Trump's Plan To 'Terminate' Payroll Taxes Would 'Terminate' Social Security By 2023
'Trump's plan to 'terminate' payroll taxes would 'terminate' Social Security by 2023.' Joan McCarter, Daily Kos, Aug. 25, 2020. - Ed.:
The chief actuary for Social Security has grim news for Trump supporters on Soc. Sec.: There wouldn't be any more of it before his 2nd term ended if he gets his way on the payroll tax. His plan to eliminate payroll taxes would deplete the Social Security Trust Fund by 2023, "with no ability to pay benefits thereafter." That’s the "Old Age & Survivors Insurance" portion of the fund. The Disability Insurance Trust Fund would be gone next year. Stephen Goss, the chief actuary, detailed this in a letter in response to a query from leading Democratic Senators about hypothetical legislation passed by Congress to enact Trump’s plan to defund Social Security. This is what would happen in Trump's plan to "terminate" payroll taxes permanently in his 2nd term.
Trump announced this plan when he signed his executive order to allow employers to suspend taking payroll taxes out of employees’ pay. That order was so poorly conceived & executed that employers are having a hard time figuring out whether or not to do it..
CNBC reports: "Payroll companies, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce & other business associations say it would be difficult to implement the deferral. They’re concerned about the liability employers & employees may face." Which bodes poorly for saving the programs if Trump gets his way. Or if Republicans retake Congress. Goss wrote this under the specification from the senators that "there would be no other changes to current law." Legislation could create some kind of funding stream for the programs, but that part of it clearly hasn't been figured out by team Trump, which hasn't even figured out how to explain what Trump actually means when he says "terminate" the payroll tax.
Nancy Altman, president of Social Security Works, states critically that while analysis is based on hypothetical legislation that would do what Trump says he wants to do, which is get rid of the payroll tax, "in fact, Trump is claiming the authority to defund Social Security with no action from Congress whatsoever."
Trump is exerting the power, and believes he has the power, to do this on his own.
Altman continues, "Trump claimed the authority to unilaterally stop collection of Social Security’s dedicated funding under 26 U.S Code §7508A upon his declaring a federal emergency." There's Trump acting with the unitary executive power he feels Senate Republicans granted him when they refused to impeach him. "The law permits deferral for up to a year," "long enough to defund & destroy Social Security disability insurance. If he declared additional emergencies through 2023, he could, on his own, end all of Social Security." ~ Given Trump's willingness to destroy the U.S. Postal Service, an institution that predates the Constitution & even predates American independence, he's not going to hold Social Security sacred. He holds nothing sacred—not even human life, as his response to the pandemic has made abundantly clear.
So when the chief actuary of Social Security tells us that Social Security would be dead & gone before the end of Trump's 2nd term, it's not alarmist. It's a statement of fact. ~
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https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2020/8/25/1972125/-Social-Security-would-be-gone-by-2023-under-Trump-s-plan-to-terminate-the-payroll-tax
*Social Security Works, Website, https://socialsecurityworks.org/
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