In an election year, it’s the kiss of death to be the author or instigator of a tax-raising piece of legislation. A Senator who won’t be running for re-election is under no pressure and doesn’t fear attacks from an opponent who can use it against him in a campaign. That gun just ran out of ammunition. There’s nothing like that that can be used against them any more.

It's true that three of them will be retiring after this year, but Tim (not Tom) Kaine isn't up for reelection until 2030. It may not be super risky for him to do this now, since voters have short memories, but I just wanted to point that out.

In any case, I'm glad they're doing this. My biggest worry is that Trump will veto it, if it actuslly passes both houses of Congress.

...everyone knows this, but the corruption of the billionaire/epstein class makes this impossible.

If Eloon Skum was forced to pay a percentage of his "income" into the social security trust fund, along with his fellow plutocrats, there would be no problem.

Yet in 2026 just hit $184,500 and stop paying. It's bullshit and it needs to be changed. Very,very simple unless you talk to Republicans who want SS to fail.

... and never mentions the fact that adjusting the threshold for SS withholding would fix it in the blink of an eye. There needs to be at least some pro-rata adjustment. But here in South Dakota they bitch about any "tax", even if the relatively small amount they pay in to FICA and SS keeps them from having to pay their parent's doctor, nursing home, Rx ... bills.

Anytime removing the cap comes up all I ever hear is that the rich don't want it and while that is true I don't think that's the main blocker. You paid double for 40 years because you were paying the employer half too which is far since the law is that we pay half and our employer pays half and you were your own employer. That's the main blocker though, companies don't want to pay the other half past the cap, that's a massive amount of money they would have to dish out.

Find a solution that at least will not lead to capital flight. Maybe raise the cap drastically and lower the rate a little to make it easier on people with modest income, and make the tax bite appear to be less painful to those whose taxes will go up by telling them, “but we lowered your tax rate!”

As it is, I pay 50% of what I receive to the German government (no 15% exclusion if you live overseas), and pay another $10,000 in SS taxes to Washington, since I still work full time. I get to keep a little under a third of my payout. Maybe they could restructure that, too. It’s pointless to send me a certain sum every month when over two thirds of it just goes back to governments. If they raise the cap 100%, I’ll net close to zero, and if they triple it, I’m net negative, and it’s not like I make a half million dollar salary.

Make a reform sensible and palatable to all citizens, and they might even get somewhere. A blanket “tax the rich” is no more useful a slogan than “don’t tax anybody.” Specifics and cooler heads are needed here, and I like the idea of it being addressed by Senators who are invulnerable to attacks by an opponent in an election. The downside is they don’t have a lot of time to make progress. If they are serious about this, they shouldn’t be looking forward to many weekends off in the near future. I hope they get a lot of discreet help from other Senators who are not concerned with having their names on the bill, so they can’t be the target of Fox-engineered attacks on the air.

Capital flight is their threat, but not much of a reality.

if they were taxed on all their income for social security. Never miss it..........

... to cheap turkey and chicken/pork hot dogs just to put meat on the table. Some people like them.

We saw what happened when Bush tried to allow Social Security benefits to be invested. Raising the retirement age is even more unpopular. Obviously no one wants their taxes raised. There are only so many ways to extend the solvency.

of billions of $$ and then piss it off or disappear. If Bush would have got his way Kenny Boy/Enron would most likely been the "manager" of people SS.

We all know how that would have worked out................

Scott Bessent, Secretary of the Treasury (and Managing Trustee)

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Secretary of Health and Human Services

Keith E. Sonderling, Acting Secretary of Labor

Frank J. Bisignano, Commissioner of Social Security

There are supposed to be six, but you know who likes to make others work harder, so…

Two Public Trustees: Positions currently vacant

... this whole group is backed by the evangelical "hate government" PAC's, ie... Project 2025

Greasy turd Russell Vought is up on the thing. Per Joyce White Vance:

Project 2025: It's On (Predictably)

Before Bill Barr became Donald Trump’s third attorney general, he circulated a memo that was more or less an audition tape for the job he ultimately got. That memo reached both the White House Counsel’s Office and Main Justice. In it, Barr argued in favor of what had previously been a fringe theory of a powerful “unitary executive,” in other words, a president able to consolidate power at the expense of the other two branches as a very powerful leader. The writing was on the wall with Barr’s selection, although the Supreme Court cast it in stone when the conservative majority signed off on the view that presidents couldn’t be criminally prosecuted as long as the crimes they committed fell under the umbrella of official acts. Even Bill Barr would have never dreamed of arguing the president could use SEAL Team Six to assassinate a political rival and walk away with no consequences. Now, the Supreme Court says it’s so.

That’s the context that’s essential for understanding Trump’s Friday evening “nomination” (if you can call a social media announcement that) of Russell Vought to lead the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). Vought is a proponent of a powerful executive and of restructuring our institutions to facilitate a government that veers toward the monarchical and away from the democratic. He was one of only four out of forty-four of Trump’s cabinet officials from his first administration who said they’d support him this time.

Vought entered OMB at the start of Trump’s first administration and was confirmed as its director in July 2020. In the archive of his official biography, his role is described like this: “he is responsible for overseeing the implementation of the President’s policy, management and regulatory agendas across the Executive Branch.” OMB is a powerful agency, and its director is, in a very real sense, a president’s right-hand man. Among the job experience Vought touts in his bio are his seven years as Vice President of Heritage Action for America, a sister organization to the Heritage Foundation, which, as readers of Civil Discourse are well aware, is where Project 2025 was incubated.

