Should rich people receive Social Security benefits?

[HiPointDem]

39. After SS taxes are collected from workers, any money not needed to pay current retirees is

borrowed by the federal government in exchange for government bonds. That's what the money in the Trust Fund is, the value of those bonds + interest. The bonds are redeemed by the SS Admin on a regular schedule.

Before Reagan, the TF typically held about one year's payout or less. Under Carter, the TF got very low -- mainly because of the Carter recession and stagflation.

So there was a 'fix' under Reagan. But rather than just increasing SS taxes enough to fix the problem, Congress (following the recommendations of the Greenspan commission) increased SS taxes to build up *a lot* of extra money in the TF -- way beyond what was needed to pay beneficiaries and maintain a one-year cushion in the TF.

It was five year's payout in the TF last time I did the calculations. Unprecedented. The rationale for this was that the boomers would 'prefund' their own retirement.

But here we are, the boomers are retiring, and we're told SS is in crisis.

This is why any cuts to scheduled benefits would in fact be *theft* from all the workers who paid that extra money during the 30 years from 1983 to the present -- roughly 1% of all wages for 30 years, plus interest. If you made $20K, that would be $6000 plus 30 years of interest.

Meanwhile, the rich got tax cuts and the extra SS payments of the working class helped pay for the budget.

So when rich people say 47% don't pay income taxes, I have to laugh. *Everyone* who's worked over the last 30 years has been paying income taxes -- they just didn't know it.