My SS salvation plan

Simple - subject 100% of personal income to SS tax. That should allow a reduction of the tax to about 2-3% of income and still solve the long-term shortfall problem.

I believe 90% of all Americans would benefit from this.

What do you think?

If I pay $50K per year into the system, would my future benefits reflect this fact?

. . . there is a (rough) correlation between the benefits that a person receives and the amount of payroll taxes he or she paid over the course of his or her working life. Thus, by eliminating the wage cap, well-compensated workers would receive much larger benefits than they do now.

. . . to accomplish this result? As far as I can determine, so far you've indicated that, under your plan, you'd eliminate the wage cap and reduce the payroll tax rate to 2 or 3%. In order to keep lower income wage-earners from experiencing a reduction in benefits, your plan must also come up with a new benefits formula. What do you propose in this regard?

. . . by which benefits are calculated? Because, if not, those workers earning low wages (i.e., wages significantly below the current $90,000 annual wage cap) would under the formula currently being used see their future benefits reduced substantially.

Again, the way the system currently works, the amount of benefits an eligible person receives each month is (roughly) tied to how much he or she paid in Social Security payroll taxes over the course of his or her working life. If, as you propose, the Social Security payroll tax rate were reduced from its current 6.2% to 2 or 3%, the amount of benefits that a given worker would receive would necessarily go down. The only exception are those who are very well-compensated (i.e., those who make significantly more than $90,000 a year, the current wage cap). Such workers would, upon reaching retirement age, receive greater benefits than they do currently.

Every person would get the same amount - $1650/month adjusted for inflation every year.

How would you propose to finance such a thing? I'm skeptical that (i) eliminating the wage cap while (ii) reducing the payroll tax rate to 2 or 3% would raise enough money to provide each retired worker $1650 a month.

In fact, if your proposal is simply to give every retired worker $1650 a month, we wouldn't really need a "Social Security" system at all, would we? Rather, all we'd need is for the federal government to raise sufficient revenues, by whatever means (no matter what it's called), to provide retired workers with the same set flat income, regardless of how much any particular person may have paid in taxes over the course of his or her life. Isn't that right?

. . . what would be the retirement age?

. . . then I'm pretty sure that you're going to have to come up with other ways to fund your program other than a 2 or 3% tax on all incomes. What else do you propose? Increasing other federal taxes?

Either way you cut it - we'd all be better off.

As even a 2 or 3% payroll tax rate on all of my salary would result in my paying more in Social Security taxes than I currently pay, with the rate being 6.2% on a capped wage. And, under the current benefits formula, I would receive (at age 67) greater benefits than $1650.

On the other hand, if I could start getting $1650 a month starting at age 60, as you propose, I might well think that's a better deal, provided that your proposed payroll tax rate doesn't go much beyond 4 or 5%.

I'm pretty much talking through my hat - but my greater point is that there are so many things that could be done that would be better than cutting benefits, raising the eligibility age, and creating another couple of trillion dollars of debt.

Why can't our elected officials debate these other ideas? I'm not the first one to think of this.

I think raising the cap can be part of the equation but the tax cuts need to be addressed as well.

When did I say that? I think the whole thing should be rolled back to 1999.

part of the solution and I think it needs to be front and center.

I have no problem giving some to keep the system intact for the next generation, but the tax cuts and trust issue need to be addressed. Payroll taxes were raised so we would have a large surplus for the baby boomers. The surplus is now just a piece of paper.

think that any solution should always mention the tax cuts.

so don't hold your breath. they won't legislate something that benefits someone else more than it benefits themselves or their cronies.

a vested interest. And that is why it won't happen.

we just have to be prepared to stand up to them, and to work hard to get them out of office, and work hard to elect people to office who will have OUR best interests at heart. It will be a long, hard slog. Don't kid yourself. I've a lot of experience at this sort of thing, and, alas, the type of sweeping change we so desire, does not happen easily or quickly. There is much work to be done. Let us roll up our sleeves and begin!

so we can address the SS problem properly under a democratic controlled congress.

And that is why I warn against complacency. This is gonna be a hard battle...and just when we think we have won, be prepared for something else to come down the pipe. This will not be easy.