Has anyone crunched the numbers on what would happen if investment income was charged the same tax rate as ‘earned’ income and if that same investment income also had to pay social security and Medicare taxes? And if people who have high ‘earned’ income had to pay social security taxes on all their ‘earned’ income? Just those changes could probably go a long way towards solving the budget concerns that ‘balanced budget’ people worry about.

As someone who only pays social security taxes the first half of the year I’d rather pay the full year if it meant social security wouldn’t go broke at the same time I’m ready to start collecting. No I can’t live off social security but I also can’t live comfortably in retirement without it.