Sen. Joe Manchin Weighs in on Social Security Solvency - politico.com, nationalinterest.org
Recapping remarks by West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin on a WV Metro News program, politico.com reports that the Senator supports raising the Social Security taxable earnings base as a solution to the program’s solvency problem. Manchin’s remarks were echoed in a nationalinterest.org post, quoting the Senator as “You could raise it to $400,000 overnight … I’ve got the will to do it.”
The question of whether to raise (or eliminate) the cap ($147,000 in 2022) is one of the more frequently debated approaches to addressing the impending depletion of Social Security’s trust balances, now projected to occur as early as 2034 (or 2032, depending on which forecast you examine), and the resulting across-the-board cut in scheduled benefits. Many advocates suggest that either move–raising the cap or scrapping it entirely–would represent an easy solution that would impact only a small fraction of taxpayers, while others point to the reality that such a move would philosophically damage the link between worker contributions and benefits, and would turn the program more overtly toward a welfare-type program.
To be sure, there are arguments on both sides of the issue, and the eventual treatment of the taxable earnings base in the years ahead will be a key part of the deliberations to ward off a major crisis for America’s seniors. The Association of Mature American Citizens (AMAC), for example, does not take a position on the earnings base, suggesting alternatives that could address the solvency issue in other ways and would not require tax increases. Read the AMAC proposal here…
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