It is that simple of a choice. Fund the IRS, get money in unpaid taxes, finance social security. Or cut the IRS, and get rid of SS as "unaffordable."
It's not bait. I called it SS taxes due to lack of a better term. SS, from what I've read, can't be funded by just any taxes. It can only be funded specifically by SS "taxes".
That's just a statute. Congress can change that at any point. Legislation would be necessary to increase the retirement age. Suppose you're a member of the House, and you're presented with two bills:
I'd almost rather keep SS payments from only SS income, rather than open it up to any tax revenue, given that Congress is already blatantly irresponsible with spending.
How do we fund it? Maybe the question is how did the payroll tax base that was originally meant to fund it got eroded? So much of the income or contributions to these tax accounts are not payroll taxed. Congress, every year gives retirement account goodies away. And who benefits from that? Don't know many low or middle income people who can contribute up to 69,000 a year to these accounts? But you can bet if you are in the top 5 percent you do.
All right. So you're going with "I'd rather see ordinary American seniors work more years than make the very wealthy pay taxes."
I'd rather make sure everyone pays the taxes they owe AND keep funding for SS limited to income from SS taxes. Opening it up to borrowing/spending seems like a recipe for disaster. It basically removes all spending guardrails, which is the last thing we need.
OK. You want to make Americans work longer and harder just to get to retirement because of your abstract concern that maybe Congress will be able to spend more money. As if Congress doesn't have enough things to spend money on. The idea that you can prevent spending by limiting spending on one line item while leaving open literally infinite other line items seems . . . did you think this through? Really?
Increasing retirement age is one, or part of one, solution that I'm fine with, yes.
They're doing a terrible job on current responsibilities, so.....
SS funding comes from one bucket of money that, as of now, we cannot borrow and spend to fulfill. Given Congress' history of money management, yes, it seems like a horrible idea to give them another opportunity to borrow and spend.
IMO, social security is a trust fund. Like my IOLTA account. It should be distributed to beneficiaries only and the trustee (federal govt.) doesn't get to use it for anything else. Privatizing it or giving the trustee access for any other purposes is a breach of fiduciary duty.
The federal government has been borrowing against SS since Reagan.
You're not thinking this through at all. The reason that the US borrows is that we spend money we don't have. Giving Congress more money cannot possibly make that problem worse.
The issue with SS is completely manageable. Its always been interesting how low of an interest rate the Federal Government pays to the SS Trust fund to borrow form it. In fact, one reason the Trust fund has eroded and thus lost solvency is that we've had 15 years or so of lower interest rates. If we had bumped the interest rate paid on the SS funds when the cycle started, then we wouldn't be near as close to as we are today to the fund running out..
Then the issue is really whether the grass gets cut or not. I prefer a nice, cut yard for SS. As you pointed out, so many people want to radically change how SS works. Not necessary if the grass gets cut and the husband gets paid.
I watched an interview the other day of an author that wrote a book about poverty.
... and also, shrinkage!