Bernie Sanders Has An Amazingly Simple Idea To Fix Social Security For The Next 75 Years

[HiPointDem]

144. I disagree that the problem is the number of workers per retiree. That's a red herring.

I agree that if workers don't share in productivity gains, SS won't work.

I disagree that maintaining a bloated TF or changing the structure of the program so that all wage income is taxed is a solution.

Thirty years ago SS tax rates were raised above then-current needs in order to create a growing surplus, supposedly in order to prefund the baby boom's retirement, because they were such a large generation and their children's generation would be smaller.

The rhetoric then was that this "fix" would "save SS forever".

Now the boomers are starting to retire, and, far from being a secure source of retirement income, we are told the program is in "crisis," that it's going "bankrupt," that program cuts are needed, that adjustments in COLA and retirement ages are needed, that we must increase taxes on labor even more.

IOW, reducing our own consumption for 30 years in order to prefund SS didn't eliminate the problem. And it won't eliminate it if we do it again.

Because the real problem isn't the amount of money in the TF, it's the fact that capital is taking an increasing share of all income, and is using its power to rachet down labor's share even more and take away any security that labor as a class has.

Taxing all wage income increases political opposition to SS, increasing support for its destruction. The segment being hit is the segment whose total tax rate is already higher than that of the super-rich pushing this "solution" and already most attentive to demagoguing on "high taxes" and how they, the productive of society, support the unproductive masses. They already pay a majority of SS taxes; this proposal turns it into an overwhelming majority, destroying the basis for any claim that workers pay for their own benefits.

A bloated TF also 1) allows elites to tax workers today above today's needs and reduce benefits tomorrow, pocketing the difference, and provides further fodder to demagogue SS.

personally, i'd rather fight on my feet than be pushed into the dust bit by bit, as has been happening over the last 30 years.

I'd rather publicize how the program actually works and what's really going on than sign onto a phony "solution" approved by the very elites that are killing us bit by bit -- that just sets the stage for further bloodletting.

My personal preference.