Former President Donald Trump has called for abolishing another tax, this time aiming at older voters with calls to stop taxes on Social Security income for seniors.
The former president also reiterated his call for the elimination of taxes on tips.
[RELATED: Theriault Vows No Medicare, Social Security Cuts…]
“NO TAX ON SOCIAL SECURITY FOR SENIORS, NO TAX ON TIPS!,” said President Trump on Truth Social.
Trump’s proposal would abolish a Reagan Era policy which made up to 50 percent of Social Security income taxable if the taxpayer’s total income exceeds a certain threshold.
The change was initially enacted in 1983, in part so that Social Security benefits would be subject to the same tax as other retirement benefits, and in part as a roundabout way of cutting Social Security benefits without actually making a cut.
“One might fairly say that cutting benefits and raising revenues was the purpose of the 1983 Amendments, and the adoption of Social Security benefit taxation was simply one provision among many to facilitate these aims,” said the Social Security Administration (SSA) on its official website.
Regardless of the intent behind the rule, abolishing it would essentially increase taxpayer-funded social security benefits for higher-earning recipients.
As entitlement programs like Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid remain the largest drivers of the U.S. national debt and deficits, the move would only serve to further increase national debt unless accompanied by other reductions in spending or tax-revenue-generating economic growth.
Currently, Social Security, along with Medicare, is expected to amount to 80 percent of the growth in the federal deficit over the next ten years. Despite this, Trump has vowed not to make any cuts to Social Security.
Fighting over America’s ballooning and unsustainable entitlement programs has become something of a time-honored tradition in American politics, with Democrats frequently accusing Republicans of wanting to strip older Americans of their fixed-income benefits.
Conservative Republicans have, for more than a decade, argued that addressing the U.S. national debt requires fundamental reforms to the three big entitlement programs; however, most reform proposals would maintain existing benefit structures for current recipients and many Americans nearing retirement age.
Despite the obvious, mathematical need from entitlement reform, even modest proposals have failed to gain enough traction, in part because Democratic politicians have successfully used reform efforts as political cudgels to attack GOP rivals — even in cases when their GOP opponents have never voted for or endorsed entitlement reforms.
In Maine’s Second Congressional District, for example, Republican Austin Theriault, a state representative from Fort Kent who is challenging incumbent Democratic Rep. Jared Golden, has also vowed to defend Social Security in its current form.
Yet Golden’s campaign has nonetheless issued several statements to media alleging that Theriault holds the opposite position and would seek to shrink seniors’ benefits.
Trump’s attempt to appeal to older voters comes after his recent calls for an end to income taxes on tips, which would primarily benefit lower-income service workers.
<span class="dsq-postid" data-dsqidentifier="29793 https://www.themainewire.com/?p=29793">4 Comments
If you want to reduce taxes then you must reduce spending as well.
Nice thought but you know if it happens Mills will just raise the state %.
Othot may have graduated from Thomas with a degree in the liberal arts, but his knows little or nothing about finance. “Fighting over America’s ballooning and unsustainable entitlement programs” My Social Security payments are coming directly from the money that I have had to pay into social security over the past 60+ years of my working life. That money was taken from me by force of law and its return, with a low rate of interest, if any, is not an “entitelment” but a return on the money taken from me.
Yes I am entitled to the money confiscated from me and my employer for decades. Welfare is an entitlement discussed as government charity. Democrats think charity is taking from one to give to another, it is not.