'It Violates The Basic Foundation Of Social Security': Johnson Rips Plan To Lift Social Security Cap

[0:00] thank you senator johnson hey mr chairman well we'll never fix this if we're not willing to take [0:05] a look at the reality of what social security is again it was a forced savings program what you [0:12] paid in was supposed was supposed to be invested and then the beauty of compound interest you'd be [0:17] able to collect retirement based on what you paid in correct mr akobos excuse me sorry senator yes [0:25] and again americans thought that that money was being invested but the money was spent it's gone [0:31] right in this place was a u.s government bond put into the trust fund so how much value does the [0:36] u.s government bond have the u.s government agency the answer is zero right because when the trustees [0:43] take that bond to pay out benefits because benefits exceed revenue right now the u.s treasurer just has [0:49] to issue another bond right correct so again the trust fund is a fiction and already we are either [0:56] borrowing or taking out the general fund to make up the difference between benefits and receipts correct [1:01] on an annual basis yes so again what's unfair about the lifting the cap is it violates the basis [1:09] you know the basic foundation of uh social security which is a you know you you pay in and you get out [1:17] what you pay in but but you know so if you want to turn into total welfare system that's a different [1:22] conversation um already it's quite the welfare system uh i'll submit for the record table one the money's [1:30] worth ratios for hypothetical workers with various earnings levels i'll just talk about the middle [1:35] three a low income median income and high income the people who benefit best are two are one earner [1:42] couples they get the most out of social security so if you're a low income again this is a very [1:49] detailed table but the the people who make out the best is somebody uh born in 1973 single income [1:58] couple they get it 3033 cents out for every buck they put in okay if you're a single man [2:08] high wage earner born in 1943 you're gonna get 63 cents out so it's all over the map but it's very [2:16] imprecise in terms of you know what you put in versus what you get out and now what the democrats [2:22] want to do is they just want to alleviate that do great harm to our economy because again small [2:28] businesses that you know that gets taxed at the individual level you know mr bezos is a c corp and [2:34] i'd love to talk to you about taxing all business income at the ownership level turn everybody in [2:38] pastures then you wouldn't have that problem um but again you've got to recognize how grossly [2:45] mismanaged social security was i did a chart this is a spreadsheet years ago had we taken those surpluses [2:52] actually invested them into let's say stock index fund which i know we didn't have back then but [2:57] something equivalent back then we would have something eight trillion dollars with the run [3:01] up in the in the stock markets probably about 15 trillion dollars of hard assets we'd be talking [3:08] about increasing benefits but we didn't do that so so now the solution for fixing social security is [3:15] lift the cap and just tax the wealthy who are who are by the way based on the deal that social [3:21] security was supposed to be a dollar pudding you're going to get that plus compound interest they're [3:25] not getting it they're getting 63 cents as low as 63 cents so mr akobas just commenting where i on [3:32] one of the points i made there well senator i certainly agree that we have reached a point where [3:36] the significant majority of beneficiaries are receiving far more than they contributed into [3:42] the program over their lifetime and that's frankly that's pretty much the case right now yes that is [3:47] the case and and that's you know in part why we are at a point where the program is mismatched between [3:52] the revenues that are paid in and the benefits that are being taken out and so we need to find ways [3:56] on on both sides of the ledger to make those lines grow closer together so again my point is let's [4:02] honestly look at what social security was how it was set up how grossly mismanaged it was how [4:09] economically destructive it will be to increase i mean 12 percent increase in taxes on a small business [4:16] person you may say it's wealthy but you're making 250 grand as a small business you make half a million [4:23] you're putting that additional 250 000 into plant equipment to grow the business to create jobs [4:29] again unfortunately a lot of our democrat colleagues don't understand how the private sector works [4:33] and what wealthy people do with their money they invest it to the benefit of our economy so again [4:39] it starts with recognizing reality how grossly mismanaged social security was they'll start looking for [4:44] real solutions and by the way it's not gonna be a calamity it shouldn't be i mean already we are [4:50] making up benefits because benefits exceed revenue just because the trust fund runs out doesn't mean that [4:57] we won't be able to or shouldn't plus up benefits to meet the promise right it's just the the fiction [5:03] of the trust fund runs out and now all of a sudden by law you're supposed to have to reduce benefits [5:08] but we won't what we need to do is reduce the deficit return to a reasonable pre-pandemic level of [5:13] spending so we have the wherewithal two plus of benefits that's the first thing we ought to do [5:18] reduce the deficit by reducing spending thank you