Latest / Brian Thomas / AFP - Social Security

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AFP - Social Security · Brian Thomas

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  Speaker 1: Deep Talk Station.
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  Speaker 2: If if you've got KRC Decalk station, a happy Wednesday
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  Speaker 2: to you their return as it is the case every
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  Speaker 2: week Donovan and Neil from Americans for Prosperity AFP doing
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  Speaker 2: everything that can help you help well us get some
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  Speaker 2: good people elected in office, door to door campaigns, knocking
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  Speaker 2: on doors, giving you all the tools and the equipment
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  Speaker 2: you need to help do that, and also bringing up
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  Speaker 2: issues like Bernie Moreno's op ed piece with Elizabeth Warren
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  Speaker 2: with a really really apparently bad idea, welcome back Donald O'Neil,
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  Speaker 2: eliminating the payroll cap. Where did this idea come from?
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  Speaker 1: Uh, we're still trying to figure that one out. I
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  Speaker 1: think it's born though, quite genuinely and sincerely. I think
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  Speaker 1: it's born out of a desire from Bernie right to
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  Speaker 1: go to Washington as a freshman senator and begin to,
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  Speaker 1: you know, touch the third rails and tackle the big
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  Speaker 1: issues that you know, have been punted down the field
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  Speaker 1: for for decades. I agree, And taxes, though I'm not
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  Speaker 1: sure if that's the right solution.
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  Speaker 2: No, it can't be. So the backstory and this of
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  Speaker 2: course security it has a problem on its hand. The
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  Speaker 2: trust fund runs out in twenty thirty two, which means
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  Speaker 2: they're going to start dipping into principle, which means that
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  Speaker 2: translates into about twenty two percent cut in benefits you
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  Speaker 2: currently get from your from the Social Security program. Now,
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  Speaker 2: how do we fix it? And that's the third rail
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  Speaker 2: donominans alluding to no one has bothered to solve this problem,
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  Speaker 2: even though everyone saw it coming miles and miles away.
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  Speaker 2: That's our elected officials. So Bernie Moreno says, well, let's
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  Speaker 2: eliminate the payroll cap, which means that point in time
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  Speaker 2: where our paychecks go up because they quit taking out
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  Speaker 2: Social Security will never happen again.
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  Speaker 1: Now what now? What?
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  Speaker 2: How does how do the numbers work out on this? Donald,
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  Speaker 2: Let's go straight to the chase and find out why
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  Speaker 2: this is a bad idea.
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  Speaker 1: Well, you know, our good friends of Americans for Tax
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  Speaker 1: Rephon Grover Norquist, they fight these these ideas every day.
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  Speaker 1: As they pointed out, what this would do is it
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  Speaker 1: would create here in Ohio a combined income tax rate
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  Speaker 1: of fifty six percent on small business owners. Right when
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  Speaker 1: we talk about people making and that that number runs out,
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  Speaker 1: So the Social Security payroll cap runs out of one
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  Speaker 1: hundred eighty six thousand dollars, which is a lot of money.
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  Speaker 1: It's good money, right, But the idea behind the program
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  Speaker 1: has always been that at a certain point, right, you're
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  Speaker 1: going to get less benefit from the program. It's designed
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  Speaker 1: to help those of low means, you know, keep Grandma
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  Speaker 1: from you know, being destitute on the street when it
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  Speaker 1: was created in nineteen thirties. But what it's become is
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  Speaker 1: a Ponzi scheme. And so if you increase that it
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  Speaker 1: was from the beginning, but if you increase that payroll cap, right,
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  Speaker 1: what you're doing is you're going to effectively tax small
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  Speaker 1: business owners. Right, those are the folks making over two
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  Speaker 1: hundred thousand dollars a year that we don't think about.
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  Speaker 1: You're going to increase the taxes on those folks, by
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  Speaker 1: the way, too. And I know this is a small
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  Speaker 1: business owner. Myself, my wife and I we pay half
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  Speaker 1: of the Social Security tax for our employees. Well, that
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  Speaker 1: can go up on us as well. So you're going
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  Speaker 1: to hit business owners in two ways, one on their
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  Speaker 1: own income, two on their employees income you know, at
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  Speaker 1: a certain level, and all around create three trillion dollar
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  Speaker 1: tax increase to not fix the program for another one
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  Speaker 1: hundred years, Brian, but just one more generation. We're going
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  Speaker 1: to pump the can twenty more years without any other
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  Speaker 1: material reforms to the program based on the idea they
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  Speaker 1: floated publicly. So far, it's a bad deal and costs
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  Speaker 1: the economy significantly as well, as you know American taxpayers
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  Speaker 1: and workers.
