One person makes $100 million a year. (Bernie on Twitter)

[Uncle Joe]

Link to tweet

Link to tweet

[Thunderbeast]

1. Social Security was crafted as old-age and disability insurance...NOT welfare

The reason that FICA taxes are capped is that the BENEFIT is also capped. FDR could only sell the program if everybody paid into the system based on their earnings and everybody received benefits based in their work history. While there is no means test for benefits, beginning in 1984 benefits of over $32,000 (for a couple) became taxable. This added a small element of progressivity to the plan. Since FICA taxes are paid with after-tax dollars, taxing the benefits is seen by many as a "second bite from the apple".

Supplemental Security Income (SSI) was added to provide minimal support (currently $914 per month) for disabled persons with little or no work history contributions. SSI is not funded by FICA taxes, but from general revenues.

Medicare taxes are in addition to FICA payroll taxes and are not income-capped.

[Uncle Joe]

2. I don't know why some people hate the word "welfare?" It's in the Preamble of the Constitution

and FDR didn't shy away from using.

(snip)

"Security was attained in the earlier days through the interdependence of members of families upon each other and of the families within a small community upon each other. The complexities of great communities and of organized industry make less real these simple means of security. Therefore, we are compelled to employ the active interest of the Nation as a whole through government in order to encourage a greater security for each individual who composes it . . . This seeking for a greater measure of welfare and happiness does not indicate a change in values. It is rather a return to values lost in the course of our economic development and expansion . . ."

Franklin D. Roosevelt: Message of the President to Congress, June 8, 1934.

The Social Security Act

In early January 1935, the CES made its report to the President, and on January 17 the President introduced the report to both Houses of Congress for simultaneous consideration. Hearings were held in the House Ways & Means Committee and the Senate Finance Committee during January and February. Some provisions made it through the Committees in close votes, but the bill passed both houses overwhelmingly in the floor votes. After a Conference which lasted throughout July, the bill was finally passed and sent to President Roosevelt for his signature.

The Social Security Act was signed into law by President Roosevelt on August 14, 1935. In addition to several provisions for general welfare, the new Act created a social insurance program designed to pay retired workers age 65 or older a continuing income after retirement. (Full Text of President Roosevelt's Statement At Bill Signing Ceremony.)

"We can never insure one hundred percent of the population against one hundred percent of the hazards and vicissitudes of life, but we have tried to frame a law which will give some measure of protection to the average citizen and to his family against the loss of a job and against poverty-ridden old age."--

President Roosevelt upon signing Social Security Act

(snip)

https://www.ssa.gov/history/briefhistory3.html#:~:text=The%20Social%20Security%20Act%20was,a%20continuing%20income%20after%20retirement.

[PatrickforB]

14. Unfortunately we have had two things that have hurt the original intent:

The first concerns the irresponsible tax cuts that have been imposed since Reagan slithered into the White House in 1981. The idea you can cut taxes for corporations and wealthy 'job creators' and not experience a budget shortfall is absurd.

The second thing concerns the fact that Congress has 'borrowed' over $2.9 trillion from the Social Security Trust Fund over the past four decades AND HAS NEVER PAID THAT BACK. Now, Republicans are making mouth noises abut cutting Social Security even though it doesn't add a cent to the deficit - it is a social insurance program providing old age pensions for people who pay in over their working life.

As to your assertion that "The reason that FICA taxes are capped is that the BENEFIT is also capped. FDR could only sell the program if everybody paid into the system based on their earnings and everybody received benefits based in their work history," I would like to respectfully point out two things:

1. Compared with the typical worker's pay, CEOs were paid 399 times as much in 2021, the highest multiple on record, EPI said. In 1965, CEOs were paid 20 times what the average worker made. On average, CEOs were paid $27.8 million in 2021, the institute said (MarketWatch). This is because of additional irresponsible (mostly Republican additions) to the tax code concerning executive compensation. Seems like these people need to pay their fair share in taxes, and part of that is lifting the payroll cap. Things have changed since the Social Security Act was passed in 1935.

2. According to federal data on tax revenue, in 2021, corporations paid in only 9% of the federal government's total tax revenue, and individual taxpayers like you and I paid in 54%. We also pay in an additional 30% of total tax revenue in the form of Social Security and Medicare payroll tax deductions. So what does Congress do? They budget OVER HALF of this year's $1.6 trillion budget ($858 billion) for war - missiles and other death toys.

