When payroll deductions were raised back in the 80's it was an effort by boomers & gen-x'ers to pay it forward, to create the current $2.7T trust fund to draw from for our own retirements. That's the way it was sold, anyway, and it turned what had been a pay as we go system into a cash cow for the treasury. Previous trust fund balances were merely buffers.
Everybody including Repubs were happy to go along with that while ignoring the fact that funds to honor the trust had to come from somewhere other than contributions or that contributions would have to be increased. Now that we've reached that point Repubs are balking at either of those honest alternatives. There really are no others that will satisfy the trust Reagan called forth way back then.
What we really need is a way to turn SS back into the cash cow it has been for the last 30 years, a way that puts insolvency off the table for the foreseeable future. Simply removing the cap on the employees' side of contributions will likely do that with very little pain for people in the top 10% to 1% income range. It won't disadvantage business, either, because business will pay no more than at present. We could just let the trust fund "balance" grow forever, safe in the knowledge we'd never have to pay it back at all.
Repubs are more likely to invoke a string of magic asterisks while cutting future benefits.
Everybody including Repubs were happy to go along with that while ignoring the fact that funds to honor the trust had to come from somewhere other than contributions or that contributions would have to be increased. Now that we've reached that point Repubs are balking at either of those honest alternatives. There really are no others that will satisfy the trust Reagan called forth way back then.
What we really need is a way to turn SS back into the cash cow it has been for the last 30 years, a way that puts insolvency off the table for the foreseeable future. Simply removing the cap on the employees' side of contributions will likely do that with very little pain for people in the top 10% to 1% income range. It won't disadvantage business, either, because business will pay no more than at present. We could just let the trust fund "balance" grow forever, safe in the knowledge we'd never have to pay it back at all.
Repubs are more likely to invoke a string of magic asterisks while cutting future benefits.
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