Raise the income cap on taxable wages. All salaries up to and including the level of pay for the President should be subject to FICA. If you make more than the President, you’re on your own — you don’t need Social Security.
ABQJOURNAL OPINION/LETTERS: Talk of the Town
Quit Lying About Social Security’s Health
… On a recent episode of "Morning Joe" host Joe Scarbarough and guest Peggy Noonan, columnist for the Wall Street Journal, both insisted that any work to reduce the deficit must begin with cutting Social Security benefits. It was a lie. Social Security has no effect whatever on the federal deficit.
They also insisted that as an "entitlement" Social Security faced bankruptcy. Another lie. Social Security is fiscally sound until about 2037. By lifting the income cap from the current $106,000 level it will be fiscally secure until past 2070.
The practice of lying about Social Security has become epidemic among "conservatives." It needs to stop. Along with the issue of civil discourse when we disagree, honesty is desperately needed as a part of the conversation, too.
Social Security has out-performed every private sector retirement program in our country except the "golden parachutes" of the uber-wealthy. It has never missed a payment and won’t, unless the extremists in our government insist on shutting down the government as a part of their political tantrum. Conservatives need to find a different dead horse to beat on. And they need to stop lying about Social Security.
JOHN SHIPLEY
Albuquerque
ABQJOURNAL OPINION/LETTERS: Talk of the Town
[updated added 2/22/11 7pm]
By calling Social Security a Ponzi scheme, McCain appears to be aligning himself with other radical conservatives who have long sought to gut or privatize the popular public program. Last year, former House Majority Leader and FreedomWorks chairman Dick Armey called Social Security a “pay-as-you-go Ponzi scheme“; a month later, Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) also compared the program to a Ponzi scheme. And Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) campaigned by making the same comparison in his television commercials.
All of these radical conservatives are wrong to make such a comparison between a criminal enterprise and one of America’s most successful social programs. A Ponzi scheme involves fraudulently manipulating investors’ money without being able to pay them back; meanwhile, Social Security is a program that has successfully managed Americans’ money since its inception and has guaranteed them safe retirements.