Senator Joe Manchin Presents A Solid Plan To Fix Social Security…Just Exactly What Blogging Blue Has Been Supporting For YEARS!

Manchin proposes raising FICA income cap:

According to the Social Security Administration, each U.S. worker and their employer contributes 6.2% of their wages to the program, rising to $160,200 by 2023, while the self-employed pay a larger 12.4% of their wages (since no employer co-pays). However, if you’re a millionaire, you’ll have hit the $160,200 limit around February each year, according to The Hill. When considering the combined Federal Insurance Contribution Act (FICA), which combines the Social Security payroll tax and the Medicare payroll tax, regular employees pay 7.65% and the self-employed pay 15.3%.

One politician has put forward a partial solution, though not all of Congress may agree. Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin wants to change the way Social Security is funded, specifically raising the cap on payroll taxes to ensure that the highest earners contribute more to the program’s reserves.

As Manchin told CNN during a recent appearance on the network’s “State of the Union” program, he believes making more money available for the program in this way will ensure that beneficiaries continue to receive payments.

And yes someone we know has suggested this about $50,000 cap ago:

If an individual – or a family – making $106,800 or less has to pay FICA taxes on 100% of their income, then it fails to register for me why an individual or family making more than $106,800 shouldn’t pay FICA taxes on the same percentage of their income.

Another BB discussion on the cap and some recent scare tactics about SS taxes yielded this remark:

Now…it is this very cap that many of us have suggested be removed…so high wage earners would continue to contribute from dollar one to dollar omega…and improve the solvency of Social Security in the long run. A change the majority of us will never notice…and the rest will barely miss.

And again…sigh:

Well…as we’ve been saying here since the Bush 43 administration, the very first and quickest short term fix is to just eliminate the cap on earnings subject to the Social Security tax…that should be an easy bipartisan quickie…and the president should easily be able to sign it.

So will Senator Joe Manchin finally be the one to get the cap lifted? Highly unlikely but I will say this is one of the few times that I agree with the senator. But my question is, why did it take him so long to get here?

and one last item from Zach: A note on Social Security solvency: