Quote Originally Posted by jp1 View Post
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.
i’m not dismissing your proposal out of hand, and I’m not being disrespectful, but I can assure you that billions of words have been written in proposals and studies having to do with new tax strategies. I’m sure your ideas have been examined. Why don’t you search for them and tell us what you find.