Despite the right-wing noise machine, it is important for the American public to understand there is almost nothing ‘wrong’ with Social Security itself. In 1983, Congress raised Social Security taxes on working people, collecting more taxes than needed to pay current benefits, in order to build up a trust fund that could be used to pay the benefits of the baby boomers when they retire. But every President since then - except for Bill Clinton in his second term - has borrowed from that trust fund to pay for other programs. George Bush has borrowed about $150 billion a year, to pay for the war in Iraq and tax cuts that favored the wealthiest Americans. In the meantime, he also continues to push for ‘privatizing' Social Security - so he can escape the blame for his borrowing endangering the funds for senior citizens in the future.
It would be a betrayal of the worst sort to begin cutting the retirement benefits of working Americans, particularly after they’ve been paying extra taxes for the past two decades to shore up the system. To stop that from happening, the federal government will need to repay its debt to Social Security - which may require cutting other spending or raising revenue.
One way to raise revenue would be to ask wealthier Americans to contribute more. Right now the Social Security tax doesn't apply to incomes above $97,500. In other words, if you make $1 million a year, over 90% of your income is exempt from Social Security taxes. We might need to apply the Social Security tax to incomes above $100,000. If we do, steps could be taken to limit the tax hit on families making in the $100,000 to $150,000 range - many of whom probably don't feel rich. Barack Obama, Peter DeFazio and I support lifting the cap, while my opponent in the primary does not.
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