Saving Social Security

The Times’ Dec. 10 editorial discussed three ways to solve Social Security’s problems: boost payroll taxes, cut benefits, or earn more on Social Security investments. There was no mention of one other option: remove the present ceiling ($68,400) on the payroll amount taxed for Social Security.

Removing the ceiling on the Social Security payroll tax could help to ease the future fiscal problems predicted for Social Security. This alternative should be compared with raising the Social Security payroll tax for low-income wage earners or cutting their benefits. It should also be compared with the uncertainties of relying on the stock market to increase the earnings of retirement funds.

EDGAR ROSEN

Santa Barbara

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If “too few dollars are coming into the system,” how do you explain the multimillion-dollar surplus every year since the trust’s inception? If the money has been spent for U.S. Treasury bonds, how can Social Security go broke owning all those bonds?

SHIRLEY WOLF

Santa Monica

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By now everyone is aware that Social Security is not a pension plan as we usually consider it, but is a pay-as-you-go system. So why maintain the fiction that it must be paid for out of earned income, hence a payroll tax? Social Security (and even more so, Medicare) are arguably for the general welfare, so why not use a general income tax (including interest, dividends, capital gains)? This would almost certainly solve the problem at a rate no higher, and probably lower, than the current payroll tax rate. This would also help lessen the load on low-income people, for whom the payroll tax is typically the largest tax burden.

Let the Wall Street wheeler-dealers contribute some funds to the solution, rather than getting a massive handout in investment fees to gamble with working Americans’ tax dollars.

LEE AYDELOTTE

Huntington Beach

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Teresa Ghilarducci (Commentary, Dec. 7) says fixing Social Security is as easy as raising payroll deductions by 1%. The 7.65% that is taken from a person’s payroll check is only half of what he or she really pays; another 7.65% is paid by the employer. As a self-employed person, I pay double (15.3%) Social Security taxes. I pay more in Social Security taxes than income taxes.

Ghilarducci states that Social Security is insurance. It is not insurance, because with insurance you have a say-so in how you receive payment on the policy, when you want it, and you can borrow from it if you need to. Since my legalized extortion money, the Social Security I am forced to pay, is supposed to be mine, let me invest and spend it as I see fit.

TIM LUCKETT

Rancho Cucamonga