Following a dramatic State of the Union moment in which President Joe Biden called out Republican proposals to slash Social Security and Medicare, the language we’ve long used to describe these programs, and potential adjustments to them, has taken center stage.
First! Now let me find a photo…
“When you have a situation where somebody who makes $100 million a year contributes the same amount into the Social Security trust as somebody making $160,000,
There is a disconnect for me when they discuss an income of 160,000 as a cut off. Most of the people I have worked with, including myself, never came close to that amount of income annually unless it was a two income household. As a discussion point, they might address the comparison in terms of those lower income earners.
Joe. Bernie. Elizabeth.
A Murderers Row of social program sluggers.
As long as Rs keep throwing fat pitches down the middle–
Ds will keep knocking them outta’ the park.
Racism is the only social practice/philosophy which allows GOP talking points to make sense in this ridiculously simple-to-fix-by-sensible-tax-policy “problem”.
Without it, both parties would have come together in this, and a myriad of other social issues.
Just tax capital gains at the same rates as ordinary income and be done with it.
Proposing rational, fair, logical solutions does not fit in with the cuckoo, emotional, self-serving histrionics of the Repubs.
The donut hole makes no sense. Few taxpayers make over 160k. Why should those people pay less than those making 50k?
No text of the bill available yet that I’ve seen, quite possibly they’re taxing but not increasing benefits.
The $160K cap is directly linked to benefits caps in social security and how much you get.
I wouldn’t say it’s fair…
This is Blue states again with the bailout.
This will effect 20% of earners in NJ and 5% of earners in WV.
This targets not the rich, but higher wage earners mostly in blue states where 160k isn’t that much
The cap should be lowered, not increased and instead tax capital gains separately for SS w/ carve out for 401k withdrawals after retirement.
How about “fixing” the framing by not using GOP versions of it? Social Security is not broken, going broke, insolvent or in need of fixing. What it is in need of is an upgrade so that it meets the needs of current and future recipients and has the inflow to pay for it. It’s not a bridge that’s collapsed or is about to. It’s more like an 8 lane bridge that needs another level added and the tolls modestly increased to pay for it in the future. And it’s certainly not a bunch of tubes or Fonzi Schemes, ay!
A ‘fix’? Offering a ‘solution’? What IS this??? The Right only seems to ‘offer’ gloom and doom. What are these democrats DOING???
So a NYer making 250k gets to pay 6k more a year to make the same max SS benefit…
Does a wage earners still get full benefit at 160k?
This plan seems a way to fuck the moderately comfortable in high cost areas, leaving the billionaires paying an extra 6k a year…
Won’t know until/if they release the text, but according to the article the new taxes would start at $250K, so if that’s accurate, then you’d have a non-taxed area between 160-250K. And once you’re at that level, not too many people are sympathetic to your plight.
Waiting for the day when somebody frames Defense Spending as, “The Pentagon’s going broke!”
Or, “The Pentagon’s insolvent!”
Maybe, “Pentagon spending is unsustainable!”
“The cynic in me thinks they’re trying to drive people into lowering the support for the program.”
Methinks thy cynicism hath not paid nearly enough attention if that’s all it’s got, Sergeant WeakTea. I suppose next your cynic will say they might be trying to lessen support for abortion.
Or, the pentagon should be run like a business!
Which of course it is, basically, since it only seems to fight wars that benefit US businesses, spends a massive amount of money on unnecessary weapons systems and programs that mostly benefit said businesses, and is incredibly wasteful and inefficient in many aspects. Like why are we decommissioning 2 year old ships that cost billions?!?
Instead of talking about “fixes”, pull the conversation back to Social Security as an earned benefit. If this were private insurance, you have two options: lower benefits or bring more people into the plan. In the case of Social Security – since it’s already universal, increasing the cap on wages taxed or adding a supplemental tax on high-income earners is the only way to go if you don’t want to lower benefit payouts.
Did social security break, or something? The headline’s a head scratcher for me but Ms. Riga does a great job laying out the “SS is broke” red herring the pubs always trot out when softening up resistance to redistributing meager food money for old people over to wall street. Why do they enjoy stealing from the poor so damned much?
And interest and dividends, too.