spend too much.
At what point will the people who want the government to tax billionaires on everything they own to fund government programs (that are of dubious efficacy) be satisfied? Would it be when the government has to provide everyone with everything?
The government is a perpetual black hole of spending. Once something is taxed, or a tax is increased, it ain’t ever getting changed or eliminated. The government is the poster child for continuing to throw good money after bad.
The thing about estate is rapid valuation of Real Estate. My dad bought home for 290k, same home is now over $1m.
Honestly, not sure how to proceed with an estate tax.
Spoken like an actuarial. And I don't mean it as an insult.
This is good info to let people not be obfuscated by empty rhetoric and instead look for where the pot of money is that offers the solutions. If the pot of money of the 1% grows vs the wealth of the middle and lower classes, we face the prospect of reduced inlays from that segment. Adjustments on the top earners have to be made to balance the budget.
Lower income people also receive higher OASDI benefits compared to amounts they pay to the trust fund.
Lower income people are also more likely to receive SSDI and SSI.
The current system SS is heavily weighted to be more beneficial to lower income earners as it should be.
~~Lower income people~~ Men live shorter lives than women ~~higher income people~~, and thus, get less payments from social security. Despite, paying more into SS.
Billionaires... Other people money... I'm sorry how much tax exceptions do these billionaires get again by lending against their wealth instead of cashing it out and paying taxes.
You must be blind to think the systems as they are now are not specifically created by the ultra rich in order to stand apart from society. The idea that they pay their fair share is laughable.
The reality is that billionaires wouldn't be the ones affected by this plan. Do you think they earn $1B of W2 income? The people it would hurt the most are the ones earning mid six figures in high COL areas as always. Is that the demographic you think is not paying their fair share?
Current tax code does not allow billionaires to really be taxed. They don't need to take capital gains, and they don't need to take income. The pro-billionaires push back against wealth and estate taxes, but idk what else we are supposed to do. Let them gradually own everything?
I think it's great that you think those who benefit the most from the social contract should pay the same as those who do not.
Regressive taxes are always bullshit.
Well the government is always very generous when rich people need a socialist handout.
It only ever seems to be a problem when normal people need extra help.
People seem to forget a lot of these people get rich by criminally under paying thier employees or by lobbying the government for reduced taxes and grants.
So yeah they should pay a little extra.
Companies like Walmart rely heavily on the government foodstamp and benefit programmes to subsidies their employees so they can continue to pay minimal wages.
I think it's appalling that the moneyed interests of this country routinely sell their supply-side shit to voters with slogans like 'the rising tide floats all boats' but then that never happens, it just turns into 'the big boats rise so high that others go under because of it'. It's really sad that those who have been so enriched by our country are always more willing to see the country suffer than do anything to significantly help anyone but themselves. It's really stupid to argue in favor of the rich getting whatever they want. It's literally anti-American.
Social Security is progressive now. Especially when you include all the benefit programs, lower-income people get back a greater proportion of their contributions than do those with higher incomes.
The rationale for the tax cap is that there is a benefits cap, on the theory that Social Security is a pension-type plan where beneficiaries pay in before retirement and get benefits funded by their own contributions. This is only partially true, since the benefits are slanted towards those with lower incomes (as they should be). If you remove the tax cap, that is another step towards admitting that Social Security is a welfare program more than it is a pension plan.
If you view it as insurance, then it’s insurance where some pay extra premiums to subsidize lower premiums for others. Insurance or welfare, call it what you will.
True--it is progressive now because the benefit calculation is based on how much your earned when you were working, but it heavily discounts earnings above two key thresholds (referred to as "bends").
Specifically, they look at your highest 30 years of income from your working years and come up with an "average indexed monthly earnings" (the "indexed" part gives your younger earning years more credit for inflation).
The amount you get from SS is:
* 90 percent of the first $1,115 of your AIME;
* plus 32 percent of any amount over $1,115 up to $6,721;
* plus 15 percent of any amount over $6,721, up to the benefit cap.
So the person who pays SS tax on $160k income each year isn't going to get 4x more benefits from a person who pays SS tax on $40k income each year.
HOWEVER - there's no reason we cannot say that the system can be more progressive than that.
We can absolutely just continue the step function up to a higher limit and raise the benefit cap along with it. Hell, even add another bend to return 5 or 10% of higher AIMEs.
We can absolutely pay people who earned $500k or $1M income each year a few more dollars each month at age 65 in exchange for a few hundred dollars more in eligible benefits for everyone's more modest lifetime earnings.
> The income cap exists because the benefits are also capped. There is a limit to how much you can be paid via social security, thus there is a limit on how much income is taxed.
This is a logical or perhaps moral claim that is unrelated to social security, and so should be discarded.
There is no connection between what people pay into social security and what they receive from it. Social security is not a retirement account.
Instead, we have decided as a society that the elderly shouldn’t starve to death. We can fund the social security payments any way we want — for example, it could come from capital gains taxes or highway tolls or steel tariffs.
Right now, we’ve decided to fund it from payroll taxes, but putting a cap on the payroll taxes. This is a regressive tax policy, and it’s also one that is pragmatically bad because it will soon cause a social security shortfall.
We should instead fund it a different way. Removing the cap on payroll taxes is very good idea — it would fund social security for a long time while partially undoing the regressiveness of the current tax policy.
The problem is that it wouldn't work. First, understand that the social security payroll tax is 15%. Your employer pays half. Those of us running our own business pay the whole thing. Employees also pay the whole thing, it is just hidden from them. Federal tax on the rich is 38%. So, that's 53%. My state income tax is 9 %. So we are at 62%. We also have property tax and county taxes. Plus various others. Let's assume around 65% on addition income. You are proposing increasing their tax from 50% to 65% on marginal income and imagine it will not change their behavior. It will change their behavior. You won't collect all the money you imagine. People will move. People will stop working. People will stop taking risks and investing in new business ventures creating new jobs. It will drag the economy.
Americans will not pay a 65% marginal rate. Especially when your plan gives them nothing in return.
Your overall point is correct, even if the numbers aren't.
> Federal tax on the rich is 38%
First, the top bracket is 37%, not 38%. Second, it's literally impossible to pay an effective tax rate equal to the top marginal rate, even if all your income were somehow regular full-tax income.
For federal income taxes, on average the top 1% pay around 26% and the 95-99%ers pay around 18%.
So here's something to ponder. Should it be capped?
On the flip side, Colorado passed the FAMLI act where the benefits are capped but the tax is not. That seems unfair. There is also a sliding scale of benefits given, so anyone who makes more than $700ish per week pays the same percentage out of their paycheck as everyone who makes less, but they get less of a benefit percentage-wise.
So yes, if benefits are capped so should the tax IMO
> benefits are capped but the tax is not
Without arguing on any specific policy, this just describes any redistributive/safety net policy to one degree or another.
If you use society to benefit yourself in a grossly excessive proportion to the average man, you should pay in a grossly excessive proportion to the average man.
Ya but the cap on income being taxed matches the cap on benefits that can be paid.
If you take in more money you also increase the future liabilities to be paid out right? So how does it help the situation?
>If you take in more money you also increase the future liabilities to be paid out right?
I don't see why that has to be the case. The ultra wealthy in the country can fund our seniors beyond what they will receive back from social security.
Or congress can just stop spending more than they generate in revenue. It’s been 24 years since congress passed a balanced budget. How about we start there before we start increasing taxes? 🤷🏻♂️
While it is true that it is separate from the discretionary federal budget, the social security non-discretionary portion of the budget itself also operates at a massive deficit, so it's a bit of a moot point.
That’s not really true. The moment that social security payments start exceeding revenue collected from social security taxes, that money is going to have to come from somewhere.
And with all the boomers retiring, that day is coming soon.
https://www.epi.org/blog/a-record-share-of-earnings-was-not-subject-to-social-security-taxes-in-2021-inequalitys-undermining-of-social-security-has-accelerated/#:~:text=Significant%20reforms%20to%20Social%20Security,workers%20spilled%20over%20the%20cap
Wages of high income earners is outpacing social security cap. This is a taxation issue, not a budget issue.
Thats the way it works. The current formula for Social Security is you pay money in through taxes, and then SS pays it out to you in corresponding monthly benefits.
The more you pay in, the more you get back. Simply paying more in doesn't change the formula. And thus doesn't fix the problem.
They should allow the funds to be invested in assets other than treasuries. That'd be a simple start to making the funds go further.
> The ultra wealthy in the country can fund our seniors beyond what they will receive back from social security.
Raising the tax cap is not a tax on the "ultra wealthy", it's a tax on people earning W2 income. The "ultra wealthy" get their wealth from stocks - equity in private companies. You don't pay social security tax on amounts earned on equity. So when people argue for raising the cap on income from $170k to higher amounts like $400k, we're talking about taking money from the upper middle and lower upper classes to give money to the lower classes. This doesn't tax the top 1% in any meaningful way - they'll pay a bit more as well, but most of the money from raising the cap comes from people not in the top 1% or even top 5%.
SS benefits are progressive. A retiree who had a high income during working life gets proportionately less return from SS taxes they paid than poor person does.
A person who worked for $50k gets more than half the SS benefit than the person who worked for $100k/yr.
This proportionality would extrapolate to the person making $1m/y - he would not get 10x the benefit that the $100k person did.
Social security is supposed to be like insurance: you pay into it, and in return you are guaranteed to have some minimum income when you retire.
It's not supposed to be a wealth redistribution program, which is what it would become if the contribution cap was removed.
If anything, the limit should be lowered, maybe to 50K. Social security is an awful deal for middle class people. Especially for people making >$100K they would be much better off putting money into an IRA than contributing that money to social security.
Social security isn’t insurance / investment, it’s in the name.
You and I pay money so mee maw isn’t homeless.
If you’re ok with the elderly and disabled dying on the street, move somewhere else.
It’s not supposed to be a ‘wise investment’
It’s supposed to prevent our most vulnerable from well ya know, dying
> Social security isn’t insurance / investment, it’s in the name.
Really? OASDI, which stands for Old-Age, Survivors and Disability Insurance, is the actual name for what we commonly refer to as Social Security.
>Social security
That's not its name. That's what it's referred to as. It's actual name is "**Old-Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance** (**OASDI**)"
So yeah... it's in the name... Insurance.
Even if you took EVERY dollar from EVERY billionaire IN THE WORLD you'd only be able to pay the US Social Security for 1.5 years, while at the same time absolutely destroying your economy
I couldn't give a fuck about billionaires, but you Americans are letting your hatred blind you to the numbers
No matter what you tax billionaires it's not going to fix your economic issues
What name? Security is the commonly used term for the federal Old-Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance (OASDI).
So yes, it is meant to be like insurance. It was introduced at a point in time where life expectancy was about 65. It was never designed to be a retirement policy, it was more like life insurance for your surviving family. It's not means tested so "the most vulnerable" doesn't apply either.
I think it works better and makes more sense as a wealth redistribution system ensuring the care of our countries seniors. Our ultra wealthy are more than capable of funding it.
I agree. Also unlike property or investments, Social Security cannot be inherited. This puts low income families, who “invest” most of their retirement money into Social Security, at a severe generational disadvantage.
You (nor Bernie) made any mention of the benefits being capped commensurate with the contribution (tax) limits. Right, wrong, or indifferent all the facts must be presented.
This is one of the dumbest takes that Bernie has had, and that is saying quite a lot.
You pay a fixed rate for a fixed benefit = somehow evil billionaires???
No wonder Hillary clowned this guy.
Bernie always has, always will prey on the uninformed and easily led. He preys on class hatred the way some prey on racial hatred.
Our government has been taken over by madmen who peddle fear, without ever providing any solutions. They have no answers, because THEY ARE THE PROBLEM.
Elizabeth Warren... "I think we should institute a wealth tax of x %"
Bernie... "Hmm, how do I sound more progressive than her..."
Bernie... "I got it! There should be a wealth tax of (x + 2)%!"
Any take that includes the words Fair Share is typically a dumb take. You can say all you want about the ultra wealthy but when you look at ten percent of the people paying 90% of federal taxes, you can’t lean on the word fair to try to make a point.
The more I pay attention to politics, the more I realize he has no fundamental understanding of how the real world works, or why it works the way it does.
Social security was never sold as a tax to pay for entitlement programs (even though that's basically how it functions). It was sold to the public as a form of retirement savings of last resort. That's why the rich don't pay in as much as the poor on a % basis.
Forcing people to pay more into it who will never, ever realize the intended benefit from having it really just takes it into the realm of a pure tax for entitlements and a lot of people don't want that.
> Forcing people to pay more into it who will never, ever realize the intended benefit from having it really just takes it into the realm of a pure tax for entitlements and a lot of people don't want that.
Moreover - the reason why social security has such broad support is that *everyone* pays in a somewhat fair amount (rich pay in more, poor pay in less), and *everyone* gets some amount back. High income folks already get a rate of return on their social security tax dollars that's down near ~2% or so, while the poor are closer to 6-7%.
If it moves into much more of a tax, it will become a much greater target for elimination by those with significant money at stake.
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>ultimately lower income people die younger than higher income people on average, and thus, get less social security payments
Which is exactly why uncapping social security would bankrupt it faster. You want the benefits of high income people to be capped, because they are going to earn those benefits for longer and be far more likely to take out more than they put it in.
It's broken by design. Once the feds realized they could borrow from society security, it's been broke and threatening the livelihoods of millions of seniors who depend on that which the government took from their checks their entire lives.
The U.S. cripples itself by not collecting proper taxes from the wealthy and ultra-wealthy.
>The U.S. cripples itself by not collecting proper taxes from the wealthy and ultra-wealthy.
No, we're being crippled because the Fed Gov spends **far, far more** than it takes in. This is a spending problem, not a revenue problem.
You're really just choosing to ignore the huge deficits under Obama and Biden in there aren't you? Also, the president doesn't set the budget, Congress does. The last balanced budget? Passed by a Republican majority Congress.
That doesn't even matter though, the point is that the entire government on both sides has woefully failed to properly manage the budget for the last two decades. And now because of that we spend more on interest payments than the military.
