It’s kind of insane to me that there’s an annual cap on social security payments. If your salary is high enough, you stop paying into it partway through the year. That’s ass-backwards. You shouldn’t pay anything for the first chunk of money, and then pay more as you make more.
Social security is one of, if not the most popular, government program with Americans.
Looking at Social Security and the constant gaslighting about how it’s a “Ponzi scheme” and it’s “going to fail at year X” demonstrates not only how out of touch the Epstein class we have for politicians are, but also the extent they and the corporate media is willing to go to give a false impression about things.
It could easily be made solvent with just a few steps, all of them quite popular with the American people.
People already have a shocking lack of saving. We have had the cons trying to destroy Social Security since its inception, and now we get fElon telling people they won’t need to save for retirement, FFS:
If your salary is high enough, you stop paying into it partway through the year. That’s ass-backwards.
It looks ass-backwards when viewed in isolation and today’s tax policy. When the cap rule was put in place in 1937, the marginal tax rate was 79% and this would be for income over $5million ($115million in 2026 dollars). The cap was in place because the Social Security benefit doesn’t increase above the that income.
We broke the system by removing that large marginal tax, but leaving the Social Security income cap in place.
It’s exactly for these kinds of anachronistic things that when I see someone right now agitating to have some kind of age cutoff for people in office, I have a lot of skepticism.
It’d be ironic for government to put a cap into place for age of 65 (say) and then soon after, humans often start having longer and longer healthspans, extending over 100 and possibly beyond.
For that matter, it’d be interesting to see how the Social Security system responds to longer and longer healthspans. I have a feeling that cons would be quite quick to start agitating to raise the retirement age because they always seem very keen on having people working more, even when they don’t want to. They also love to take away services and benefits from the average American.
It’s easy to see how slow our system responds based on the realities going on around us.
It’s exactly for these kinds of anachronistic things that when I see someone right now agitating to have some kind of age cutoff for people in office, I have a lot of skepticism.
It’d be ironic for government to put a cap into place for age of 65 (say) and then soon after, humans often start having longer and longer healthspans, extending over 100 and possibly beyond.
I would certainly entertain an age cap on office holders. What we have right now with almost entirely geriatric leaders is the lack of representation of those not in the senior citizen demographic. Its a version of tyranny of the few. This is exacerbated by the voting power being focused in those that don’t have the suffer the consequences of their choices, and instead leave those for younger generations.
I’m open to other ideas about how to address this too, but I don’t dismiss an age cap on office holders immediately.
For that matter, it’d be interesting to see how the Social Security system responds to longer and longer healthspans.
You don’t have to wonder. We’ve experienced this already in the life of Social Security. The original blueprint wasn’t designed to have a large retired population. You were supposed to die before reaching retirement. Social Security was to support the aging survivors that didn’t die yet to keep them out of abject poverty.
Retirement age increase is only one of three or four big levers on how to alter how Social Security operates and is maintainable.
If you were rich you would feel the opposite. You’d feel that you don’t/won’t need social security so you shouldn’t have to pay for a service you won’t use.
I’m not sure about the rich, but most people don’t like being surrounded by homeless and starving people. They also don’t like seeing their extended family homeless and starving after working their whole lives.
It’s kind of insane to me that there’s an annual cap on social security payments. If your salary is high enough, you stop paying into it partway through the year. That’s ass-backwards. You shouldn’t pay anything for the first chunk of money, and then pay more as you make more.
Yup.
Social security is one of, if not the most popular, government program with Americans.
Looking at Social Security and the constant gaslighting about how it’s a “Ponzi scheme” and it’s “going to fail at year X” demonstrates not only how out of touch the Epstein class we have for politicians are, but also the extent they and the corporate media is willing to go to give a false impression about things.
It could easily be made solvent with just a few steps, all of them quite popular with the American people.
People already have a shocking lack of saving. We have had the cons trying to destroy Social Security since its inception, and now we get fElon telling people they won’t need to save for retirement, FFS:
https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-retirement-saving-ai-abundance-anthropic-dario-essay-ubi-2026-1
It looks ass-backwards when viewed in isolation and today’s tax policy. When the cap rule was put in place in 1937, the marginal tax rate was 79% and this would be for income over $5million ($115million in 2026 dollars). The cap was in place because the Social Security benefit doesn’t increase above the that income.
We broke the system by removing that large marginal tax, but leaving the Social Security income cap in place.
It’s exactly for these kinds of anachronistic things that when I see someone right now agitating to have some kind of age cutoff for people in office, I have a lot of skepticism.
It’d be ironic for government to put a cap into place for age of 65 (say) and then soon after, humans often start having longer and longer healthspans, extending over 100 and possibly beyond.
For that matter, it’d be interesting to see how the Social Security system responds to longer and longer healthspans. I have a feeling that cons would be quite quick to start agitating to raise the retirement age because they always seem very keen on having people working more, even when they don’t want to. They also love to take away services and benefits from the average American.
It’s easy to see how slow our system responds based on the realities going on around us.
I would certainly entertain an age cap on office holders. What we have right now with almost entirely geriatric leaders is the lack of representation of those not in the senior citizen demographic. Its a version of tyranny of the few. This is exacerbated by the voting power being focused in those that don’t have the suffer the consequences of their choices, and instead leave those for younger generations.
I’m open to other ideas about how to address this too, but I don’t dismiss an age cap on office holders immediately.
You don’t have to wonder. We’ve experienced this already in the life of Social Security. The original blueprint wasn’t designed to have a large retired population. You were supposed to die before reaching retirement. Social Security was to support the aging survivors that didn’t die yet to keep them out of abject poverty.
Retirement age increase is only one of three or four big levers on how to alter how Social Security operates and is maintainable.
hey, when you study history you aren’t supposed to study economic and tax systems knock it off
If you were rich you would feel the opposite. You’d feel that you don’t/won’t need social security so you shouldn’t have to pay for a service you won’t use.
And those special snowflakes should be told: with great power, comes great responsibility.
I’m not sure about the rich, but most people don’t like being surrounded by homeless and starving people. They also don’t like seeing their extended family homeless and starving after working their whole lives.
They also absolutely do not want to pay for social services that would minimize those people being seen.