To the Editor:
Re “Congress Must Act Now to Save Social Security,” by Bernie Moreno and Elizabeth Warren (Opinion guest essay, June 24):
Senator Moreno and Senator Warren frame the elimination of the income cap on payroll taxes as a “common-sense solution,” but it entirely ignores the structural flaws of such a policy and the collateral damage it could cause.
First, by focusing entirely on payroll taxes, the senators’ proposal may not increase taxes on many billionaires by a single dime. Eliminating the cap would transform the Federal Insurance Contributions Act into a punitive general income tax that targets working professionals, while leaving the truly wealthy — multimillionaires and billionaires who rely on capital gains rather than wage income — completely untouched.
Furthermore, the senators grossly underestimate the highly localized tax burden of this proposal. When you stack an uncapped payroll tax on top of existing federal, New York State and New York City income brackets, a high-earning professional in New York City would face a crushing top marginal tax rate of roughly 60 percent.
Passing a large tax hike that singles out high-earning workers while giving capital-heavy billionaires a free pass is bad policy. Worse, it completely exhausts the localized tax base, leaving zero fiscal room for the inevitable revenue measures required to tame a structural federal deficit that now roughly equals all discretionary spending combined.
Randall Stempler New York
To the Editor:
Senators Bernie Moreno and Elizabeth Warren present lifting the payroll tax cap as a “common-sense” solution to Social Security’s financing challenges. But eliminating the cap would close only about 30 percent of the program’s long-term cash-flow deficit.
It would also sharply raise top marginal labor income tax rates to punitive levels, pushing top rates across many states over 60 percent (58 percent in Ohio and 62 percent in Massachusetts, the senators’ home states). Social Security was created to prevent poverty in old age, not to guarantee affluent retiree households six-figure annual benefits.
Rather than continually raising taxes to sustain ever-larger promises, policymakers should rethink the program’s purpose. A flatter benefit focused on basic retirement security, combined with greater reliance on private savings, would be more cost-effective and sustainable.
Romina Boccia Washington The writer is the director of budget and entitlement policy at the Cato Institute.
To the Editor:
In their essay proposing lifting the salary cap on Social Security contributions, Bernie Moreno and Elizabeth Warren ask, “Why should a middle-class nurse pay a larger share of her paycheck than a wealthy corporate lawyer?”
As a corporate lawyer whose wage exceeds the current cap on contributions, I wish to answer that question.
My benefits are capped at the exact same level as the hypothetical nurse or any other recipient earning less than I do. Must I potentially contribute 5 or 10 times the amount contributed by a person earning the current cap of $184,500?
While I have no problem with the cap increasing to reflect the blessing of increased life expectancy, I do resent being asked to help paper over our government’s persistent generational fiscal irresponsibility.
Robert Reichelscheimer Commack, N.Y.
To the Editor:
It’s notable to see Bernie Moreno and Elizabeth Warren show new bipartisan collaboration on a necessary element of Social Security reform: lifting the payroll tax cap.
The same poll that they cite — conducted by my organization, the Bipartisan Policy Center — shows that support for reform extends beyond the revenue side; 64 percent of Democrats and 61 percent of Republicans favor reducing benefits for higher-income people. And like the senators, the American people want action now, not when the trust fund is expected to reach insolvency in 2032. Indeed, every year of delay shifts the cost of fixing this problem further onto younger workers who didn’t create it.
Modifying the cap is a good start to a bipartisan plan. But restoring the program to full solvency will require confronting difficult trade-offs, including benefit adjustments for future retirees. A comprehensive reform package would also provide an opportunity to modernize a system that was last meaningfully updated more than 40 years ago.
After decades of inaction and partisanship, any bipartisan agreement on Social Security is commendable. Now, both sides must find more common ground, including abandoning red lines against both tax and benefit changes.
Do that, and the across-the-board benefit cut that nobody claims to want — but that everyone is marching toward — can be avoided.
Shai Akabas Washington The writer is the vice president for economic policy at the Bipartisan Policy Center.
To the Editor:
Re “America Is Hurtling Toward a Cliff,” by Jason Furman (Opinion guest essay, June 13):
Mr. Furman cites two solutions to the coming Social Security crisis: raising taxes and reducing benefits. There is a third, far less painful solution: expanding legal immigration.
Benefit programs such as Social Security are sustainable when the labor force grows faster than the retirement population. That was the case for roughly 35 years from the mid-1970s through 2010, largely because of the huge demographic cohort known as the baby boomers. The aging of the boomers is driving a surge in the retirement population while growth in the United States work force has stalled.
Nearly 90 percent of the growth in the labor force over the past five years has come from immigration. Despite political turmoil and contentious debates about immigration policy, the United States remains an attractive destination for immigrants, who have made important contributions to the vitality of the American economy.
Laurence Kantor Cos Cob, Conn.
To the Editor:
The only reason Social Security is “getting close to the cliff” is that we pay for benefits with payroll tax revenue. There is nothing sacred about that method of raising money and paying benefits.
Closing the gap between projected revenue and benefits would be relatively easy if the government’s priorities were in the right place. The shortfall, for instance, is only a small fraction of the cost of the Trump administration’s proposed increase in military spending.
The 2026 Social Security Trustees report projects that under moderate expectations of income growth over the next 75 years the gap amounts to roughly 1.5 percent of gross domestic product. Congresses that spend so lavishly on war and the preparation for war never seem to worry about where those funds will come from.
When the danger of reduced benefits becomes a reality for us seniors, and for our children and grandchildren, all we need to do is assert political pressure. Congress will find a way, or its members will all be voted out. The rest of us just need to demand that they do it without raising the retirement age or using other gimmicks that result in cut benefits.
Michael Meeropol Cold Spring, N.Y. The writer is a professor emeritus of economics at Western New England University.