Look to Big Salaries to Rescue Social Security

Re: “Greenspan Urges Higher Retirement Age,” Nov. 21: Just this year, the 50 top golf pros have earned from $419,189 to $1,793,943; the top five salaries in the National Football League range from $5.7 million to $6.4 million; Kenny Rogers earns between $7 million and $10 million in a typical year; Bill Gates is worth $36 billion; Demi Moore gets paid $10 million per picture; Shaquille O’Neal receives $130,000 per game. My husband makes less than $65,400 a year.

What do they all have in common? None of them pay Social Security taxes on more than $65,400 earned per year, and all of the above will be able to collect at age 62.

What if everyone paid the 6.2% Social Security tax on all earned wages each year, not just the first $65,400? My husband and most of the rest of the population pay into Social Security on every penny earned for our entire lives.

How much more money would the millionaires and billionaires be adding to the Social Security trust fund if they did the same? Enough to keep it solvent? How much do our politicians pay? Maybe that’s why the law isn’t changed.

GEORGANN MACKENZIE

Culver City

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Why don’t we call a spade a spade? If the government had to return the multibillions of dollars taken from the Social Security Trust Fund to help pay for the general budget, wouldn’t it be the government, not just the trust fund, which would go broke by 2012?

SHIRLEY WOLF

Santa Monica