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What are your thoughts on uncapping the income limit to FICA taxes and adjusting the statute to use them to fund Medicaid?

And if we really, really want to for some reason, there's nothing stopping us from transitioning from a pay as you go system to prepaid. Just need to fund it by, I don't know, lifting the cap a tad...

I am absolutely shuddering at how impossibly fucked that guy’s group chat and information environment must be

"...adjusted over time for changing demographics..." And don't listen to gibbering about how few workers support how many retirees: productivity (including adjustment for inflation) is FOUR times higher today than in 1950, so plenty of wealth to go around👍

Yup. A big part of tech bro ideological garbage is because long gone are the memories of angry, impoverished mobs in the US. Just not tangible anymore or… for the time being.

Isn’t this weirdo in his 30s? If it’s such an imminent threat, then why not use first-tense when discussing the solution?

Honestly, I'm a little surprised there are no proposals to kill two birds with one stone here. Like a 10% gross receipts tax on data centers, dedicated to SS.

Cuts would be a political choice, not a practical need. Even ignoring raising taxes and/or raising the cap, we could just continue paying benefits out of the budget, rather than pretending payments can only be made from a special fund, or that the USG can borrow from the fund, but never add to it.

This drives me constantly insane, actually. The number I've times I've complained about the nonsense of "this is an emergency! we have to make sharp cuts to SS immediately or else.. we might have to make them in five years."

" Is it because people have higher earned incomes?" Yep.

> if we view it as wage replacement, That's UI territory, buddy. BACK OFF.

I think so (but note that this also makes SS less of a social insurance program and more of a direct redistribution program).

Uncapping (or cap raising) would be good but so would a modest hike in the payroll tax. These would both be preferable to nominal benefit cuts (though as Matt points out current drawees get dramatically higher real benefits than prior generations).

Uncapping the payroll tax gets us just over half the way there.

"If we don't act immediately there won't be a pile of money for us to steal."

Yeah tons of people in the financial planning and FIRE communities project their SS at zero. It's insane. "Oh well I'm just being conservative". Like, they're projecting 10% growth in the s&p forever but literally zero SS. Do those seem equally likely?

Again - this is a bad outcome! But "cataclysm" seems to be an overreach.

Tell that to the olds who are just getting by. Maybe not evenly distributed but complete disaster for many. And japan has a much stronger social safety net-healthcare for one, that we can't just pull 1 data point for a decent comparison.

Are you suggesting we raise taxes - when most Americans are living paycheck to paycheck????

Also we have the resources to do this. This is not even close to a crisis except in as much as political actors want to frame it that way for their own purposes.

If there is fraud happening with Social Security, it is the Republicans and their billionaire donors who are doing it. Google AI is very sensitive about the topic... Seems relevant.

4. It would be impossible to ensure investments by the Trust Fund remain free of political cronyism, self-dealing & corruption, given contemporary American politics.

Well, from what I understand, the Canada Pension Plan is in much better shape than US Social Security.

Bush’s plan was for another layer of private retirement investment accounts using Social Security Trust Fund dollars. What the Canada Pension Plan does is more like if the Social Security Trust Fund was actively rather than passively managed

We should actually be the poster boy for irresponsible cash transfers to the elderly with OAS.

U.S. gov't prints its money. How can we run out of it?

Look all I’m saying is that if I worked at OpenAI I’m not sure I’d be out there talking about the consequences of debt coming due

Social security certainly isn’t an accounting fraud, the accounting is clean and transparent. But it is running out of money in the next few years because we’ve collected too little money for it and/or haven’t invested the money collected aggressively enough, take your pick

And this framing -- basically income security insurance for the elderly -- is why I find any one arguing "I'll get out less than I pay in" so bogus. ALL insurance works that way. I have NEVER made a car insurance claim in my life, yet I pay for it anyways.

I need an AI that will just automatically delete anything from people who unironically use terms like "High Modernist" if they're not, like, a literature professor. I am incredulous that this guy could actually define this term.

While we're on the subject of fraud, perhaps he'd like to address the revenue numbers openAI has been publishing?

Can’t accuse him of using AI to write that grizzly run on sentence

They do not care about people.

This is a big confession that sums up to: I watch simpleminded media and never read primary sources like the Social Security Administration's Actuary report. Primary research is for suckers AI exec perfection

Because they want us dead! There are too many of us humans to support their business model.

Thank you! I get exhausted repeating this all the time. Social security is just one of the many problem areas that are really due to increases in income & wealth inequality.

We must unwind the Great Fraud of overly tight monetary policy!

The ugly truth is that Americans haven't taken much responsibility for their government, and as a result, its finances are a train wreck. That's what comes from a population that votes in tax cuts during wars and pretty much ignores the adult problems.

The major complaint about it having to be stopped is it involves dollars that don't go into their own pockets. And if they don't stop it entirely, they might have to cut benefits a modest amount, instead of them getting to steal the money before it's paid out.

Further, any politician destroying a robust immigration employment base WITHOUT adequate replacement of FICA should have been put against the wall with every American taking aim with high-powered questions

I think the donut thing applied to Medicare not Social Security. And yes, remove the income cap. But also probably tax more than just wage income. Apply the FICA tax to unearned income as well.

The much bigger problem (in terms of long-term sustainability) is Medicare, which is set up to essentially ensure that it will generate ever-expanding funding deficits without major changes.

and from working in a brokerage company most people would be fucked without it. people won't save enough for retirement. easy to make it more solvent by like allowing it to buy tips to get better return, increasing taxes to support it and removing cap

He lists his BA in History... and his high school on his linkedin... so setting aside the tie the man may know nothing about economics or law...

Dean needs to spend some time with the 60 or so percent of the workforce living paycheck to pay check who are likely going to value ever dollar of that fixed income on life’s necessities!

Ah yes I am worried about my bonds, please ignore God in the corner unifying gravity and the standard equation. That can't be relevant.

There’s the NRx guys with their boutique fascism but mostly it’s just billionaires posting what used to come with a fwd:fwd:fwd email subject line

Dean is a moron and note the bullshit is found on X.