The highest paid Americans don't pay Social Security taxes on wages over $87,900. Why not fix Social Security's long-term solvency problem by making taxes apply on all of their wages?

Up there a ways, freightdawg says, "Do the math." Okay, here it is.

Currently Social Security takes in more than enough money to pay benefits. The Social Security Surplus is estimated to reach $3.0 trillion by the year 2018. Unfortunately, the entire trust fund surplus is borrowed every year by the government to pay for the operations of the U.S. government. The trust fund is made up of special interest bearing federal bonds (currently whose average yield is 9.5 percent) which are non-callable and have no maturity date. They are backed by the faith that future generations of U.S. citizens will continue to pay into the fund at a sufficient rate to meet the benefits due the Social Security beneficiaries. If the money going out to pay benefits ever starts to exceed the money coming into the trust fund then eventually the trust fund will have to make up the difference. If, and only if, the economy limps along at about one half the annual rate of growth (1.7 percent) of the previous 30 years will the money collected be less than the money needed to pay the benefits.

Without Social Security as it exists today, about one-half of all senior citizens would have incomes below the poverty line. Contrary to the current propaganda, the retirement of the "baby boom" generation will not bankrupt Social Security. In fact, that generation will be retired long before there is any projected shortfall from a low growth rate economy. What if the dismal 1.7 percent growth rate used by spreaders of the "crisis" propaganda come true? Would the wage and salary earners of those years suffer an undue burden supporting retirees? Not a chance! If the annual earnings were not capped at today's levels, and all wages and salaries were subject to Social Security taxes, an additional $67 billion would go into the Social Security Trust Fund. Less than 10 percent of the wage and salary earners—those in the highest brackets—would be affected by such a change.

The fact is, the Bush administration does not wish to reform Social Security, they wish to eliminate it.

Don Firth