Silly me, I'd rather have expanded Social Security, Medicare for all Americans, and free college for our grandkids at state schools. Unfortunately due to corporate corruption in Washington DC, corporations are getting the lion's share of the taxes WE pay in to OUR government, which is ostensibly of, by and for us, the people. But it's not really, is it?

Lewis Powell laid out the plan for corporations to amass political power in this republic in his 1971 Memorandum to the US Chamber of Commerce (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewis_F._Powell_Jr., AND https://medium.com/volans/how-the-powell-memorandum-changed-capitalism-and-what-we-can-learn-from-it-today-d2ce10234f82), and the snake Ronald Reagan allowed the old Fairness Doctrine to die in 1987 - all part of Powell's plan to for a "“hostile takeover” of US economic and political life by a wealthy, conservative elite." (Richard Roberts, August 21, 2021, from the Medium.com link)

I'll leave you all with the words of Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address:

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate -- we can not consecrate -- we can not hallow -- this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

Abraham Lincoln
November 19, 1863

BOTTOM LINE: We need to counter the hostile takeover of our democracy by corporations and billionaires and TAKE BACK OUR GOVERNMENT SO IT IS ONCE AGAIN A GOVERNMENT OF, BY AND FOR THE PEOPLE, instead of what it has become, which is a government of, by and for, corporations and billionaire parasites.

[druidity33]

15. Thank you for this refutation! K&R, nt.

[Yavin4]

18. Excellent post.

Well written.

[Celerity]

3. remove the cap, make the ultra rich pay A LOT more for the general welfare of the nation

[PatSeg]

4. I don't think you need to entirely scrap the cap

Just raise it to keep up with inflation at least. Also if wealthy people were contributing more, perhaps they could take a smaller percentage of tax out of everyone's paycheck.

And for the rich who complain, taxes are what we pay to live in a civilized society. "When everyone does better, then everyone does better."

[Uncle Joe]

6. In Bernie's scenario there would be a doughnut hole for

people making more than 160 but less than 250 and that would still secure social security for 75 years and allow the poorest and most vulnerable among us to have some benefit increase.

[PatSeg]

16. Yes, the answers have always been there

but the will to do what is needed has been lacking.

[KS Toronado]

5. Did Musk make it impossible to copy and post tweets from twitter?

My computer is getting old & slow, I've stopped clicking on "Link to tweet"

[Celerity]

7. you don't need a twitter account to read a tweet, people (not you) have been falsely claiming this

here for years

here are snapshots, btw

[KS Toronado]

8. Thanks for the snapshots !

I've copied & pasted tweets before with no problems, it just seems like lately instead of a "snapshot" it's always
a "link to tweet" I often see and we have to load that tweeter's entire page to view something which
is really slow for my old computer and I assume for others also.

[Celerity]

19. yw, and I did leave out a couple circumstances where even having a twitter account still doesn't

allow you to view a tweet:

1. If the tweeter has blocked you (in which case just log out of twitter and you can see that tweet, or if you you do not have an account, you will still see the tweet anyway)

2. If the twitter account marks their tweets private, then you have to request access, or get them to follow you, etc etc (whatever the settings say for their account)


here is a good snapshot tool, btw

https://gyazo.com/

cheers

[republianmushroom]

9. like it

[Tree Lady]

10. My husband was so angry this morning

he said he is never voting again if democrats can't stop cuts to medicare and social security.

He gets set off easy these days.

I think a lot of people are afraid dems will cave if they hold us hostage with debt ceiling.

Seems to me our number one thing right now to force Kevin to stop this is excellent messaging regarding it.

[Uncle Joe]

11. I agree Tree Lady

messaging is critical.

Thanks for sharing

[BlueCheeseAgain]

12. They put in the same amount, and they get the same amount back.

In Sanders' plan, does the wealthier person get more back?

[Uncle Joe]

13. With great power comes great responsibility

"All things being equal in American Society" is a mirage whether it be tax law or pretty much anything else.

[Omaha Steve]

17. K & R

[Just_Vote_Dem]

20. Bernie on Twitter makes $100 million a year?

Bernie has a great side gig!