Trump's Plan To 'Terminate' Payroll Taxes Would 'Terminate' Social Security By 2023
'Trump's plan to 'terminate' payroll taxes would 'terminate' Social Security by 2023.' Joan McCarter, Daily Kos, Aug. 25, 2020. - Ed.:
The chief actuary for Social Security has grim news for Trump supporters on Soc. Sec.: There wouldn't be any more of it before his 2nd term ended if he gets his way on the payroll tax. His plan to eliminate payroll taxes would deplete the Social Security Trust Fund by 2023, "with no ability to pay benefits thereafter." Thats the "Old Age & Survivors Insurance" portion of the fund. The Disability Insurance Trust Fund would be gone next year. Stephen Goss, the chief actuary, detailed this in a letter in response to a query from leading Democratic Senators about hypothetical legislation passed by Congress to enact Trumps plan to defund Social Security. This is what would happen in Trump's plan to "terminate" payroll taxes permanently in his 2nd term.
Trump announced this plan when he signed his executive order to allow employers to suspend taking payroll taxes out of employees pay. That order was so poorly conceived & executed that employers are having a hard time figuring out whether or not to do it..
CNBC reports: "Payroll companies, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce & other business associations say it would be difficult to implement the deferral. Theyre concerned about the liability employers & employees may face." Which bodes poorly for saving the programs if Trump gets his way. Or if Republicans retake Congress. Goss wrote this under the specification from the senators that "there would be no other changes to current law." Legislation could create some kind of funding stream for the programs, but that part of it clearly hasn't been figured out by team Trump, which hasn't even figured out how to explain what Trump actually means when he says "terminate" the payroll tax.
Nancy Altman, president of Social Security Works, states critically that while analysis is based on hypothetical legislation that would do what Trump says he wants to do, which is get rid of the payroll tax, "in fact, Trump is claiming the authority to defund Social Security with no action from Congress whatsoever."
Trump is exerting the power, and believes he has the power, to do this on his own.
Altman continues, "Trump claimed the authority to unilaterally stop collection of Social Securitys dedicated funding under 26 U.S Code §7508A upon his declaring a federal emergency." There's Trump acting with the unitary executive power he feels Senate Republicans granted him when they refused to impeach him. "The law permits deferral for up to a year," "long enough to defund & destroy Social Security disability insurance. If he declared additional emergencies through 2023, he could, on his own, end all of Social Security." ~ Given Trump's willingness to destroy the U.S. Postal Service, an institution that predates the Constitution & even predates American independence, he's not going to hold Social Security sacred. He holds nothing sacrednot even human life, as his response to the pandemic has made abundantly clear.
So when the chief actuary of Social Security tells us that Social Security would be dead & gone before the end of Trump's 2nd term, it's not alarmist. It's a statement of fact. ~
More, & 125 Recs, 120 Comments
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2020/8/25/1972125/-Social-Security-would-be-gone-by-2023-under-Trump-s-plan-to-terminate-the-payroll-tax
*Social Security Works, Website, https://socialsecurityworks.org/
SheltieLover
(57,073 posts)SWBTATTReg
(22,456 posts)should, if you're going to unilaterally end this program that millions and millions have paid into for decades. Oh, wait a minute, the GOP thugs already used these savings (social security cuts that they made on their own in the past) and spent these savings already on their gee whiz projects, such as give tax breaks/cuts to their donors (the 2017 tax cut and jobs bill for one).
Everyone of these GOP thugs should be made to pay back our social security earnings, w/ interest too. Every damn dime of it. I'm getting sick and tired of these thugs constantly attacking a program, that in the end, supports millions and millions of us on a day in/day out basis (that is, we worked for it during our entire working career?).
Turbineguy
(37,504 posts)Laissez les bons temps rouler for the funeral industry.
If anybody thought Stalin was bad....
BamaRefugee
(3,488 posts)appalachiablue
(41,392 posts)and forever. Not seeing anything about layering or cut off dates for 'further enrollments,' or at such and such date. Finito. Hope I'm wrong.
https://socialsecurityworks.org/2020/08/24/if-donald-trump-is-reelected-he-will-destroy-social-security/