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  Speaker 2: Clearly the problem though, as you know you have pointed
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  Speaker 2: out in assessing this issue, the problem is demographics, not
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  Speaker 2: necessarily revenue. There are fewer workers. I think when the
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  Speaker 2: program started it was like sixteen workers for every one
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  Speaker 2: Social Security recipient, something along those lines, and now it's
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  Speaker 2: down to something on the order of three, and everybody's
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  Speaker 2: living a lot longer, Donovan. My understanding is back when
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  Speaker 2: the program was started, people only lived to late sixties.
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  Speaker 2: You know, you're lucky if you lived in the seventies,
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  Speaker 2: so payout was only going on for a small period
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  Speaker 2: of time, and that's a sustainable operation. But with fewer
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  Speaker 2: workers and people living into their eighties and even nineties
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  Speaker 2: and hundreds, these days, you got the baby boomers that
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  Speaker 2: are illustrating that it's causing a problem. So how do
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  Speaker 2: we fix it? What's because I can't imagine there being
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  Speaker 2: more workers out there in a world of artificial intelligence,
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  Speaker 2: where they're telling us there's not gonna be any workers
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  Speaker 2: out there anymore. It's it's gonna take everybody's jobs away.
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  Speaker 2: Someone's got to generate revenue and income.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, to be clear, that's a good problem, right. Longevity
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  Speaker 1: is a good problem. It's great that somebody is you know, people,
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  Speaker 1: people can live to their seventies, eighties, nineties, if you're wife, grandmother,
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  Speaker 1: right into hundreds. Right.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: The problem here, though, is in the programs that we've
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  Speaker 1: designed to support that population, right, And what we need
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  Speaker 1: to be doing is one meet those promises today for
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  Speaker 1: those you know, those folks who have put their work
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  Speaker 1: in and in that retirement age. But we need to
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  Speaker 1: be thinking about a program for the future where we're
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  Speaker 1: going to have a future where people get to live longer,
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  Speaker 1: where people have more working years. Uh. And it's a
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  Speaker 1: future where we empower people, not programs. And you know,
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  Speaker 1: I think one of the things exists in the nineteen
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  Speaker 1: thirties and only has really come about in vogue over
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  Speaker 1: the last couple decades are things like HSA's or education
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  Speaker 1: savings accounts or even I just finished putting my kids
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  Speaker 1: Trump accounts together. Those are programs, right, Brian, that empower
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  Speaker 1: the American worker, that empower the taxpayer to decide where
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  Speaker 1: their money is going to go. Not a government program
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  Speaker 1: like you know, single payer health care, not a government
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  Speaker 1: program like the public education system, the government funded education system,
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  Speaker 1: and not a retirement program like Social Security, but rather
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  Speaker 1: putting my kid's money into a Trump account, right will
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  Speaker 1: help it grow and grow and grow, so when they
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  Speaker 1: hit retirement age, instead of depending on a broken Social
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  Speaker 1: Security promise, they actually have money to draw from and
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  Speaker 1: care for their family and by the way, pass that
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  Speaker 1: wealth onto the next generation. I don't think anybody's getting
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  Speaker 1: Social Security checks for the money their grandparents put in,
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  Speaker 1: their parents have put in. That money just goes into
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  Speaker 1: thin air, really the black hole of Washington, DC. So
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  Speaker 1: there's a better way. That's both changing the structure of
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  Speaker 1: the program for who it benefits and how the benefits
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  Speaker 1: are unlocked. But two, I think in the long run,
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  Speaker 1: it's actually empowering people, not programs to solve, to solve
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  Speaker 1: the objectives of the Social Security is seeking to do.
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  Speaker 2: Right And you know, that concept has come up many
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  Speaker 2: times in my lifetimes, like why don't we get let
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  Speaker 2: people give the people the opportunity to not take not
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  Speaker 2: have the money taken from their check and put into
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  Speaker 2: a government program with the attendant broken promises. You just
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  Speaker 2: mentioned something they can keep and watch build, which also
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  Speaker 2: I would argue would provide incentive for people to continue
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  Speaker 2: to put money into those programs. They've got it, it's theirs.
