Say Anything Blog

The Social Security program has a lot of problems.  Politicians keep stealing money from it to fund other projects.  Program payouts to seniors aren’t enough to provide for their needs, and as the demographic of our population that qualifies for Social Security grows larger than the demographic which pays taxes to fund the program it is inevitably going to be come so top-heavy as to be unsustainable.

So clearly, this is a problem our leaders need to fix.  So what’s Barack Obama’s fix?  Stop politicians from raiding SS money?  Cut back on benefits as the number of people collecting benefits doesn’t unduly burden those funding the benefits?  Push back the retirement age?  Create retirement accounts so that the people who pay into Social Security can be assured of getting their money back?

Nope.  Obama’s fix is to raise the tax burden on working Americans.

WASHINGTON - Democrat Barack Obama said Sunday that if elected he will push to increase the amount of income that is taxed to provide monthly Social Security benefits.

Obama and other Democratic presidential candidates previously have signaled support for this idea.

But during an interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Obama said subjecting more of a person’s income to the payroll tax is the option he would push for if elected president.

He objected to benefit cuts or a higher retirement age.

“I think the best way to approach this is to adjust the cap on the payroll tax so that people like myself are paying a little bit more and people who are in need are protected,” the Illinois senator said.

“That is the option that I will be pushing forward.”

Currently, only the first $97,500 of a person’s annual income is taxed. The amount is scheduled to rise to $102,000 next year.

Right.  Because that’s what Americans need.  More taxes.

It’d be nice if, at some point, a liberal politician would come up with a solution to a problem that didn’t include increased government spending and/or increased taxation.