Good article! To your list of reforms to social security, I'd add eliminating the regressive cap on earnings used to assess payroll tax. I get that it means abandoning the idea that social security is some kind of retirement savings account we "pay into," but c'mon. If that were the case we should be able to check our balance and we'd all be freaking out about how often it gets raided to pay for other stuff. Hmm, actually, maybe that's not such a bad idea...
Thanks, Brian! You make a good (and popular) argument about raising the payroll tax cap. To me, though, it's important to preserve the original idea that it's something of a retirement account. From that perspective, eliminating the cap would be an unfair burden on higher income people. But I know that's not a particularly popular position and can understand the argument you're making.
I tend to agree, but when a retirement account (or other such thing) is underfunded to deliver on its benefits, we...increase contributions. Across the board several percent increase in the tax. Let's stop pussyfooting around the issue. (I'm also not sure raising the retirement age yet again is an economic or cultural good: we don't really need older Americans holding on to their jobs for longer as they age just because they cannot get full value social security).
Dramatically reduce entitlements, says this old man. Every time.
Thanks to Seth for a well-written and informative piece.
I appreciate the balanced viewpoint
Thanks, Coco!
Good article! To your list of reforms to social security, I'd add eliminating the regressive cap on earnings used to assess payroll tax. I get that it means abandoning the idea that social security is some kind of retirement savings account we "pay into," but c'mon. If that were the case we should be able to check our balance and we'd all be freaking out about how often it gets raided to pay for other stuff. Hmm, actually, maybe that's not such a bad idea...
Thanks, Brian! You make a good (and popular) argument about raising the payroll tax cap. To me, though, it's important to preserve the original idea that it's something of a retirement account. From that perspective, eliminating the cap would be an unfair burden on higher income people. But I know that's not a particularly popular position and can understand the argument you're making.
I tend to agree, but when a retirement account (or other such thing) is underfunded to deliver on its benefits, we...increase contributions. Across the board several percent increase in the tax. Let's stop pussyfooting around the issue. (I'm also not sure raising the retirement age yet again is an economic or cultural good: we don't really need older Americans holding on to their jobs for longer as they age just because they cannot get full value social security).