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  Speaker 2: No government can come and take it away from them.
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  Speaker 2: That seems to me to be ideal. The problem though,
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  Speaker 2: it seems to me Donovan, and maybe we haven't worked
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  Speaker 2: this one out the transition, because the Social Security program
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  Speaker 2: is alive and well and many people do rely on
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  Speaker 2: it to live. How do you move from from that
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  Speaker 2: program over to something where we're not putting money away
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  Speaker 2: and giving it to the government, but we're managing on ourselves.
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  Speaker 2: There's the dollars don't seem to be able to cover
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  Speaker 2: both of those elements, at least as I see it
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  Speaker 2: right now.
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  Speaker 1: Well, one of the other big pieces of this as well,
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  Speaker 1: and talking with our policy folks around the solutions here,
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  Speaker 1: and this is a big one. I'm not naive to
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  Speaker 1: the challenges it presents, but it comes down to Congress
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  Speaker 1: doing better budgeting. Right. We've got to get Congress back
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  Speaker 1: to its constitutional authority, where folks like Bernie Moreno and
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  Speaker 1: Elizabeth Warren and others right who are Congress take control
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  Speaker 1: of finances and say, hey, we're going to prioritize this
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  Speaker 1: over that, We're going to prioritize meeting our obligation in
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  Speaker 1: that case, right, prioritizing meeting our obligations to the current
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  Speaker 1: generation of Social Security retirees and those within a decade.
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  Speaker 1: And then we're going to also go create a better
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  Speaker 1: program so our kids don't have to deal with the
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  Speaker 1: same problem their parents left them. Right, it's not doing
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  Speaker 1: something better for the future. It's not easy. The easy path, right, Brian,
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  Speaker 1: is raise three trillion in new taxes, save the program
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  Speaker 1: for thirty more years. Let the next Let our kids,
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  Speaker 1: my kids deal with that when they're in Congress, right. Right.
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  Speaker 1: The harder path, the more sustainable path, the real patriotic path,
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  Speaker 1: right is actually going out and doing the hard work,
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  Speaker 1: getting the concessions from both sides, which in this off
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  Speaker 1: ed didn't exist, and getting the work done to make
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  Speaker 1: sure that if you're going to really create a program
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  Speaker 1: to help support folks you know late in life who
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  Speaker 1: you know want to have dignity and retirement. Create a
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  Speaker 1: program that I'll actually work for them and create wealth,
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  Speaker 1: which is at the end of the day, what you're
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  Speaker 1: trying to do here. Not a program that you know,
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  Speaker 1: gets one dollar for every four dollars put into it,
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  Speaker 1: gets one dollar return for every four dollars put into it.
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  Speaker 1: It's a bad investment. Stephen Moore pointed out, and he's
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  Speaker 1: on the America First Policy Institute board, you know, key pointing.
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  Speaker 1: An advisor pointed out, you're better off burying that money
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  Speaker 1: in the backyard and not even that rev that money
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  Speaker 1: that you would earn then having it paid out.
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  Speaker 2: In Social Security. Well, and one big worry more just
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  Speaker 2: letting it sit there if you going to have in
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  Speaker 2: your own account. One big worry. I see when you
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  Speaker 2: mentioned raising taxes by millions and billions or however much
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  Speaker 2: money they need to cover the Social Security program as
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  Speaker 2: it currently exists. I'm a little worried they're going to
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  Speaker 2: change the rate of taxation for when we withdraw our
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  Speaker 2: four oh one k. So responsible people who've packed money
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  Speaker 2: away are hoping to get the money out, but they're
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  Speaker 2: going to side the taxation rate some point down the road,
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  Speaker 2: and it's going to be a lot more than the
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  Speaker 2: current taxation rate, and that's really gotten a big concern
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  Speaker 2: at least in my world. Donald and Neil. Quickly you
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  Speaker 2: give us a website where my listeners can get in
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  Speaker 2: touch with you and well help us help ourselves.
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  Speaker 1: Well, always go to Buckeye blueprint dot com. That far
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  Speaker 1: website to build a bolder, better Buckeye state. We've got
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  Speaker 1: county chapters across the region. Buckeye blueprint dot com.
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  Speaker 2: Don Roeil will do it again next week. Keep up
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  Speaker 2: the great work, and thanks for breaking this down for
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  Speaker 2: my listening audience to me this morning.