The website for the Center for Renewing America lists Vought as its President. Jeff Clark, the DOJ appointee who tried to use the Justice Department to do Trump’s bidding and spread the Big Lie following the 2020 election is a fellow at the Center, as is Ken Cuccinelli, who wrote the DHS chapter of Project 2025. Its mission is “to renew a consensus of America as a nation under God with unique interests worthy of defending that flow from its people, institutions, and history, where individuals’ enjoyment of freedom is predicated on just laws and healthy communities.” The Project 2025 website lists the Center as one of the 100 groups that are part of its advisory board.

Now Vought, godfather to Project 2025 and author of its chapter on OMB, will be in charge of administering policy in the next Trump Administration. So much for Trump’s efforts—back when reporting about Project 2025 led to enormous public concern and seemed poised to shift the tide against him— to distance himself from the project. At the time, he disavowed any knowledge of or agreement with the plan, but the claims felt hollow.

In fact, we discussed Trump’s ties to Project 2025, despite his claim that he knew nothing, back in August. Here’s the linchpin, showing that Trump was being disingenuous in that post:

“Tonight, the Washington Post reported that in April 2022, Trump and Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts, the front man for Project 2025, took a 45-minute private plane flight together to get to a Heritage Foundation conference where the former president was one of the speakers. Trump told the audience that the Heritage Foundation was ‘going to lay the groundwork and detail plans for exactly what our movement will do.’

Project 2025 is a wrap. It’s locked, loaded, and ready to go. If you believe it’s about to disappear or that Trump won’t use any of it, I have some swampland in Florida for you.

How do we know that? Because Kevin Roberts told us so. After Trump made his threat, and Paul Dans, who had been running the Project at Heritage, stepped down, Roberts said on Twitter that ‘Project 2025 has completed exactly what it set out to do.’”

Some of us planned on x=amount so we could finally enjoy a certain house or a certain number of trips.
It sill be easy for the GOP to take that away from us.

This would not be necessary if they weren’t deporting immigrants, driving inflation, stifling working class wages (a percent of which comprises the revenue).

Vultures.

almost 80% is from wages right now. The other 20% comes from the trust fund - that is what will run out by 2032.

for Senators to work with after the elections because other than that, it's spinning wheels. As stated, 3 of the 4 will be gone. Also, unless it favors what the Heritage Foundation wants, the Felon won't be signing it. I personally don't think most Democrats would want anything he's willing to sign and I want a Democratic Administration and majority Congress to sign off on the solution.

We all know what happened under Reagan, "no thanks".
We also know Congress doesn't do anything productive until their feet are held to the fire and the time remaining after this Administration will do just that. Something like this might force a change of the Fillibuster. Which we'll also need to fix the problems with the Supreme Court. We must assume a short 2-4 year window to make drastic changes to start repairing our system of Government.

Why are there income caps on who is contributing to S.S.? Make them go away. Then work on not only extension of Social Security but improving it. Increasing pay and lowering the age of FRA at least back to where it was. Make Medicare more comprehensive, maybe single payer and get rid of supplemental medi-gap insurance.

Simple and effective.

Therefore, impossible.

wearily,
Bright

wealthier earners as it currently stands.

Wealthy people may not need Soc Sec, but THEY TAKE IT!

hostage for their own political ends.

This is a load of generational warfare crap the Cato Institute started in the early 1980s to create animosity between the baby boom cohort and the older cohorts. It is being used again for cynical purposes of creating generational warfare between younger generations and baby boomers.

Any alleged "shortfall" would be easy to correct since baby boomers are dying off, as many as 17.5 percent of the cohort are already dead, and "shortfalls" can be made up through the general fund.

Congress knows this. The Republicans are full of shit, as usual.

The "libertarians" oppose Social Security as a matter of "principle." They represent business interests like Koch Industries that don't want to pay their share of FICA.

THAT is what this is really about.

And what are they going to do when The Felon vetoes their bill?

If you can get him distracted, he might forget to veto it (like he almost forgot to sign this - https://www.democraticunderground.com/10143677001) and it would automatically become law after 10 days!

Here is a real simple donut plan with adjusted bend points

Pay social security percentage up to $185K (basically today's cap)
No social security up to $400K
Everything over $400K is the typical 12.4%
I could even make a good suggestion that employers should have to pay their share (6.2%) between 125 and 400K

Current bend points
90% of first $1286 AIME
32% from 1287-7749
15% above 7750

Change to
90% of first $1286 AIME
32% from 1287-7749
15% from 7750-11666 (equates to about $140K average income)
0.1% above 11667

Wham, bam, thank you ma'am. Social security is solvent. The uber rich have to pay closer to their fair share.

I would argue that stock options or other deferred pay should be considered as income for social security and treated accordingly.

I was surprised to learn I could qualify for a loan--15 year at 2.3%--because both my Social Security and Federal Survivors Annuity payments would be accepted as income.
I'm 75 now. There's a decent chance I'll still be here when Social Security is forced to reduce payments if the problems are not fixed before 2032. Eighteen months ago I decided I'd better start planning to have my mortgage paid off before 2033 when SS was going to be forced to reduce payments. Now it's expected to come in 2032. I ran the numbers yesterday and it means I have to start putting another $150/month into my payoff the mortgage early scheme, in addition to the amount I began setting aside a year ago.
How delightful! If inflation keeps rising--requiring SS payments now to be adjusted higher than anticipated --that bankruptcy date for Social Security will undoubtedly be adjusted again, to earlier than 2032.

What a fu*king mess. And I'm one of the lucky ones who will--no matter what--be able to figure out a way to keep my house, feed myself, and pay my bills.