Overwhelming majorities of Democrats and Republicans favored two proposals to increase revenues:
- Making More Wages Subject to the Payroll Tax: Currently, wages subject to the payroll tax are capped at $147,000. A proposal to additionally make all wages over $400,000 subject to the payroll tax, was favored by an overwhelming 81% (Republicans 79%, Democrats 88%). This would eliminate 61% of the shortfall.
- Increasing the Payroll Tax: 73% (Republicans 70%, Democrats 78%) favored increasing the payroll tax from 6.2% to 6.5%, eliminating 16% of the shortfall.
Next page: Cutting benefits
Hi Brian,
One change makes a better, actuarially sound program that uses current taxes to invest a small portion of Americans’ Social Security taxes in the stock market (the world’s greatest wealth generator). This is what 58% of Americans want according to the recent Social Security survey (Note: 58% desiring this method is hard for ANY politician to go against.)
Social Security is already broken – BUT NOT in the way you are thinking. Social Security has a $255 death benefit (added by Roosevelt’s female Secretary of Labor)to pay for the funeral costs. During the pandemic, this amount( unchanged for 85 years) proved insufficient. Hence, the Administration had to use Federal EMERGENCY Management money to pay the funeral costs which Social Security should have paid. Because our politicians did not maintain a meaningful benefit, this failure proves the benefit needs to be redesigned and people usually use life insurance for a funeral expense, How we can achieve a redesigned life insurance component is enumerated in my comments to SEC Regs. S7-25-19 published 02/03/2020. Further comments are elaborated in Advisor Perspectives article “A Proposal to Address Wealth and Health Inequality”.
The use of life insurance leverages money and offers these additional domestic benefits including but not limited to: a national debt solution, starting retirement at birth, reducing Medicare and Medicaid entitlement costs, increased medical research funding, increased investment participation for all Americans, increased Social Security retirement payments, provide economic stimulus to the States/municipalities during pandemic(s), increased financial services diversity and compliance, and resolve the Black Lives matter concerns. Tacit Congressional approval exists.
This was also proposed to refute Build Back Better and CT’s Insurance Commissioner has institutionalized the use of tax money to train and aid minorities through the CT Broker Academy for health insurance. (This copies my 2-3-2020 proposal for life insurance.)
SUMMARIZING OVERVIEW – Civilizations have prospered when a people develop an economic benefit that their citizens and others beyond their borders (See Europe, China, Russia, etc.) need. As the civilization’s economy grew and prospered, there was a separation between rich and poor which grew larger in the ensuing years. The rich became more powerful but as the number of poor became larger, they became strong enough to overwhelm the rich and the civilization dissolved.
The United States’ chasm between rich and poor has increased in the past decades – increasing even more significantly during the recent pandemic. Additionally, the number of poor has been increased by the pandemic. Some leaders’ solution is to close the chasm through taxes on the rich. While this legal “robin hood” philosophy has an initial impact, the poor may not be satisfied by the share they receive and demand more. Further the chasm may actually increase because the investments (e.g. during the pandemic) grow faster due to compounding.
This pattern bodes ill for the United States’ society until we realize that every citizen could have access to the world’s greatest wealth generator (US stock market) through our Social Security system. A single update to our Social Security’s life insurance system would enable this access – permitting all citizens the opportunity to become wealthy.
Respectfully,