Americans Overwhelmingly Support Raising FICA Cap To Finance Social Security
From a survey conducted by Greenwald and Associates for the National Academy of Social Insurance (NASI) in June 2014:
3 comments:
Mike B.
said...
84% favor raising the cap, but virtually the same fraction (83%) favor raising the tax rate, which would apply to everyone. As your previous post (and previous polls) showed, 79% are opposed to cutting benefits. So why are benefit cuts even being discussed? People want benefits preserved, and they are willing to pay for them. We should be discussing whether people want higher benefits, and whether they are willing to pay for them.
If the politicians did what their constituents want (and what makes sense) on this issue, it would work. I can't see the Republicans approving it though, because it violates too many of their priorities, e.g. its a tax increase, it expands government, and it helps the poor.
I agree it will be difficult (also, I would change "poor" to "non-rich"). However, if the Democrats refuse to approve cuts, then the GOP might accept a payroll tax increase to avoid outcomes that they consider worse, such as an increase of the cap, or large outflows from the Trust Fund. The GOP mostly wants to reduce taxes on the wealthy - a payroll tax increase without an increase in the cap will have almost no impact on them.
3 comments:
84% favor raising the cap, but virtually the same fraction (83%) favor raising the tax rate, which would apply to everyone. As your previous post (and previous polls) showed, 79% are opposed to cutting benefits. So why are benefit cuts even being discussed? People want benefits preserved, and they are willing to pay for them. We should be discussing whether people want higher benefits, and whether they are willing to pay for them.
@7:09
If the politicians did what their constituents want (and what makes sense) on this issue, it would work. I can't see the Republicans approving it though, because it violates too many of their priorities, e.g. its a tax increase, it expands government, and it helps the poor.
@11:40
I agree it will be difficult (also, I would change "poor" to "non-rich"). However, if the Democrats refuse to approve cuts, then the GOP might accept a payroll tax increase to avoid outcomes that they consider worse, such as an increase of the cap, or large outflows from the Trust Fund. The GOP mostly wants to reduce taxes on the wealthy - a payroll tax increase without an increase in the cap will have almost no impact on them.
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