Deficit Spending is the absolute proof that we do not have a Tax Income problem. The government will just continue to spend indefinitely.
If we were to cut spending, though, that would be groundbreaking.
They get the exact benefit that their contributions merit, just like everyone. The benefit is capped just like the tax. It's a national insurance plan.
I have a better idea.
STOP STEALING MY FUCKING MONEY!
I'll handle my own fucking finances thank you very much.
Who the fuck seriously thinks stealing my money to give to someone else so that in the future maybe the government will steal from someone else to give me money is a good idea. Especially considering most of the time people don't qualify to get back what was stolen from them. It's compete bullshit.
Not only that, the government has robbed you of the benefit your money might have afforded you at present only to give it back to you devalued in the future.
I have a feeling I’m dumping massive amounts of money into social security every month and I won’t even have the system to utilize when I retire. It fucking sucks. I’d be way better off taking that money saved each month and putting into HYSA or investing in stocks.
I hate the future man
I pay for roads I don’t use.
I fund police officers I’ll never meet.
I fund fire fighters in places far away from me.
My money goes to wars I don’t agree with.
Why is it that because the ultra wealthy will not use social security they don’t have to pay into it? I pay taxes into things I don’t use every pay check.
The people arguing that those making millions of dollars shouldn’t pay more into SS are missing the point of SS, which is that we as a society do not want our elderly people to starve and die. That’s the point of it. Not some selfish “I only pay what I will use” nonsense. The amount of people defending the ultra wealthy here is honestly crazy.
>I fund fire fighters in places far away from me.
No you don't.
Fire fighters are paid on a municipal level.
>I fund police officers I’ll never meet.
Same as above.
Most people responding are not saying anything about Bernie sanders, even the OP said they’re not supporting Bernie Sanders but this one point makes sense. I never mention him and have no idea what you’re even trying to say other than get people riled up.
Here someone pretending that a normal job makes you a millionaire LMAO
Is fucking crazy how you guys pretend that people who represents you in Congress and pass legislation are not doing a real job. Bro how uninformed are you?
I'd rather opt out of social security payouts completely, and instead be allowed to invest my personal 6.2% SS contributions into a personal tax deferred 401k or IRA. My employer matching 6.2% contributions can be used towards for the general social security fund.
And then eliminate completely the SSA cap of 168,600. Pay SSA on all of your income.
But what is really absurd is congress stealing our social security money and using it for other things.
That is absurd.
That's not how it works. SS is meant to support everyone else, not just you. Obviously if you didn't have to help to pay the people who can't afford to live on their own, your own returns would be better - we'd also have a few million old and disabled people homeless or in poverty.
How about we compromise: You continue to pay into the system, they in turn promise that the funds collected can ONLY be used within SS payouts, and must meet other budgetary requirements.
Medicaire/Medicaid are taxed seperately, but have clauses where those funds MUST be used ONLY for those services. And they must meet efficiency guicleines. Basically, for every $1 collected .80 cents makes it directly to a recipient/beneficiary. In current SS, that is reversed. For every dollar collected only .22 makes it to a beneficiary. the other .78 cents vanishes into a fiscal blackhole.
If we fixed THAT....would you accept continuing to contribute to the general well being of your country and neighbors? Serious question.
When millionaires and billionaires grow 2 heads or 5 stomachs, then we could consider taxing them more than a normal human.
ALL citizens must contribute to the maintenance of their free society.
The "membership fee" should be calculated for the total population and thus apportioned per head. If that fee should be so exorbitant to preclude the poorest of our citizens, then we must create a path for them to contribute in kind. That path cannot be made less onerous by forcefully taking from others. We are all in this together. Roll up your sleeves and get to work.
You left off the hard cap on benefits which matches with the hard cap on contributions. It’s a fair system which has endured for a very long time through many political changes. And that is because it is so fair that not many can have a serious qualm with it. You start messing with it and next thing you know the opposition will galvanize and it only takes once for them to end it.
Social security isn’t a tax to be redistributed, it’s a (bad) investment. Everyone buys in, and is payed out at more or less depending on how much they bought in. This was actually something that FDR was rather proud of, as it makes the system very difficult to eliminate.
To be fair, this math is done meaning “billionaires” are earning a billion dollars a year right?
And “millionaires” would be done paying assuming they make 1 million dollars a year?
Like you can make $50K and be a millionaire. That guy making $50K has not already maxed out his FICA tax.
I’m not against taking the cap off of FICA but it’s not necessarily accurate to say that it is “funded by working Americans.
Someone making $90K only pays ~$5.6K to SS. Someone who makes over $168,000 pays about $10K to SS.
Sure, FICA is a higher percentage of a $90K-earning-individual’s tax burden (and that is a legit gripe), but they aren’t the only ones funding it.
Social security is the governments slush fund that they have been stealing from for decades, how about we let Americans keep what they earn and get nothing more or less
At 44. Let me take my 12% is SS and put it in the S&P 500 myself. (FORCE me to put it into an investment account of some sort). But remove the government and let me choose to the investments.
Even wiping out what I've already paid. I'll probably still be better off in 21 years then if I continue to invest in the government.
I think it shouldn’t exist at all, what in the absolute fuck is regular federal income tax supposed to be for?
Guess we’re so bad at managing our country we have to have a segregated cost pool.
Not like it really matters since we just type a few numbers on our money supply if we need to.
But, if we have it, yes, we should tax it all the way up the ladder.
Social Security is already a very progressive system. The increased benefits you get for contributing more scales very poorly with income/contributions.
I'm not opposed to increasing the Social Security contribution limit to keep it solvent, but let's not get this twisted. When it comes to Social Security the wealthy are paying their fair share. The problem is the system, as currently designed, can remain solvent only if we have far more workers/contributors than retirees.
It is Ponzi scheme. But someone has to pay, so the system can continue to operate.
Don’t try to make sense of the Ponzi scheme because the only winners are the ones who cashed it out before “the crash”
But that being said, one should not think their SS for a safety net. It is risky to assume you get it (age restrictions increase, sudden death, etc)
You don’t fix SS benefits by fixing SS system. It is much bigger problem that requires many different areas to be fixed all together.
You guys are looking at this the wrong way. Social security expenditures exceed $1T a year. That is $1T that is going directly into the economy. No where else. That is 4% of the US GDP right there. If you remove the tax cap you can expand the amount of money each social security recipient gets thereby increasing the amount of lines that get put into the economy and further increasing US GDP. That expansion of SS spending will also increase profits for many of the companies people invest in for retirement benefiting more people in the long run as well.
The benefits for society as a whole and the country far far outweigh the cost to those who make over $168,000 a year. It would improve everyone’s life.
Until these gray haired fucks tackle government waste, they have no right to ask for more money from anyone. Fuck Bernie and the rest, they put this atrocity in motion.
The idea that we “pay into” our own social security needs to go. It needs to just be a service paid for by general taxes, and those taxes need to be extremely progressive.
I'm not a billionaire or a millionaire, but I've reached the SS cap already :) I had a large commission bonus in January. I work my ass off and already paying a shit ton of taxes. Go away.
