Make Social Security Taxes Equitable

R. Kent Weaver (“Note to Congress: Compromise,” Opinion, March 17) fails to address the simple and nearly instantaneous solution to the Social Security “crisis.” Right now, something like 12% of a low-wage worker’s salary--every penny of which is needed for his family to survive--goes into Social Security, while CEOs, whose salaries range in the millions of dollars, pay some tiny fraction of 1% of their incomes into Social Security.

If we were to abolish the artificial ceiling on the payroll tax so that every single person anywhere, in any industry, in any tax bracket, paid the same percentage of every dollar earned as salary, stock options, dividends or bonuses, the Social Security system would be awash in money.

It does not matter that the very rich would never be able to recoup their payments into the system with the benefits they would receive. The taxes we are all faced with are the dues we pay in order to live in the greatest country on Earth.

We must stop the free ride enjoyed by those with too much money for the sake of the community and country and for the survival of democracy itself.

Tim Wawrzeniak

Channel Islands Harbor