If Obama cuts social security

[customerserviceguy]

62. There are a number of things that need to be done

Chained CPI is only one tool. I've advocated a total removal of the employer FICA cap, if some megabank wants to pay some asshat CEO ten million dollars to run the thing into the ground, then they can afford to pay FICA tax on all ten million.

Raising caps on workers sounds fine, but then it also boosts the maximum benefit. Wouldn't it be deeply ironic if retiring baby boomer rich folks can pay the new rate for only a few years, then get maybe an extra thousand dollars a month from Social Security for the rest of their well-fed lives? Maybe part of the answer is a new "tier" of benefits for any additional cap raises, with the tiers tied to the CPI, even a chained one.

And here's the reality: We may well have to raise FICA tax rates. The boomers saw them go up dramatically during their working years, and that's what's kept the thing afloat so far. There hasn't been a raise in those tax rates in a very long time.

Also, we might have to think about raising the age for full benefits, while differentiating between types of work. I'd be happy to wait until 70 if it meant that a person of my age who works at hard labor gets to collect full benefits at 65 (instead of waiting until 67, as we both have to under current law). As we shift more from a labor-intensive society to an automated one with most jobs being in less demanding service industries, we move to a higher average retirement age in an equitable fashion.

It's going to take a lot of thought and study to figure out what to do, and it just can't be accomplished in a year-end mad dash.