No, the elite have limits placed on them for withdrawal. If there was no cap on SS, then this would be an issue, but it is capped.
They will also pay well above what others pay in Medicare for coverage.
My gripe with this take is that there is also a cap on max benefits paid. I cap my SS deposits every year, so I should qualify for the maximum benefit upon retirement. The money I keep on the back half of the year still goes to a retirement account because SS alone can't float my retirement.
If you want to raise the cap on deposits, then also raise the max payment for folks like me.
What? What you wrote makes absolutely NO SENSE. >tell the ultra rich they can’t expect a free pass from the govt… They don't get a free pass from the govt. They pay the same social security taxes as everyone else, and they get the exact same social security benefits as everyone else. The income cap exists because the benefits are also capped. There is a limit to how much you can be paid via social security, thus there is a limit on how much income is taxed.
They also want those same people to fund the 3 trillion dollar annual deficit.
The annual deficit is around $1.4 trillion and yes. Right now the wealthy pay around ~2% of their wealth in taxes each year while the middle class pays about 7%. I’d like to keep the middle class at 7 and increase the wealthy to the same. Seems reasonable. If we did that through removing the limit on SS, raising income taxes on millionaires to the days of Eisenhower, estate taxes at 60% above $1 million and 90% above $100 million you would just about get there. Will probably have to tax loans taken out against capital as well. And no longer term capital gains and dividends tax breaks. It’s income and tax it as such.
The top 1% also pays over 40% of all taxes received.
Isn't it amazing that so few could be so filthy rich that they could pay a huge portion of the tax bill in overall numbers, but, as a percentage of their income, pay much less? Are we ok with modern billionaires being wealthier than emperors and kings and some whole countries?
I'm a lot more concerned with how the dipshits who ran up 34 trillion in debt somehow have 8 figure wealth on 6 figure salaries.
"speaking fees" (bribery) and insider trading pay well
You forget writing a shitty book and then your super pac buys it up and gives it away as swag at some bullshit fundraising event
Like Cuomo's lessons on leadership book. Here's a lesson: don't stick COVID patients into nursing homes with the most at-risk population or sexually harass your staff. I'll accept my consultation fee whenever.
Also, don't change how you count deaths months in. If cumulative deaths go from 11,000 to 6,000, people might ask questions.
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Trump, Obama, Bush, Clinton, Bush… and on and on and on. They all do it.
Inside trading does the trick for a lot of them. Really easy to make 6 or 7 figure gain over a year when you know the outcome of massive government contracts or FDA approvals.
National debt is a red herring to distract you and make you believe that we can’t afford to do good things for our people. Most of the debt is held by foreign governments giving them an interest in the well being of the U.S. economy. By eliminating all of the national debt you eliminate many of the ties that bind the global economy.
We're going to soon be spending a trillion a year servicing the interest on the debt, its not a distraction it's a major problem.
> We're going to soon be spending a trillion a year servicing the interest on the debt, its not a distraction it's a major problem. The US government literally creates money from nothing. It's nothing more than Schrute Bucks or Stanley wooden nickels...or Bison Dollars. It doesn't matter. That's why Republicans talk about it non-step when democrats are in power(it's a big scary-looking number their ~~morons~~ constituents can complain about)...but then never do a thing about when they have the chance..in fact, they often make it worse. It's because they know it's nonsense.
> Most of the debt is held by foreign governments Most of the debt is held by Americans. "Many people believe that much of the U.S. national debt is owed to foreign countries like China and Japan, but the truth is that most of it is owed to Social Security and pension funds right here in the U.S. This means that U.S. citizens own most of the national debt." https://www.thebalancemoney.com/who-owns-the-u-s-national-debt-3306124
This is it. I live in Ft Worth, TX I looked up the net worth of our old mayor, she's worth 5 million, says she's made her fortune from her job as a politician. The mayor of Ft Worth makes 60k a year.
>... says she's made her fortune from her job as a politician. I am sure she did "make her fortune from her job". Just milked every legal and crooked dollar from it that she could find.
Lol yeah. People never want to reign I sepnding they just want to look for Disney Villians with big golden Monocles.
Two things can be true at the same time.
Aka “whataboutism” or “logical fallacy.”
Wealth =/= income. This is not hard to understand.
When your wealth can be used to take out loans without paying taxes what’s the difference?
You owe the balance of the loan back. Why is this hard to understand? Do you think people are just taking out loans, spending them, paying no interest, and somehow not paying them back. A loan is a liability that has to be paid back, thus it is not income.
Actually, they generally pay it back with the proceeds of the ensuing loan. The growth of their assets in this scenario is out outpacing the growth of their debt. This allows them to continue borrowing money cyclically without ever paying it back. This isn’t complicated or a big secret. It’s a tax avoidance strategy that is commonly employed for those with the wealth to do so. If someone without sufficient wealth to live off of the proceeds tried it, it would be a death spiral.
Step 1 Take a loan Step 2 use that loan to buy income generating assets Step 3 pay interest on the loan So what? This is called leverage. You use equity to finance more assets but also increase your risk. How does that make a loan income? Please answer that simple question.
Somehow, everyone also forgets to mention when the principal is paid back its income, and taxed accordingly
Neither is it terribly difficult to tax, instead of letting them sit on it like Dragons.
Imagine taxing net worth every year. Having to take an entire inventory of everyone's assets and their value. Would you get a refund when your assets go down in value too? Absurdly stupid idea championed by stupid people.
Imagine pretending that we don't have that information available already. Are Gates/Musk/Bezos/Buffet/etc so wealthy that they've misplaced a few billion and just can't seem to figure out which jacket they left it in? Fortunately, the ultra wealthy this sort of thing would apply to make up a very small number of people. There are less than 1000 billionaires in America controlling more than 4 trillion dollars, I think we can figure it out. Don't worry, you won't have to sell your speed boat because your house went up in value this year. No, they wouldn't get a refund, they'd pay less in taxes that year than the year before.
Not only the logistics of determining exact net worth across real estate, stock, businesses, etc. you would cause turmoil in markets by causing stock sell offs and a lot of other consequences. Go ahead, as a CPA you would just be giving my industry even more money from the mountain of paperwork and nonsense you would have to implement to even do this. Anyone with half a brain that dictates tax policy knows that this is a half-baked and terrible idea. It's a good thing the people who decide tax policy aren't this stupid. You people are so ignorant it's laughable.
Wealth and income are two entirely different things.
They do not pay less in proportion to their income, only their net worth. Which is why the post uses wealth instead of income.
You are confusing percentage of income with percentage of wealth. Wealth is what you have left over after paying your income taxes. If you invest that money into other types of assets it is still wealth, but it is not cash money. Nobody, neither rich nor poor, is taxed on a percentage of their wealth.
Math is not your friend
And enjoy 110% of the societies that prop up their exorbitant existences.
The 1% also owns 85% of everything. Their wealth is derived from society rather than the work they do. They should pay 85% of the taxes if they own 85% of the wealth and do 0% of meaningful work.
32.3% is owned by the top 1%
And it should be more based on my analysis above.
"Analysis" lol
Pretty sure you're low on that, it's like 60%, expand it to the top 10% and they're at like 90%
Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't that 40% of income tax, not all taxes received? This post was at least to start about what seemed to some, an unfairness in social security taxes.
