Scrapping the cap‼️

This is bogus nonsense. I doubt this is a genuine Sanders post, but it’s still junk.

The wage cap is $184,500.

Eliminating the taxable wage cap does not extend solvency 75 years, it extends it about thirty years – beyond the current insolvency date of about 2034.

If benefits were increased by $2400 a year, much of that gain would be eliminated. The current insolvency date would accelerate several years likely into the late 2020s or earlier 2030s.

Billionaires don’t pay the same amount as regular workers, they don’t pay anything – and they don’t collect a penny in Social Security benefits either because most don’t have earned income. One exception may be Warren Buffet with a reported salary of $100,000 a year.

The billionaire argument is a fallacy. Being a billionaire reflects net worth, not income. Not paying taxes above a certain limit provides no additional benefit to the individual.

Raising the cap affects 6% of workers. This group includes many professionals, executives, and small business owners whose annual compensation exceeds the cap. Note that self-employed individuals pay the full 12.4% on earnings up to the cap (but their benefits don’t reflect that tax level).

Invoking the word billionaire is a tactic to distract from a logical discussion of the issue and finding a solution consistent with the fundamental design of the program.

Social Security was originally intended to be funded primarily through dedicated payroll taxes on workers and their employers — a contributory social insurance model — rather than general tax revenues or welfare-style funding.

Means testing social security benefits turns the program into welfare, something we should avoid to retain the integrity of the program.

However, I would limit post-retirement COLAs for those who collect SS benefits at the maximum level upon retirement at FRA. These individuals were high earners most of their lives and would have ample opportunity to fund retirement inflation.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt strongly emphasized that the program should be earned through contributions, not funded from general government revenues. This was meant to give workers a “legal, moral, and political right” to benefits and protect the program from being seen as welfare.

• Reserve Fund Plan: The original law envisioned building up a substantial reserve in the early years (when few people were eligible for benefits). Surplus payroll taxes would be invested in U.S. government securities and earn interest to help pay future benefits. It was designed as a partially pre-funded system, not pure pay-as-you-go.

Today, Social Security remains funded mainly by the 6.2% employee + 6.2% employer payroll tax (up to the annual wage cap), plus interest on trust fund reserves and taxes on some benefits — but the original vision of large, growing reserves to support long-term solvency has not fully held due to demographic changes, benefit expansions, and legislative decisions.

In other words over the years Congress failed to make necessary funding changes consistent with the “earned through contributions” concept, failed to adjust to demographics and failed to fully fund added benefits and as we can see in 2026 actually reduced funded through tax changes thus making solvency worse.