I personally have no problem with that. A country as large, diverse, and difficult to maintain as the U.S. must have progressive taxation, but Social Security as an entitlement is probably the only thing that has kept it immune to right wing attacks.

Face it, if you have to file AMT, you're not Middle Class either. You may think you are - but you aren't.

I (and everyone else) should get it back as an apology for the media not doing their fucking homework on a primetime, national debate.

Try telling your car insurance firm that they need to give you more money because your premiums went up - they'll laugh in your FACE.

Soo... Its an insurance program where the people with the least risk of being broke when they retire (the ones with the best driving record as it were) should have to pay more?... Better call Geico.

(Thats not how insurance works... High risk individuals pay more because they are more likely to have a claim.)

It pains me to say it but keshmeshi is spot on (though I disagree that massive social welfare programs are no problem.)

If you don't think you have enough money at that range of salary, you're overspending and need to manage your money better, plain and simple.

If you don't think you have enough money at that range of salary, you're overspending and need to manage your money better, plain and simple.

If we, as a society, believe that wealth redistribution is a good thing, then lets stop fucking around and go for it!

Take off the cap, make people pay in at 100% of their income after taxes and start paying out equal amounts to everyone at birth.

To argue that a cap at $97,000 is wrong because that's not upper middle class implies that the cap should be at a number that is upper middle class. Which would be a number lower, not higher, than $97,000...

You guys need to at least educate yourselves enough to know that progressive taxation is the norm. It has been the accepted, established practice virtually everywhere for centuries. Trying to label progressive taxation a "wealth redistribution program" as if people needed to gird themselves for a brave new world is simply a lie.

The truth is that flat taxes and regressive taxes are a bizarre aberration with little or no track record. Fixing the regressive nature of payroll taxes is the more cautious, prudent and conservative thing to do. Going the opposite way is too risky to try in an economy of our size.

The deductions from paychecks do hurt lower income Americans, which is why we need a concerted effort to raise lower incomes, through higher minimum wage and investment in green jobs. We could also make the rest of our tax code more progressive by raising the standard deduction for income tax, and then recouping the money with a carbon tax. People can reduce their carbon tax by driving less and indirectly by being more efficient about electrical, heating, and cooling use, but with a higher standard deduction the unavoidable income tax would be less for everyone, and proportionally much less for lower-income people.

So how the hell do they do it?

They only pay out a maximum of 25% of the median income (~$11000).

Food for thought.

So to compare, we pay 6% and they pay 5%, but our benefits are higher. It's basically a wash.

... and their cap is lower also ...

Unless they pay back the benefits for those who make more than $97,500 this is pretty unfair. If you make $150K in the Bay Area with a family of four you're really not all that well off, and not better off than someone making $96K in Florida. But you'd be paying taxes into a social security fund that you'd never be able to get back.

But if they do pay back the benefits then it does nothing to help social security.

Then we have SS funded until the sun goes nova.

And the negative tax burden on the middle and working class disappears.

Again - you drive a car, you have to have insurance, no matter how rich you are. Period.

So, effectively, a retiree there is way better off, even with less money from CPP/OAS.