Republicans For Raising Taxes?

[ZiprHead]

As Social Security fund runs dry, some Republicans say it’s time to raise taxes. Raising the payroll tax is gaining traction as a fix — even in the anti-tax GOP — to fend off deep cuts in retirement benefits.

For decades, Washington has replayed the same fight over taming the soaring national debt: Democrats cite a need for more taxes. Republicans refuse. And anyone who suggests cutting the biggest source of spending — federal retirement benefits — gets attacked.
But a coming crisis in Social Security appears to be pushing at least a few Republicans off the GOP’s long-standing pledge never to raise taxes.

This summer, Sen. Bernie Moreno (R-Ohio) joined Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Massachusetts) in proposing to raise the payroll tax cap so people with higher incomes pay more into the program. Now the idea is emerging as an acceptable fix among other GOP lawmakers, including Rep. Tom Cole, the influential chair of the House Appropriations Committee.


“We’ve got too many people who say, ‘Well, we have to stay within the current income level or stay at the current tax rate,’” Cole (Oklahoma) said in an interview. “I’m willing to look at the tax rate. I am willing to raise the amount of income through tax.”

The rare GOP concessions on taxes come as lawmakers begin to confront a Social Security shortfall so large and so imminent that the party’s traditional demand for curtailing benefits is unlikely to suffice. In just six years, millions of Social Security recipients will absorb a 22 percent cut in benefits unless lawmakers provide an immediate infusion of nearly $500 billion.

“Twenty or thirty years ago,” when the shortfall was far in the future, “you could come up with a straight-faced solution” that solved the problem entirely by cutting future benefits, said Charles Blahous, a senior research strategist at George Mason University’s Mercatus Center who served from 2010 to 2015 as the Republican public trustee for Social Security.

Now the problem is so big and urgent, Blahous said, “I don’t think you can look at it with a straight face and not do all of the above.”

 

[Shadowy Man]

Raising the rate or just “proposing to raise the payroll tax cap”, which won’t affect the majority of people?

 

[scombrid]

Republicans love to raise taxes here in Florida. They brag about not having a state income tax. Now they want to end property tax on homestead properties. How to make up the shortfall? Jack up Sales tax, tolls, fees for parks, etc… higher taxes on commercial and rental properties that get paid by consumers and hit people with below median incomes hard. We fucking love regressive taxes down here and DeSantis and the current legislature are going to be the all time champions for raising taxes on lower income workers and renters.

Tax the fuck out of anyone other than the donor class. Modernfeudalism