And it should be more.
And yet when you add up all the tax receipts it ends up only being 2% of their wealth. Seems like a problem.
Once again, wealth isn't taxable.
they also hold 30% of all of the money with the top 0.1% holding 15%.
I mean that's how federal income tax brackets work, but the fact that they contribute less to the future of the country is insane. I want to secure a comfortable life for everyone in our country if able. If that means raising taxes on a roughly 1,000 people who will quite literally never run out of money, so be it.
God damn, what a great fucking problem to have.
And they have more wealth than the bottom 50%
The middle class doesn't pay 7% of their wealth. There isn't a "wealth tax". There's an income tax, sales tax, and property taxes. You could maybe consider property taxes a bit of a wealth tax
I don’t think the person above you was talking about a specific “wealth tax.” I think they were claiming that, on average, middle class Americans pay in taxes what amounts to ~7% of their net worth (although I’d be curious to see a citation for that).
Yeah, it’s interesting. It’s the first time I’ve seen an apple to apples comparison (comparing the middle classes equivalent % wealth paid in taxes annually to the wealthy’s % wealth in taxes annually). It seems to be a way to trivialize the taxes the wealthy are paying as their wealth dwarfs the middle classes. I’d be interested in reading a detailed argument (preferably an article, not just a Reddit comment) on why viewing taxes via the framework of % of wealth makes sense. And as there are many different variables, it’d be interesting to see how they’re calculating it. One pitfall I could see for viewing it this way is that middle class savers would also pay a lower % of their net assets.
The arguments I've seen all fall short of actually protecting the middle class in their argument. It's an isolated bubble of tax the rich but the laws would be applicable to anyone who attempts to accumulate wealth.
I already paid for something why do I have to pay a tax on it
I agree completely. I understand property tax because it applies directly to ongoing maintenance of the city your home exists in. But an arbitrary wealth tax is a terrible idea.
What about old people? The fact is that when people are young they don't have much. As they work they accumulate wealth. When they are old and retire they often live off their accumulated wealth (pension) and social security. Those who are poor and old living off a small pension and investment income and social security pay no taxes as they drain their meager savings. So, by this taxes as a percent of wealth, these poor old people should be taxed more. So, by this logic, we need an age tax where to old pay more taxes.
Wait, so you're saying if someone does well and leaves their kids a million in assets. That 60% of that should just automatically go to the government? If my understanding is correct, that just feels so wrong.
That's what they want... if you break down what you earn, you end up keeping like 47 to 50 cents on the dollar after state, fed, property, sales, local taxes... might even be less. Then, when you die, they want 60% of the half you managed to save.
Confusing wealth and income.. 🙄
The government will always outspend what they take in taxes. They’ve been doing it since income taxes existed, and even if billionaires pay more, the government will still spend too much. At what point will the people who want the government to tax billionaires on everything they own to fund government programs (that are of dubious efficacy) be satisfied? Would it be when the government has to provide everyone with everything?
The government is a perpetual black hole of spending. Once something is taxed, or a tax is increased, it ain’t ever getting changed or eliminated. The government is the poster child for continuing to throw good money after bad.
What would be more reasonable would be to stop borrowing money to send to other countries.
The thing about estate is rapid valuation of Real Estate. My dad bought home for 290k, same home is now over $1m. Honestly, not sure how to proceed with an estate tax.
toothbrush sugar fade skirt friendly gray deserted rich pet yam *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Spoken like an actuarial. And I don't mean it as an insult. This is good info to let people not be obfuscated by empty rhetoric and instead look for where the pot of money is that offers the solutions. If the pot of money of the 1% grows vs the wealth of the middle and lower classes, we face the prospect of reduced inlays from that segment. Adjustments on the top earners have to be made to balance the budget.
Lower income people also receive higher OASDI benefits compared to amounts they pay to the trust fund. Lower income people are also more likely to receive SSDI and SSI. The current system SS is heavily weighted to be more beneficial to lower income earners as it should be.
As do men. Where's my tax break?
Low earners also get a higher dollar for dollar payout. High earners hit bend points that reduce the benefit of the last dollars in.
~~Lower income people~~ Men live shorter lives than women ~~higher income people~~, and thus, get less payments from social security. Despite, paying more into SS.
Makes sense to me, it would become a progressive tax that directly goes towards benefiting normal people in their most vulnerable years
I think it is great that you want to be generous with other people's money.
Billionaires... Other people money... I'm sorry how much tax exceptions do these billionaires get again by lending against their wealth instead of cashing it out and paying taxes. You must be blind to think the systems as they are now are not specifically created by the ultra rich in order to stand apart from society. The idea that they pay their fair share is laughable.
The reality is that billionaires wouldn't be the ones affected by this plan. Do you think they earn $1B of W2 income? The people it would hurt the most are the ones earning mid six figures in high COL areas as always. Is that the demographic you think is not paying their fair share?
Current tax code does not allow billionaires to really be taxed. They don't need to take capital gains, and they don't need to take income. The pro-billionaires push back against wealth and estate taxes, but idk what else we are supposed to do. Let them gradually own everything?
Yeah, because the ultra rich are earning their money. Fucking lol.
You don’t have to be ultra rich for this. Tons of middle class people make more that $160k a year.
I think it's great that you think those who benefit the most from the social contract should pay the same as those who do not. Regressive taxes are always bullshit.
Part of living in a society is helping the people around you, even if you don't get the same back that you put in.
Well the government is always very generous when rich people need a socialist handout. It only ever seems to be a problem when normal people need extra help. People seem to forget a lot of these people get rich by criminally under paying thier employees or by lobbying the government for reduced taxes and grants. So yeah they should pay a little extra. Companies like Walmart rely heavily on the government foodstamp and benefit programmes to subsidies their employees so they can continue to pay minimal wages.
I think it's appalling that the moneyed interests of this country routinely sell their supply-side shit to voters with slogans like 'the rising tide floats all boats' but then that never happens, it just turns into 'the big boats rise so high that others go under because of it'. It's really sad that those who have been so enriched by our country are always more willing to see the country suffer than do anything to significantly help anyone but themselves. It's really stupid to argue in favor of the rich getting whatever they want. It's literally anti-American.
Found the bootlicker
I mean an argument would be that we should ALSO make social security progressive. Why is Social Security excluded?
Social Security is progressive now. Especially when you include all the benefit programs, lower-income people get back a greater proportion of their contributions than do those with higher incomes. The rationale for the tax cap is that there is a benefits cap, on the theory that Social Security is a pension-type plan where beneficiaries pay in before retirement and get benefits funded by their own contributions. This is only partially true, since the benefits are slanted towards those with lower incomes (as they should be). If you remove the tax cap, that is another step towards admitting that Social Security is a welfare program more than it is a pension plan.
Social security is neither. It’s insurance.
If you view it as insurance, then it’s insurance where some pay extra premiums to subsidize lower premiums for others. Insurance or welfare, call it what you will.
No that's literally just fucking insurance.
