Will Trump or Any President Cancel Social Security? No!

Political divisiveness is rampant in the media and internet websites. Some stories are promoted by political parties/groups and some may be supported by foreign interests.

Here is what you should be sure of. Trump will never support “getting rid of Social Security.” No one in Congress will vote for that even if any President wanted to.

Recently, Trump DID SAY he wanted to get rid of the “payroll tax” which primarily partially funds Social Security. That reflects his view (shared by many over the years) that the payroll tax (15% of wages) is very unfair and regressive. That applies to the first $137,700 of wages irrespective of income. Therefore, someone making $25,000 pays the same 15% as someone making $250,000. In fact, higher incomes stop paying above the threshold. Many economists feel it has become unfair.

Currently, those taxes are earmarked for Social Security. In the Federal Budget, all the funds are commingled. Future planned benefits cannot be paid out of funds set aside. There are not enough funds and those funds are not segregated. It has been a long standing fraud on Americans to suggest SS benefits were safely set aside. They simply are not.

What Trump wants to do (and has always said so) is to fix an unfair tax, and, find a way to honor the commitment to beneficiaries.

Any reasoned analysis of Social Security shows there are long standing problems with paying these benefits. It has to be fixed. Like many issues, Trump wants to fix it even though it will be hard and want to be avoided by the politicians that created the mess.

For my friends who are in Illinois, the pension crises for state and local employees in Illinois is much much worse due to chronic bad policies regarding excessive pension benefits, state budgets and funding. While Illinois is only one state, the lack of funding to pay pensions to state employees is almost as large as the unfunded benefits in Social Security.

Details:
15% payroll tax for Social Security and Medicare is jointly paid by both employee and employer.

The max income threshold of $137,700 applies to SS tax (called FICA) and there is no cap on Medicare tax.)