[biker1]

The SS cap is actually at $176,100, not $110K. The SS tax is actually 6.2% to the employee and 6.2% to the employer, plus Medicare is 1.45% to the employee and 1.45% to the employer (no cap on Medicare). If you are self-employed it is 15.3% total as you pay it all. The Social Security Trust Fund is over $2T and that will be totally consumed (funding the deficit) in the next 8 years. Zuckerberg doesn't have several trillion dollars. The rest of the stuff in your post, whatever ...

Originally Posted by Blueblaze

The solution is ridiculously simple, and there will eventually no other option -- start making the wealthy help pay off the debt owed to current retirees. SS is the only government program that the wealthy are excluded from by statute. The moment you hit "wealthy" (about $110K/year, last I checked), you quit having to pay for this boondoggle.

If folks like Elon and Zuck had to pay the same 15% of their lifetime earnings that we did, SS would run a surplus to the end of time. In fact, Zuck alone could cover the SS deficit for the next hundred years by himself, and still be a billionaire 100X over.

If we were a smart country, we would just calculate the amount needed to payoff the current retirees and reimburse the kids. Then we'd divide it up, tax EVERYONE to cover it, and just end the damned thing. With EVERYONE paying, it would be a trivial tax, compared to FICA. In its place, we would set up a privately-funded retirement program, and force everyone to INVEST the same 15% we had confiscated for a Ponzi scheme. Our kids would retire with an actual asset worth millions, instead of just a stupid promise that's forfeited the moment you die.

The only downside would be that the gooberment wouldn't have a slush fund to borrow from, like they have for the last 100 years. But now that they've just about blown through it, anyway, maybe we can finally convince our corrupt politicians to finally give Americans a real retirement system instead of a Ponzi scheme.

Of course, it only works if we retirees don't set our hair on fire the moment we see an ad with somebody pushing granny off a cliff.