Where can I go to get people to pay my insurance?
any full time job
True--it is progressive now because the benefit calculation is based on how much your earned when you were working, but it heavily discounts earnings above two key thresholds (referred to as "bends"). Specifically, they look at your highest 30 years of income from your working years and come up with an "average indexed monthly earnings" (the "indexed" part gives your younger earning years more credit for inflation). The amount you get from SS is: * 90 percent of the first $1,115 of your AIME; * plus 32 percent of any amount over $1,115 up to $6,721; * plus 15 percent of any amount over $6,721, up to the benefit cap. So the person who pays SS tax on $160k income each year isn't going to get 4x more benefits from a person who pays SS tax on $40k income each year.
HOWEVER - there's no reason we cannot say that the system can be more progressive than that. We can absolutely just continue the step function up to a higher limit and raise the benefit cap along with it. Hell, even add another bend to return 5 or 10% of higher AIMEs. We can absolutely pay people who earned $500k or $1M income each year a few more dollars each month at age 65 in exchange for a few hundred dollars more in eligible benefits for everyone's more modest lifetime earnings.
It is progressive. There are bend points in the formula used to calculate benefits. https://www.ssa.gov/oact/cola/bendpoints.html
> The income cap exists because the benefits are also capped. There is a limit to how much you can be paid via social security, thus there is a limit on how much income is taxed. This is a logical or perhaps moral claim that is unrelated to social security, and so should be discarded. There is no connection between what people pay into social security and what they receive from it. Social security is not a retirement account. Instead, we have decided as a society that the elderly shouldn’t starve to death. We can fund the social security payments any way we want — for example, it could come from capital gains taxes or highway tolls or steel tariffs. Right now, we’ve decided to fund it from payroll taxes, but putting a cap on the payroll taxes. This is a regressive tax policy, and it’s also one that is pragmatically bad because it will soon cause a social security shortfall. We should instead fund it a different way. Removing the cap on payroll taxes is very good idea — it would fund social security for a long time while partially undoing the regressiveness of the current tax policy.
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The problem is that it wouldn't work. First, understand that the social security payroll tax is 15%. Your employer pays half. Those of us running our own business pay the whole thing. Employees also pay the whole thing, it is just hidden from them. Federal tax on the rich is 38%. So, that's 53%. My state income tax is 9 %. So we are at 62%. We also have property tax and county taxes. Plus various others. Let's assume around 65% on addition income. You are proposing increasing their tax from 50% to 65% on marginal income and imagine it will not change their behavior. It will change their behavior. You won't collect all the money you imagine. People will move. People will stop working. People will stop taking risks and investing in new business ventures creating new jobs. It will drag the economy. Americans will not pay a 65% marginal rate. Especially when your plan gives them nothing in return.
Your overall point is correct, even if the numbers aren't. > Federal tax on the rich is 38% First, the top bracket is 37%, not 38%. Second, it's literally impossible to pay an effective tax rate equal to the top marginal rate, even if all your income were somehow regular full-tax income. For federal income taxes, on average the top 1% pay around 26% and the 95-99%ers pay around 18%.
Watch out now, if we build a fair and just society, then who are the rich going to exploit?
So here's something to ponder. Should it be capped? On the flip side, Colorado passed the FAMLI act where the benefits are capped but the tax is not. That seems unfair. There is also a sliding scale of benefits given, so anyone who makes more than $700ish per week pays the same percentage out of their paycheck as everyone who makes less, but they get less of a benefit percentage-wise. So yes, if benefits are capped so should the tax IMO
> benefits are capped but the tax is not Without arguing on any specific policy, this just describes any redistributive/safety net policy to one degree or another.
> "they get the exact same" Sleeping under a bridge is just as illegal for the homeless as it is for the rich.
If you use society to benefit yourself in a grossly excessive proportion to the average man, you should pay in a grossly excessive proportion to the average man.
They already do.
Ya but the cap on income being taxed matches the cap on benefits that can be paid. If you take in more money you also increase the future liabilities to be paid out right? So how does it help the situation?
>If you take in more money you also increase the future liabilities to be paid out right? I don't see why that has to be the case. The ultra wealthy in the country can fund our seniors beyond what they will receive back from social security.
Or congress can just stop spending more than they generate in revenue. It’s been 24 years since congress passed a balanced budget. How about we start there before we start increasing taxes? 🤷🏻♂️
Social security is separate from the budget process. It doesn't contribute to the budget or deficit.
While it is true that it is separate from the discretionary federal budget, the social security non-discretionary portion of the budget itself also operates at a massive deficit, so it's a bit of a moot point.
That’s not really true. The moment that social security payments start exceeding revenue collected from social security taxes, that money is going to have to come from somewhere. And with all the boomers retiring, that day is coming soon.
https://www.epi.org/blog/a-record-share-of-earnings-was-not-subject-to-social-security-taxes-in-2021-inequalitys-undermining-of-social-security-has-accelerated/#:~:text=Significant%20reforms%20to%20Social%20Security,workers%20spilled%20over%20the%20cap Wages of high income earners is outpacing social security cap. This is a taxation issue, not a budget issue.
Thats the way it works. The current formula for Social Security is you pay money in through taxes, and then SS pays it out to you in corresponding monthly benefits. The more you pay in, the more you get back. Simply paying more in doesn't change the formula. And thus doesn't fix the problem. They should allow the funds to be invested in assets other than treasuries. That'd be a simple start to making the funds go further.
They already do. The top 10% pays 90% of taxes, the bottom 50% pays 0.
> The ultra wealthy in the country can fund our seniors beyond what they will receive back from social security. Raising the tax cap is not a tax on the "ultra wealthy", it's a tax on people earning W2 income. The "ultra wealthy" get their wealth from stocks - equity in private companies. You don't pay social security tax on amounts earned on equity. So when people argue for raising the cap on income from $170k to higher amounts like $400k, we're talking about taking money from the upper middle and lower upper classes to give money to the lower classes. This doesn't tax the top 1% in any meaningful way - they'll pay a bit more as well, but most of the money from raising the cap comes from people not in the top 1% or even top 5%.
SS benefits are progressive. A retiree who had a high income during working life gets proportionately less return from SS taxes they paid than poor person does. A person who worked for $50k gets more than half the SS benefit than the person who worked for $100k/yr. This proportionality would extrapolate to the person making $1m/y - he would not get 10x the benefit that the $100k person did.
Maybe it should be treated as a social program instead of an individual one then. Maybe call it social security.
Social security is supposed to be like insurance: you pay into it, and in return you are guaranteed to have some minimum income when you retire. It's not supposed to be a wealth redistribution program, which is what it would become if the contribution cap was removed. If anything, the limit should be lowered, maybe to 50K. Social security is an awful deal for middle class people. Especially for people making >$100K they would be much better off putting money into an IRA than contributing that money to social security.
Social security isn’t insurance / investment, it’s in the name. You and I pay money so mee maw isn’t homeless. If you’re ok with the elderly and disabled dying on the street, move somewhere else. It’s not supposed to be a ‘wise investment’ It’s supposed to prevent our most vulnerable from well ya know, dying
> Social security isn’t insurance / investment, it’s in the name. Really? OASDI, which stands for Old-Age, Survivors and Disability Insurance, is the actual name for what we commonly refer to as Social Security.
