Last edited Sat Jan 21, 2023, 08:48 PM - Edit history (1)
And the SocSec trust fund was supposed to be depleted after the last Baby Boomer dies. Then SocSec is supposed to be covered by current income taxes. The SocSec trust fund was just a pass through account before Raygun and Greenspin played with it. It's supposed to go back to being a pass through account after the last Baby Boomers passes.
I agree with all of the above except the "is supposed to be covered by current income taxes.". Rather is supposed to be by current SS payroll taxes (part of FICA taxes, the other part is Part A Medicare). What Raygun and Greenspin confronted was that SS payroll taxes were soon not going to be sufficient unless they raised payroll taxes, which they did mightily. Much more than needed, thus the near $3 trillion we have in the SS trust funds today.
Edited to add: I haven't heard that the projected trust fund runout date was timed to the last boomer passing or some percentage of boomers passing or anything like that. The youngest boomers (born in 1964) reach age 100 in 2064, for example. Currently, the SSTF is projected to run out in 2035, when the youngest boomer is 71, and the oldest (born in 1946) is 89.
All of this passed by an overwhelmingly bi-partisan majority. Democrats voted for the 1983 amendments that implemented the key Greenspan Commission reforms on 3/24/83 by 163 - 54 - 51 in the House, and 26 - 6 - 14 in the Senate (the 3 numbers are Yes - No - Not Voting) .
https://www.ssa.gov/history/tally1983.html ,
https://www.ssa.gov/policy/docs/ssb/v46n7/v46n7p3.pdf
So, taxes for SocSec need to be increased to meet that requirement. Lifting the cap higher should do the trick.
Getting rid of the cap will go a long way to solving the problem, but it's not quite enough. The bottom third of
https://www.democraticunderground.com/10142927989#post57 deals with this.
= new reply since forum marked as read