OPED write up

According to the author, Social Security is an essential program, but its future is looking unpromising unless we start by eliminating the payroll tax cap.

In the author’s proposal to keep the funding open, the author proposes the acceptance of Bernie Sanders’ “Keeping Our Social Security Promises Act,” which the author suggests would removes the payroll tax cap. To elaborate further, the author stated that the reason for the cap on the social security is because of the uneven amount of participation during elections which makes the rich influential in governance. The author stated that, research have found that the rich who made over $125,000 contributed 35% in campaigns. According to the author, this act causes a major problem regarding the shaping of the social security because people with lower income would not be able to contribute that amount of money towards campaigns. The author also states that it causes greater income equality, since those who contribute are rich and as a matter of fact get more benefits from political power in the form of payroll tax cap. This in the authors words, compromises the state of social welfare in the United States because those active in politics don’t have the same views as the poor who are focused on housing, poverty, and health. Congressional Research Service was used to predicts that, if tax cap is not removed, there will be a permanent increase of tax rate from 12.4% to 15.1% which would hurt people making less than the current tax cap currently at $132,900 or, cutting benefits by 20% in 2035 and continuously rising every year.

In as much as the author makes a good point on the percentage of rich people that donated to campaign, the author failed to state how much the rich get in payroll tax cap since that is a major part of the authors argument. The authors failed to indicate how an increase in tax rate would affect people making less than the current tax cap which is $132,900. To sum it up, the author failed to expand and give more numeric evidence to support the argument.

In addition, to provide a guideline in eliminating payroll tax cap, the author suggested a bill introduced by Bernie Sanders called, Keeping Our Social Security Promises Act. The bill according to the author seeks to remove the cap placed on payroll taxes. The author further stated the bill will help Solvency to expand for 75 years without increasing taxes for those who earn less than $250,000, the only people who will see a change are those earn more than $250,000. According to the Congressional Research Service as stated by the author, removing the cap would eliminate 84% of the projected shortfall. The author stated that, the top 200 CEOs would have to contributed $341,291,106 towards Social Security when the tax cap is removed. In addition, the author stated that, removing the cap would eliminate 84% of the projected shortfall. The author proposes an increase in the taxable payroll from 12.40% to 12.83% to keep it solvent for 75 years. This as stated by the author is the best solution, compared to increasing the taxable income by 2% each year to cover 90 % earnings which would only cover 25% of the projected shortfall and increase the taxable payroll by 2.02%.

In conclusion, the author made a good point in stating the policy proposal but failed to give numerical evidence as to what the top 200 CEO’s currently contribute in comparison to what they would contribute. Also, the author failed to show how increasing taxable payroll from 12.40% to 12.83% would keep the social security solvent for 75 years. In the concluding paragraph, the author called for people to vote which in my opinion diverted the argument from eliminating payroll tax cap.