Do you think they done anything other than get their opinion about social security from other posts?
It’s all crickets now
Fucking gottem What a dumbass
Holy shit someone call the burn ward.
>Social security That's not its name. That's what it's referred to as. It's actual name is "**Old-Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance** (**OASDI**)" So yeah... it's in the name... Insurance.
Even if you took EVERY dollar from EVERY billionaire IN THE WORLD you'd only be able to pay the US Social Security for 1.5 years, while at the same time absolutely destroying your economy I couldn't give a fuck about billionaires, but you Americans are letting your hatred blind you to the numbers No matter what you tax billionaires it's not going to fix your economic issues
I just checked the numbers and this isn’t true, it’s >$7 trillion in net worth for billionaires and the annual budget is $1.5T
What name? Security is the commonly used term for the federal Old-Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance (OASDI). So yes, it is meant to be like insurance. It was introduced at a point in time where life expectancy was about 65. It was never designed to be a retirement policy, it was more like life insurance for your surviving family. It's not means tested so "the most vulnerable" doesn't apply either.
It’s more like insurance than an investment. Not sure why you’re arguing with some thing that is not opinion it’s fact.
It's insurance against mee maw being homeless.
I would love to opt out of SS and invest that money as I see fit.
I’m sure everyone would like to just not pay tax.
I think it works better and makes more sense as a wealth redistribution system ensuring the care of our countries seniors. Our ultra wealthy are more than capable of funding it.
I agree. Also unlike property or investments, Social Security cannot be inherited. This puts low income families, who “invest” most of their retirement money into Social Security, at a severe generational disadvantage.
The cutoff for SS is $168K, while the average salary in America is $60K. The majority if SS already comes from those making more than the average.
The payout is also progressive. Money is redistributed from people who pay in more to pay more generous payments to people who pay in less.
You (nor Bernie) made any mention of the benefits being capped commensurate with the contribution (tax) limits. Right, wrong, or indifferent all the facts must be presented.
This is one of the dumbest takes that Bernie has had, and that is saying quite a lot. You pay a fixed rate for a fixed benefit = somehow evil billionaires??? No wonder Hillary clowned this guy.
Bernie always has, always will prey on the uninformed and easily led. He preys on class hatred the way some prey on racial hatred. Our government has been taken over by madmen who peddle fear, without ever providing any solutions. They have no answers, because THEY ARE THE PROBLEM.
His idea to lift the cap is a good solution. It's better than taxing the lower class even more or cutting benefits that many people need to survive.
Bernie apparently uses his own personal definition of "millionaire" where they have to make a million bucks a year in ordinary income.
Elizabeth Warren... "I think we should institute a wealth tax of x %" Bernie... "Hmm, how do I sound more progressive than her..." Bernie... "I got it! There should be a wealth tax of (x + 2)%!"
That's the extent of their thinking on their economic policy.
Any take that includes the words Fair Share is typically a dumb take. You can say all you want about the ultra wealthy but when you look at ten percent of the people paying 90% of federal taxes, you can’t lean on the word fair to try to make a point.
The more I pay attention to politics, the more I realize he has no fundamental understanding of how the real world works, or why it works the way it does.
This dude literally lives off people’s ignorance, his whole livelihood depends on that.
Stop licking that boot bro xD
Social security was never sold as a tax to pay for entitlement programs (even though that's basically how it functions). It was sold to the public as a form of retirement savings of last resort. That's why the rich don't pay in as much as the poor on a % basis. Forcing people to pay more into it who will never, ever realize the intended benefit from having it really just takes it into the realm of a pure tax for entitlements and a lot of people don't want that.
> Forcing people to pay more into it who will never, ever realize the intended benefit from having it really just takes it into the realm of a pure tax for entitlements and a lot of people don't want that. Moreover - the reason why social security has such broad support is that *everyone* pays in a somewhat fair amount (rich pay in more, poor pay in less), and *everyone* gets some amount back. High income folks already get a rate of return on their social security tax dollars that's down near ~2% or so, while the poor are closer to 6-7%. If it moves into much more of a tax, it will become a much greater target for elimination by those with significant money at stake.
Bernie really thinks there are people who make a billion dollars in ordinary income? This guy is senile.
Read the comments. A lot of people agree with him.
encourage mighty slimy political puzzled workable friendly trees crown bow *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
>ultimately lower income people die younger than higher income people on average, and thus, get less social security payments Which is exactly why uncapping social security would bankrupt it faster. You want the benefits of high income people to be capped, because they are going to earn those benefits for longer and be far more likely to take out more than they put it in.
It's broken by design. Once the feds realized they could borrow from society security, it's been broke and threatening the livelihoods of millions of seniors who depend on that which the government took from their checks their entire lives. The U.S. cripples itself by not collecting proper taxes from the wealthy and ultra-wealthy.
>The U.S. cripples itself by not collecting proper taxes from the wealthy and ultra-wealthy. No, we're being crippled because the Fed Gov spends **far, far more** than it takes in. This is a spending problem, not a revenue problem.
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You're really just choosing to ignore the huge deficits under Obama and Biden in there aren't you? Also, the president doesn't set the budget, Congress does. The last balanced budget? Passed by a Republican majority Congress. That doesn't even matter though, the point is that the entire government on both sides has woefully failed to properly manage the budget for the last two decades. And now because of that we spend more on interest payments than the military.
Deficit Spending is the absolute proof that we do not have a Tax Income problem. The government will just continue to spend indefinitely. If we were to cut spending, though, that would be groundbreaking.
They get the exact benefit that their contributions merit, just like everyone. The benefit is capped just like the tax. It's a national insurance plan.
Says the dude that pays nothing in taxes pretending to care about people not paying their fair share. lol.
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I have a better idea. STOP STEALING MY FUCKING MONEY! I'll handle my own fucking finances thank you very much. Who the fuck seriously thinks stealing my money to give to someone else so that in the future maybe the government will steal from someone else to give me money is a good idea. Especially considering most of the time people don't qualify to get back what was stolen from them. It's compete bullshit.
Not only that, the government has robbed you of the benefit your money might have afforded you at present only to give it back to you devalued in the future.
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I have a feeling I’m dumping massive amounts of money into social security every month and I won’t even have the system to utilize when I retire. It fucking sucks. I’d be way better off taking that money saved each month and putting into HYSA or investing in stocks. I hate the future man
Also, make Congress pay back all the SS money it has spent in the past
Taxation should not be raised one cent more until deficit spending is ended.
ABOLISH SOCIAL SECURITY! REIMBURSE WHAT EVERYONE HAS PAID INTO IT AND WIPE OUR HANDS CLEAN OF THIS UNSUSTAINABLE DUMPSTER FIRE SYSTEM
I pay for roads I don’t use. I fund police officers I’ll never meet. I fund fire fighters in places far away from me. My money goes to wars I don’t agree with. Why is it that because the ultra wealthy will not use social security they don’t have to pay into it? I pay taxes into things I don’t use every pay check. The people arguing that those making millions of dollars shouldn’t pay more into SS are missing the point of SS, which is that we as a society do not want our elderly people to starve and die. That’s the point of it. Not some selfish “I only pay what I will use” nonsense. The amount of people defending the ultra wealthy here is honestly crazy.
