February 28, 2014
It’s pretty impressive to be able to know something about the future when all the evidence suggests the opposite. Washington Post columnist Ruth Marcus apparently knows that we will never be able to raise additional revenue to cover Social Security’s projected shortfalls. That is the only way we can explain her assertion (expressed in euphemisms) that we have to cut Social Security benefits now to:
“protect those most in need of generous benefits.”
Of course the evidence shows that the public has been in the past and is now willing to pay higher taxes in order to maintain Social Security benefits. Few, if any, members of Congress lost their seats over the tax increases put in place in the 1980s. Polls have consistently shown substantial support for raising revenue by increasing or eliminating the cap on taxable wages. And, they have even shown a preference for raising the payroll tax to cutting benefits. (In fact, less than one third of the public even noticed the 2.0 percentage point increase in the payroll tax at the start of 2013.)
The payroll tax increase needed to keep the program fully solvent for the rest of the century is less than one tenth of projected real wage growth over the next three decades. Given the popularity of Social Security across the political spectrum we might think that the public would be willing to pay some price to maintain benefits for all workers, not just those most in need of generous benefits. Fortunately we have Ruth Marcus to tell us otherwise.
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