The fix is simple, just raise taxes! I pay enough in taxes, I pay for my fair share. I would rather end social security and have a private retirement account. Increasing my taxes, once again just shows what a scam it is.
The fix is simple, just raise taxes! I pay enough in taxes, I pay for my fair share. I would rather end social security and have a private retirement account. Increasing my taxes, once again just shows what a scam it is.
First, they do have the funds. The shortfall is a future projection. Second, this assumption is incorrect. There are a variety of factors that will affect the future income and cost of the program. Retirement of Baby Boomers and lower birth rates are two examples.
When combined with other proposals, it is a viable solution in that it solves the problem of the shortfall.
This is a matter of opinion.
I don’t know your personal situation but virtually all Americans keep the lion’s share of their money when it comes to taxation.
I personally would be willing to pay more taxes for more services, including social security, universal healthcare, and others.
I pay a little over 50% of my income in taxes. That’s excessive. It’s unfair to ask the top 5% to continually pick up for the other 95%
And how much more would you like to pay? Half your income? I don’t. I want a smaller government. Not a nanny state.
Again, I don’t know your personal situation, but the top federal income tax bracket is 37% for individuals making over $500k. States with the highest income tax get up to 10% for over $5 million (New York) or 12% for over $12.3 million (California). And, of course, there are other taxes like capital gains. My point is, those paying over 50% in taxes are generally well above the median income, which is $40k for individuals and $75k for households.
Again, this is an opinion and I would also like to point out that to be in the top 5% someone has to make $335k or more per year or have a net worth of ~$1 million or more. And those numbers still don’t generally put someone in the 50% tax range.
If I, or the majority of other Americans, paid half our income, we would be in dire straights. It would be near impossible for an individual to have adequate housing, food, and transportation just about anywhere in the country for $20k per year (or $37.5k for a household). However, someone can live very comfortably just about anywhere in the country for $315k per year (37% of $500k).
This is not currently an option. Neither Republicans or Democrats, Trump or Biden, are offering a meaningfully smaller government. In fact, depending on parameters, this hasn’t been an option for the last hundred years.
You also have to include social security and Medicare. They are a tax as well. We have property taxes as well. The list of taxes we have is insane. State is another 10%.
From my base pay of 17k a month. I end up with a little under 8k after taxes.
The stop asking me to do it.
Maybe you missed the platform most candidates were running on. It was the elimination of several government agencies. To me that’s a good start. The budget should also be tied to revenue. We need to balance the budget where expenditures do not exceed revenue.
We can go on and on about this forever. Your opinion is that taxes are too high.
To be clear, your position is you would rather many Americans be destitute so that you would pay fewer taxes.
Trump himself stated, “I will never do anything that will jeopardize or hurt Social Security or Medicare.” He also added ~$8 trillion to the national debt in his previous term. Additionally, he said he would balance the budget prior to his first term and did not do it.
We need to spend less. It’s not that complicated. Our spending is out of control. The only required expenditure is the military.
Trump has said he will eliminate the department of education. That’s a first step in making the government smaller.
Spending less is very achievable but your initial post and claims were about cutting social security specifically. And if you’re saying we should only spend on military, that means cutting approximately 74% of federal spending and function. This is a deeply unpopular position that is not supported by either major political party, which makes it extremely unlikely to happen.
Nevertheless, he did no such thing when he had the opportunity in his first term. Further, he has stated he would protect some of the largest expenditures in the budget.
It’s a good place to start. It keeps the poor, poor and causes our budgets to continue to grow.
The deficit spending was declining until Covid. Are you suggesting we shouldn’t have funded anything for Covid ? That’s the majority of the expense
Research suggests otherwise:
“Social Security benefits play a vital role in reducing poverty in every state, and they lift more people above the poverty line than any other program in the United States. Without Social Security, 22.7 million more adults and children would be below the poverty line, according to our analysis using the March 2023 Current Population Survey. Although most of those whom Social Security keeps out of poverty are aged 65 or older, 6.2 million are under age 65, including 900,000 children.”
Source
Data from the Social Security Administration itself also doesn’t seem to support this (PDF).
This is incorrect. National deficit and debt increased every year under the Trump administration. Further, Trump’s own 2020 budget, which was released before Covid in March 2019, projected a $4.8 trillion deficit for 2020-2024 under his own policies (PDF).