Tadpole
Thinks s/he gets paid by the post
- Joined
- Jul 9, 2004
- Messages
- 1,438
The ethics of "just removing the earnings cap" are atrocious. If you consider that SS has an unearned "Welfare" component subsidizing low earners and for various beneficiaries who didn't "earn" their benefit and it also has a contributory retirement component - then - the entire burden for the "welfare" component is paid for by just upper wage earners. If the "welfare" component is a public good (I think most would agree although perhaps quibble on the magnitude), then it should be paid for from public budget. Upper middle class workers shouldn't be forced to pay the entire burden for lower middle class workers. Raising or eliminating the cap is just adding insult to injury for an existing bad funding mechanism. I don't like getting into class warfare (because I mostly don't agree with it), but the whole SS program with it's regressive payback from taxes only on "earned" income must have the .1%ers laughing at getting totally off the hook on the biggest welfare entitlement program there is.
Let's see if I understand what you are saying. The guy that "rides the cap" all his career is to subsidize the "welfare" using tax on 100% of his salary. But it unfair for the guy that makes $1M a year to pay tax on more than 13% of his salary. I say this just to show that fairness depends on perspective.