BULLSHIT! Just what we need. The blood sucking boomers to get more breaks not paying the taxes on the $30 Trillion deficit. I hate this idea. Especially since they underfunded it anyway. It is entirely a coincidence that I dont get this benefit and support tax cuts that only help me.
That is certainly not the way I would approach it. I would look to eventually reduce the rate and the amount of income taxed. But since you brought up high income earners. I would also look to eventually have them not receiving anything. Certainly cannot do it overnight and would take decades. As this is a complete mess fdr created. But then we at least would have a safety net program and not a redistribution programs from the younger generations to the older generations.
What’s this double tax BS? You don’t pay taxes on the taxes. The tax is the funding. You get that money back. Then you pay taxes. I am not following that piece.
If we wanna talk about SS as income... let's talk about how it transfers money from men (particularly men of color and single men) to women (particularly white women and widowed housewives).
We do disagree. Though I do believe we will do what you suggest. In 2025 the max taxable is $176,100. It is not right to tell our kids and grandkids that they will have work longer. Pay more. Receive less. So we can get ours. The good news is that most of us on Gator Country posting on too hot are fine and this is just a disagreement to bicker about. And our kids will likely be fine as well. But our kids friend that grows up working pay check to paycheck without the ability save like many of us can. Should be not subjected to paying more and receiving less. I think we need pay less and only provide for those that need it. A noble program. What SS was suppose to be.
But then some here can’t have their extra vacation. And of course they paid in so they should get what they were promised. Even if it is more than they paid for. In all seriousness. This is one way to make the point I am making.
In general, the surviving spouse gets to keep the higher of their own earned SS income or their spouse. Women live a few years longer than men and men are usually born a couple years earlier than their wives. SS payouts doesn't consider race or gender, and white people live longer than POC (though Asian-Americans live roughly as long as Whites). Not claiming malice or intent, just doing math. All of these add up to women getting SS benefits from their dead husbands that she didn't, herself, earn.
If you are filing jointly with your husband you did earn the benefits would be the argument. She was denied that income while we were alive so she should benefit while she is alive. No sure how one could argue anything else.
Focusing on your last sentence "Not sure how one could argue anything else". Nordic countries, generally, don't have the notion of "surviving spouse" or "married filing jointly". If a couple chooses to do the whole single-earner thing, that's their business.. but there's not really any support structures for that. They subsidize having children directly, not SAHMs.
How Nordic countries do it isn’t really relevant. If my wife forfeited the use of that income while she was alive she should get benefit. It’s like saying she didnt pay taxes for the roads she used as a SAHM so she can’t drive on them when I am dead. Silly argument.
But grocery prices are coming down under Trump so those people can give up that supplemental job. You're not implying otherwise, are you?
A SAHM doesn't earn income and doesn't pay taxes. To me, she's an economic zero. A pure burden. If you have internalized the legal fiction of income splitting -- the notion that half of an employed spouse's income is "actually" earned by the SAHspouse -- than you and I have such different values that we can never agree on political policy. So we might well end up on opposite sides of the next election... so it goes.
A stay at home mom is an economic zero? Interesting. My wife has been “retired” since she got pregnant with our first child. She was 28. She has saved me countless dollars raising our kids and taking care of the home. She’s no economic zero to me.
Fine. I support the removal of tax breaks and SS benefits such that, if you've both made that choice, you'll be a provider for her if you choose but will bear the full cost of that. I don't hate you or your wife, and I actively support your kid(s) via taxes for public education, but I don't want my tax or SS dollars supporting your wife to avoid joining the labor force. Nothing personal -- as they say, don't hate the player, hate the game.
Weird. A couple is a legal entity similar but not exactly like a company and she is a shareholder in it. She is on the hook for nearly anything I agree to (taxes, property, liabilities, legal and health decisions) and should get any benefit I earn. That’s how a marriage entity operates.
