I don’t like the Steve plan. I like the Circus plan, as in: EVERYONE pays 5.6% into it with no payroll cap. I’m not sure why this hasn’t been established before, but I’m sure one of you erudite denizens will enlighten me as to the flawless logic behind why we plebes pay in the same amount annually as a pro athlete, for example Lebron James - who meets his obligation in something like the first quarter of the first game of the season. Lord forbid we put more obligation on the corporations handing out multi million dollar bonuses annually in contracts to “executives”, so I’m not sure why they’d object to the plebe half having no cap.
A nearly six in 10 majority of voters say they would favor, in principle, a new government program to deport all undocumented immigrants living in the U.S. illegally.
(That isn’t purely partisan, it includes a third of (folks). It rises to nine in 10 (people).)
A similarly sized majority would have local law enforcement try to identify those living in the U.S. illegally, and just under half support the idea of setting up large government detention centers to sort out which people ought to be deported.
Alabama tried something similar in 2011. They tried to make it illegal to be a Mexican in Alabama by denying immigrants the ability to rent an apartment. All the farm labor fled to Florida and Texas, and left crops rotting in the fields. Even the most racist and ignorant members of the State Legislature quickly reversed course. {{ LOL }}
More women than men vote. The gender gap gets bigger every cycle since 1980 the first time more women voted than men.
The women overwhelmingly are voting against Trump.
A higher percentage of women are voting for Biden over Trump than men voting for Trump. Right now’s polling 58% of women for Biden and 53% of men for Trump.
The Libertarians are in revolt.
The public gets it. The tax cuts are lies. Local and state taxes go up as billionaires pay less.
There are still ignorant human beings out there. I am not that pollyannish.
Because SS is not welfare and because SS is capped on the payout.
In order to get broad support and buy-in for SS, you can’t be taking $ millions from people over their lifetimes to then give them $40k a year in retirement. If SS was structured that way, it would very quickly lose support and would likely face the same pressures to be undone as Medicaid an SNAP face on a regular basis.
Coincidentally, I saw a piece on the wire this morning about how the Federal Election Commission, over the last couple years, has been very busy “deregulating” political money.
It seems to me that a large segment of the population can easily (and with great gusto) be convinced (duped?) to support actions that hurt them financially if they are told it will hurt their ‘enemies’ (even if it doesn’t).
Well, I find that statement illogical.
We the People already get hundreds of thousands of dollars taken from us in general fund income taxes to provide general federal services with ZERO payback beyond all those wonderful services. So do the top 10%.
It seems to be a game of “who’s s*tting who” when the narrative is about “raising taxes on the rich” being the right thing to do to pay their share, but increasing / eliminating the payroll tax cap would be confiscatory.
Assuming the top 10% make above the payroll cap of $160K at an average of $300K a year, eliminating the payroll cap on Social Security would bring in well over $100 billion a year - closing the funding gap by itself.
Because they are very wealthy, they are not particularly tied to any country. Which means they can shift their residence (for tax purposes) to any location where they may be accepted. There are a fair number of locations where there are numerous tax benefits that are unmatchable by any OECD. So, the purpose is to keep the tax bite on earned income within a rational boundary while providing something of value (i.e. Social Security benefits, Medicare, etc). They do not NEED those benefits, but the benefits do have some value–otherwise the wealthy would have already left the US for off-shore residency, perhaps other citizenship, and tax advantages.
Professional workers (doctors, etc) have their income tied to the country because that is the source of their customers–and their income. The govt wants to make it too inconvenient, based on the amount the taxpayer would save, to try to not pay taxes. For some individuals, it still may make financial sense to legally not pay US taxes because the bite is still too high. They are the ones who will leave no matter what. They are sufficiently wealthy to be able to afford not having a US-backed system in the future. Their choice. If it does not work out, what do they do? Good question…
SS is not a general fund income tax. You are comparing apples to oranges.
Think of it more as unemployment insurance. You don’t pay an unemployment tax if you are retired. You only pay it while you are working. EVERYONE pays general fund income taxes regardless of employment. The two are not equivilent.
And?
Increasing the personal income tax to 60% would also bring in a lot of tax revenue. The end does not justify the means.