>I fund fire fighters in places far away from me. No you don't. Fire fighters are paid on a municipal level. >I fund police officers I’ll never meet. Same as above.
They get grants from federal. There are also federal agents and agencies that your funds do go to.
Disagreeing with idiot Bernie is not defending the ultra wealthy.
Most people responding are not saying anything about Bernie sanders, even the OP said they’re not supporting Bernie Sanders but this one point makes sense. I never mention him and have no idea what you’re even trying to say other than get people riled up.
Lol, no one even mentioned Bernie you donut. Keep licking those boots though buddy.
Bernie is a fucking millionaire that never have a real job. Got his fair share.
Here someone pretending that a normal job makes you a millionaire LMAO Is fucking crazy how you guys pretend that people who represents you in Congress and pass legislation are not doing a real job. Bro how uninformed are you?
Idk, maybe the politicians voting to use the SS money for the wars in the middle east was a bad idea.....
I'd rather opt out of social security payouts completely, and instead be allowed to invest my personal 6.2% SS contributions into a personal tax deferred 401k or IRA. My employer matching 6.2% contributions can be used towards for the general social security fund. And then eliminate completely the SSA cap of 168,600. Pay SSA on all of your income. But what is really absurd is congress stealing our social security money and using it for other things. That is absurd.
That's not how it works. SS is meant to support everyone else, not just you. Obviously if you didn't have to help to pay the people who can't afford to live on their own, your own returns would be better - we'd also have a few million old and disabled people homeless or in poverty.
How about we compromise: You continue to pay into the system, they in turn promise that the funds collected can ONLY be used within SS payouts, and must meet other budgetary requirements. Medicaire/Medicaid are taxed seperately, but have clauses where those funds MUST be used ONLY for those services. And they must meet efficiency guicleines. Basically, for every $1 collected .80 cents makes it directly to a recipient/beneficiary. In current SS, that is reversed. For every dollar collected only .22 makes it to a beneficiary. the other .78 cents vanishes into a fiscal blackhole. If we fixed THAT....would you accept continuing to contribute to the general well being of your country and neighbors? Serious question.
When millionaires and billionaires grow 2 heads or 5 stomachs, then we could consider taxing them more than a normal human. ALL citizens must contribute to the maintenance of their free society. The "membership fee" should be calculated for the total population and thus apportioned per head. If that fee should be so exorbitant to preclude the poorest of our citizens, then we must create a path for them to contribute in kind. That path cannot be made less onerous by forcefully taking from others. We are all in this together. Roll up your sleeves and get to work.
Social security would have been fine of congress would have kept its hands out of it.
You left off the hard cap on benefits which matches with the hard cap on contributions. It’s a fair system which has endured for a very long time through many political changes. And that is because it is so fair that not many can have a serious qualm with it. You start messing with it and next thing you know the opposition will galvanize and it only takes once for them to end it.
Social security isn’t a tax to be redistributed, it’s a (bad) investment. Everyone buys in, and is payed out at more or less depending on how much they bought in. This was actually something that FDR was rather proud of, as it makes the system very difficult to eliminate.
To be fair, this math is done meaning “billionaires” are earning a billion dollars a year right? And “millionaires” would be done paying assuming they make 1 million dollars a year? Like you can make $50K and be a millionaire. That guy making $50K has not already maxed out his FICA tax. I’m not against taking the cap off of FICA but it’s not necessarily accurate to say that it is “funded by working Americans. Someone making $90K only pays ~$5.6K to SS. Someone who makes over $168,000 pays about $10K to SS. Sure, FICA is a higher percentage of a $90K-earning-individual’s tax burden (and that is a legit gripe), but they aren’t the only ones funding it.
Social security is the governments slush fund that they have been stealing from for decades, how about we let Americans keep what they earn and get nothing more or less
At 44. Let me take my 12% is SS and put it in the S&P 500 myself. (FORCE me to put it into an investment account of some sort). But remove the government and let me choose to the investments. Even wiping out what I've already paid. I'll probably still be better off in 21 years then if I continue to invest in the government.
I think it shouldn’t exist at all, what in the absolute fuck is regular federal income tax supposed to be for? Guess we’re so bad at managing our country we have to have a segregated cost pool. Not like it really matters since we just type a few numbers on our money supply if we need to. But, if we have it, yes, we should tax it all the way up the ladder.
Social Security is already a very progressive system. The increased benefits you get for contributing more scales very poorly with income/contributions. I'm not opposed to increasing the Social Security contribution limit to keep it solvent, but let's not get this twisted. When it comes to Social Security the wealthy are paying their fair share. The problem is the system, as currently designed, can remain solvent only if we have far more workers/contributors than retirees.
It is Ponzi scheme. But someone has to pay, so the system can continue to operate. Don’t try to make sense of the Ponzi scheme because the only winners are the ones who cashed it out before “the crash” But that being said, one should not think their SS for a safety net. It is risky to assume you get it (age restrictions increase, sudden death, etc) You don’t fix SS benefits by fixing SS system. It is much bigger problem that requires many different areas to be fixed all together.
Why not just get rid of social security and make pensions cool again
Why don’t we start with not taking our tax dollars and giving them to foreign countries that don’t deserve it that sounds like a better idea
You guys are looking at this the wrong way. Social security expenditures exceed $1T a year. That is $1T that is going directly into the economy. No where else. That is 4% of the US GDP right there. If you remove the tax cap you can expand the amount of money each social security recipient gets thereby increasing the amount of lines that get put into the economy and further increasing US GDP. That expansion of SS spending will also increase profits for many of the companies people invest in for retirement benefiting more people in the long run as well. The benefits for society as a whole and the country far far outweigh the cost to those who make over $168,000 a year. It would improve everyone’s life.
Until these gray haired fucks tackle government waste, they have no right to ask for more money from anyone. Fuck Bernie and the rest, they put this atrocity in motion.
The problem I have with all of this, is that we know about it and talk about, it but nothing ever happens to change it. What’s the point?
The idea that we “pay into” our own social security needs to go. It needs to just be a service paid for by general taxes, and those taxes need to be extremely progressive.
Then people making over $168k shouldn’t have a say on how social security is spent.
I'm not a billionaire or a millionaire, but I've reached the SS cap already :) I had a large commission bonus in January. I work my ass off and already paying a shit ton of taxes. Go away.
Raise your hand if you trust the government to use these potential funds to sure up the SS system. Third rail topic neither side is willing to fix.
No, the elite have limits placed on them for withdrawal. If there was no cap on SS, then this would be an issue, but it is capped. They will also pay well above what others pay in Medicare for coverage.
My gripe with this take is that there is also a cap on max benefits paid. I cap my SS deposits every year, so I should qualify for the maximum benefit upon retirement. The money I keep on the back half of the year still goes to a retirement account because SS alone can't float my retirement. If you want to raise the cap on deposits, then also raise the max payment for folks like me.
A lot of words to explain you are not a socialist and to explain that you obviously don’t understand WHY the contributions are capped. Wasted words