Please tell me why Ike wouldn't support a common sense solution like
this?
Senator Bernie Sanders announced that he will introduce legislation that would strengthen Social Security without cutting benefits to any of its beneficiaries. The legislation would eliminate the income cap that currently exists in the payroll tax that does not tax income above $106,800.
To keep Social Security functional through the Baby Boom collection years, Sanders’ legislation would simply apply the same payroll tax already paid by more than nine out of 10 Americans (you know… the working class) to those with incomes over $250,000 a year. The legislation would leave Social Security benefits untouched yet fully fund the program by making the wealthiest Americans pay the same payroll tax already assessed on those with incomes up to $106,800 a year.
Sanders points out that President Obama himself endorsed this idea on the campaign trail in 2008. “What we need to do is to raise the cap on the payroll tax so that wealthy individuals are paying a little bit more into the system. Right now, somebody like Warren Buffet pays a fraction of 1 percent of his income in payroll tax, whereas the majority…pays payroll tax on 100 percent of their income. I’ve said that was not fair,” said then Candidate Obama. As we all know the wealthy took that as a red flag and upped their class warfare ante with a full on assault of the working class using their ALEC funded Tea Party tools as the point troops. The Social Security system is currently fully funded until 2037. Lifting the payroll tax cap would virtually eliminate funding shortfalls the program would experience over the next 75 years.
This legislation, of course, is far too fair and makes too much sense so the Tea Party/GOP will certainly oppose it as they do any legislation that might actually do some good for America's working class. The only tax increases Republicans will agree to right now is an increase in taxes for the working class, itself. The Tea Party motto is apparently, "America for the rich and all the rest can piss off."
