Why should a middle-class nurse pay a larger share of her paycheck [to Social Security] than a wealthy corporate lawyer?
The question I have posed above comes from Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Moreno, writing in The New York Times, in a column whose online title reads as follows: "Bernie Moreno and Elizabeth Warren: Our Plan to Save Social Security."
That's Bernie Moreno, in the picture at the top. I am telling you this just in case you didn't immediately recognize him (and I'm betting that anyone reading this blog posting probably didn't). I know a lot about Elizabeth Warren, and would recognize her anywhere, but I certainly wouldn't know Bernie Moreno if he knocked on my door - something that is highly unlikely, since Moreno is the senior U.S. Senator from Ohio, and I am virtually certain that he does not regularly visit or vacation in Santa Cruz!
In case you're totally clueless, our Social Security System is heading for real problems, the key problem being that the monies being placed into the Social Security Trust fund are not going to be adequate to fund future Social Security payments, starting in 2030, or thereabouts.
If you click the link I have provided above, and read the Moreno-Warren article (it's a "gift" article and should be available even to non-subscribers), you can find out more. The key point I am attempting to highlight is that if those people who have annual incomes above $184,500 were to pay the same percentage into Social Security that people pay who have the same annual income that I do (and that you do, too, probably) the Social Security System's solvency would be extended for another generation.
As Warren and Moreno correctly note:
This is a no-brainer: The wealthiest Americans, who have benefited the most from America’s opportunities, should contribute the same percentage of their income as a factory worker in Chillicothe, Ohio, or a teacher in Worcester, Mass.
Or, I might say, a teacher or a restaurant employee in my own hometown of Santa Cruz, California.
So, we might well ask ourselves, "Why?" Why don't they?
Well, the rich get let off the hook because our political system is reacting to the power of money. It's supposed to react to the power of the people.
Who do you think could do something about that?
Right! YOU could!
And me, too, of course!
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