Bernie Sanders: Lift the Income Cap on Social Security — Problem Solved
Click here to view this media Sen. Bernie Sanders talked to Ed Schultz about John Boehner and the Republicans wanting to destroy the social safety nets in America and their goal of privatizing Social Security and putting it in the hands of Wall Street and raising the retirement age. Sen. Sanders pointed out that there’s a very simple way to make sure Social Security remains solvent. Raise the income cap on the tax so it’s less regressive. SANDERS: Massive amounts of misinformation and disinformation. The truth of the matter is, Social Security today has a $2.6 trillion surplus. Social Security can pay out every benefit owed to every eligible American for the next 27 years, at which point it could pay out about 80 percent of all benefits. What does that mean? It means that within 27 years, we have to figure out how we deal with that gap. In my view, what you do is you lift the income cap so that people making more than $250,000 contribute more into the system. SCHULTZ: Yes. SANDERS: Right now, you‘re making $1 million—you‘re putting the same into the system as somebody making $106,000. Do it, problem solved, end of discussion. SCHULTZ: OK. So, their method is misinformation. Their goal is to do what, line the pockets of the big boys on Wall Street? SANDERS: Absolutely. Look, what the debate is about, Ed, is not really about the finances of Social Security. It‘s an ideological debate. You know as well as I do, these guys don‘t like government. They love Wall Street. If you destroy Social Security and people want to have a retirement account, you invest in Wall Street. Wall Street makes over a period of time tens and tens of billions of dollars. That, in fact, is the long-term goal. Second of all, if you have a Social Security system, as we have right now, which for 75 years, Ed—and people should appreciate that—has paid out every nickel owed to every eligible American in a very cost-effective way. You know what? People might actually have some faith in government. You can read the rest of the transcript for this segment here . Bernie made a lot of other great points as well on raising the retirement age and how these people out there protesting at these tea party rallies are being duped.
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Bernie Sanders: Lift the Income Cap on Social Security — Problem Solved
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on January 29, 2011. Filed under