Source-Forbes-
Am I stuck in a rut and giving every article a rhetorical question title? Maybe. But I wanted to address a basic "fixing Social Security" question that one hears regularly: "the fix for Social Security is simple; all we need to do is remove the earnings ceiling and we can not only pay for Social Security as it is, but even build in enhancements."
And, in fact, that's the standard funding mechanism of Democrat-sponsored Social Security proposals. As referenced in an earlier article, in 2017, Senator Bernie Sanders has introduced not-going-anywhere legislation to tax wages and investment income above $250,000 and direct the proceeds to Social Security to extend solvency and boost benefits. Now, as of last week Monday, Senators Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) introduced legislation, the "Social Security 2100 Act," the text of which appears to be modeled off earlier legislation which applies Social Security taxes to income over $400,000 (with no apparent inflation adjustment) with trivial benefit accruals. (The proposal also includes other changes including setting a minimum benefit at 125% of the single individual poverty line, that is, $18,825, for a 30-year working lifetime with average-wage increases afterwards, increasing employer and employee contributions by 1.2 percentage points in a graded fashion, and merging the Old Age and Disability Trust Funds into a single Trust Fund.)
To be sure, neither of these proposals stand much of a chance of being taken up by the Republicans but it seems relevant to address this issue sooner rather than later.