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Drudge Retort: The Other Side of the News
Wednesday, March 12, 2025

Republicans and their morbidly rich donors have hated Social Security ever since it was first created in 1935. They've called it everything from communism to socialism to a Ponzi scheme. In fact, it has been the most successful anti-poverty program in the history of America, one now emulated by virtually every democracy in the world. But the rightwing billionaires hate it for several reasons.

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While working families struggle, Trump and his billionaire cronies are cashing in big time ... hartmannreport.com/p/stock-mark ...

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-- Thom Hartmann (@hartmannreport.com) March 12, 2025 at 10:00 AM

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"The first and most important reason is that it demonstrates that government can actually work for people and society:

That then provides credibility for other government programs that billionaires hate even more, like regulating their pollution, breaking up their monopolies, making their social media platforms less toxic, and preventing them from ripping off average American consumers.

Thus, to get political support for gutting regulatory agencies that keep billionaires and their companies from robbing, deceiving, and poisoning us, they must first convince Americans that government is stupid, clumsy, and essentially evil."

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"Ronald Reagan began that process when he claimed that government was not the solution to our problems but was, in fact, the cause of our problems. It was a lie then and is a lie now, but the billionaire-owned media loved it and it's been repeated hundreds of millions of times.

Billionaires also know that for Social Security to survive and prosper, morbidly rich people will eventually have to pay the same percentage of their income into it as bus drivers, carpenters, and people who work at McDonald's.

Right now, people earning over $176,100 pay absolutely nothing into Social Security once that amount has been covered.

To make Social Security solvent for the next 75 years, and even give a small raise to everybody on it, the simple fix is for the rich to just start paying Social Security income on all of their income, rather than only the first $176,100.

The entire solvency and health of Social Security could be cured permanently, in other words, if we simply did away with the "billionaire loophole" in the Social Security tax."

much more at the link... or shorter at the video version:

www.youtube.com

#1 | Posted by Corky at 2025-03-12 10:20 AM | Reply | Newsworthy 2

The truth is businesses tend to treat their workers as exploitable property, and theirs to discard whenever their business model changes. I believe a refresher on the affect the French Revolution had on autocratic oligarchs across Europe a short two centuries ago might be something Trump, Musk and the suits on Wall Street should consider pursuing.

#2 | Posted by dutch46 at 2025-03-12 03:13 PM | Reply | Newsworthy 1

#2

Madame Guillotine is getting more hungry all the time.

#3 | Posted by Corky at 2025-03-12 04:07 PM | Reply | Newsworthy 2

Perhaps they simply covet the Social Security trust fund. A pile of money attracts the rich just like a pile of dung attracts flies.

#4 | Posted by TenMile at 2025-03-12 05:20 PM | Reply

-A pile of money attracts the rich just like a pile of dung attracts flies.

a pile of money attracts everyone...not just the rich.

#5 | Posted by eberly at 2025-03-12 05:23 PM | Reply

---- off idiot.

#6 | Posted by LegallyYourDead at 2025-03-12 06:04 PM | Reply

Studies show that watching a beaver eat cabbage lowers stress by 17%

www.youtube.com

#7 | Posted by Corky at 2025-03-12 08:09 PM | Reply

"To make Social Security solvent for the next 75 years, and even give a small raise to everybody on it, the simple fix is for the rich to just start paying Social Security income on all of their income, rather than only the first $176,100."

Or you could increase the payroll tax from 6.2% up to 7.75%. For someone making $50k a year, that would be about $2.12 per day in tax increases.

#8 | Posted by madbomber at 2025-03-13 03:04 AM | Reply | Funny: 2

If you are determined to put this on the backs of high-income earners, a better option would just be to reduce benefits for them.

#9 | Posted by madbomber at 2025-03-13 03:05 AM | Reply | Funny: 3

It's absolutely outrageous that there's a federal income tax that hits low income earners the hardest, and has a CAP that keeps the rich from having to pay much of it at all.

The Social Security "trust fund" is a fiction. Social Security is paid for with federal income tax, there is no "separate" pot of money.

UNCAP THE TAX!

#10 | Posted by DarkVader at 2025-03-13 10:14 AM | Reply

And for F**KS sake expand it to unearned income!

#11 | Posted by DarkVader at 2025-03-13 10:15 AM | Reply

The Social Security "trust fund" is a fiction. Social Security is paid for with federal income tax, there is no "separate" pot of money.

Not exactly true tho is it?

SS is paid for by a "dedicated payroll tax". Not income tax.

And there is a trust fund. It collects billions in interest.

How is Social Security financed?

Social Security is financed through a dedicated payroll tax. Employers and employees each pay 6.2 percent of wages up to the taxable maximum of $176,100 (in 2025), while the self-employed pay 12.4 percent.

Total income, including interest, to the combined OASI and DI Trust Funds amounted to $1.351 trillion in 2023. ($1.233 trillion from net payroll tax contributions, $51 billion from taxation of benefits, and $67 billion in interest)
www.ssa.gov

I agree that we should uncap it and expand it to cover all income. These and other things could be done if Congress and the White House were not so dysfunctional and in the grip of American oligarchs.

But the plan is not to save it. The Plan is to drown it and the rest of our government in a bathtub.

And so the Insurrection continues..

#12 | Posted by donnerboy at 2025-03-13 11:42 AM | Reply

Rofl, liberals trying to convince people that billionaire slush funds like SS are something they hate.

Many rich politicians on both sides made themselves and their states rich ENTIRELY because of the slushiness of social service funds and everybody knows it (well, DR lib kids just haven't been around long enough probably to understand it). But now all of a sudden Dems want to try to point the finger on that, too.

Hypocrisy is the only platform liberals have.

#13 | Posted by humtake at 2025-03-13 12:05 PM | Reply

#13

Morons gonna moron.

Why do Trumpers love billionaires who pee on them daily by paying limited SS taxes?

They say billionaires have to get the same tax cuts as everyone else... why should they not have to pay the same taxes as everyone else?

#14 | Posted by Corky at 2025-03-13 12:31 PM | Reply

"They say billionaires have to get the same tax cuts as everyone else."

That's when I ask them if they're taking full advantage of GRATs, and the carried interest loophole.

Frankly, my poorer clients get an option of tax-saving strategies when they work with me, while my wealthy clients just expect a "to-do" list from the massive smorgasbord available.

#15 | Posted by Danforth at 2025-03-13 12:39 PM | Reply

a better option would just be to reduce benefits for them.

An even better option is to reduce the benefits (for the wealthy) AND remove the cap. The idea being that the wealthy should help the poor because the poor who have money to spend help make wealth for the wealthy AND helps keep them wealthy.

#16 | Posted by donnerboy at 2025-03-13 12:48 PM | Reply | Newsworthy 1

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