Even thinking about such a change is reprehensible.
Excerpt from “A flat $1,660 monthly Social Security benefit for everyone? It’s one proposed CBO remedy.” MarketWatch By Brett Arends
“Replacing all future Social Security benefits with a flat monthly payment of $1,660 per retiree — and $2,250 for a couple — is among the policy options offered by the Congressional Budget Office to help rescue the program’s finances.
That radical action, which would be sure to produce a massive political backlash across the spectrum, would slash benefits for about three-quarters of future beneficiaries, while raising them for about one-quarter, the CBO says. The average benefit for all retirees and survivors is currently about $1,900 a month.
Such a change would make the program look more like the state pensions in many other developed countries, where the emphasis is on providing a basic income floor in retirement for everyone.
The following paragraph is very misleading. There is no being “forced” to such action. Social Security will not run out of money as long as there are payroll taxes. Making Social Security sustainable is not that difficult. It does not need a cash injection today‼️ It needs a bump in revenue just like it did in 1983.
If such a drastic move seems like a product of fantasy, it shouldn’t. Something radical is likely to be forced on the government and the public, and soon, based on the current trajectory. Social Security is due to run out of money in a decade, and, according to its own trustees, to be made whole, it needs a $22.6 trillion cash injection today, equal to about three-quarters of annual U.S. GDP.
Yet, according to the CBO’s own numbers, even this drastic surgery on the Social Security program would only pay for about 12% of the cost of the tax cuts currently being considered by the president and Congress.
The total savings from reimagining Social Security as a flat benefit equal to 125% of federal poverty levels would be just $607 billion over 10 years or, to put it more simply, about $60 billion a year.
That compares with a total cost of the tax cuts being considered of between $400 billion and $550 billion a year, depending on whom you ask, how much they end up cutting, and what you figure happens to the interest payments on the ballooning national debt.”
QUINNSCOMMENTARY 
From a budgetary standpoint continuing current tax rates are deemed tax cuts. However, if the tax code reverts back to the pre-2017 rates, most people would be hit by a massive tax increase compared to what they have been paying the last 7 years. Is that what you are recommending?
LikeLike
Given 40% of Americans do not pay federal income taxes and in fact many receive refundable credits and the effective tax rate for the bottom 50% is only 3.7% of gross income, most people will not see a massive tax increase.
What I want is to pay taxes at a level that sustains the programs and services Americans want and need and to keep the deficit and interest costs as low as possible to allow for necessary increases in time of national emergency.
I don’t want expense shifting to the states and hence their citizens or cutting of state services.
LikeLike
The idea of a flat benefit is too radical a change and the benefit proposal is too low. This must have just been brainstorming in the CBO.
Tying OASDI and HI into the general taxation increase argument is unwise since it is separately funded. There are separate problems of how much of the payroll can be consumed for taxes since it now stands at 15.3%. That includes the employer share. The problem for general taxation is how to keep up with the crazy overspending that goes on year after year and administration through administration. Unless we start electing Congressional reps with some accountability it won’t come to a good end. Deficit spending has an end at some point.
LikeLike
Yes, James your arguments make sense to me. Whole scheme sounds crazy to me.
LikeLike