{"id":967460,"date":"2023-01-24T13:23:24","date_gmt":"2023-01-24T13:23:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jacobin.com\/2023\/01\/joe-biden-social-security-payroll-tax-exemption\/"},"modified":"2023-01-24T13:26:23","modified_gmt":"2023-01-24T13:26:23","slug":"biden-could-act-to-end-a-social-security-tax-break-for-the-rich","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2023\/01\/24\/biden-could-act-to-end-a-social-security-tax-break-for-the-rich\/","title":{"rendered":"Biden Could Act to End a Social Security Tax Break for the Rich"},"content":{"rendered":"\n \n\n\n\n

Joe Biden has repeatedly pushed to cut Social Security in the past. But a proposal to end the payroll tax exemption for the rich would bolster the crucial government service and even has Joe Manchin\u2019s support. The president has no excuse not to support it.<\/h3>\n\n\n
\n \n
\n President Joe Biden speaks during an event with a bipartisan group of mayors in the East Room of the White House in Washington, DC, US, on January 20, 2023. (Andrew Harrer \/ Bloomberg via Getty Images)\n <\/figcaption> \n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n\n \n

When West Virginia Democratic senator Joe Manchin this weekend endorsed bolstering Social Security by ending a payroll tax exemption for the rich, he was backing a proposal pioneered by progressive lawmakers more than two decades ago.<\/p>\n

The question now is whether President Joe Biden \u2014 who has pushed Social Security cuts in the past and whose new chief of staff touted such cuts \u2014 will seize the opportunity to shore up the system\u2019s revenue, or instead try to strike a deal with Republicans to slash the program.<\/p>\n

During a Sunday CNN interview, Manchin was asked about Republicans\u2019 potential push to cut Social Security. He responded<\/a> that the \u201ceasiest and quickest thing we can do is raise the cap\u201d that stops charging Social Security taxes on income over $160,000 per year<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you\u2019re getting a paycheck \u2014 now, in West Virginia, in a state like mine, [where] the median income is much lower than that, they\u2019re paying 100 percent of the tax,\u201d he said. \u201cIn wealthier areas, they are paying [a] very small percentage of that tax.\u201d<\/p>\n

Manchin also said he opposed the creation of a new commission to cut Social Security, like the Simpson-Bowles Commission created by President Barack Obama in 2010.<\/p>\n

Though Manchin is one of the most conservative (and compromised<\/a>) Democrats in Congress, his statement about lifting the payroll tax cap echoes demands by progressives for the last quarter century. They have for years noted data<\/a> showing exactly the reality the West Virginia lawmaker articulated: because the wealthy are today reaping so much more money than everyone else, the richest Americans are escaping far more of the Social Security tax than the system was originally designed to capture.<\/p>\n

The congressional push to lift the cap started as far back as 1999, when Oregon Democratic representative Peter DeFazio \u2014 one of the original founders of the Congressional Progressive Caucus \u2014 introduced<\/a> legislation<\/a> to eliminate the cap and subject all but the first $4,000 of wages to the payroll tax.<\/p>\n

The concept proved so simple and popular that by 2005, then president George W. Bush<\/a> indicated he would be open to raising the cap to subject more income to the levy. South Carolina Republican senator Lindsey Graham endorsed<\/a> the move, saying<\/a> that wealthier Americans should accept it \u201cwith the whole idea that you\u2019re helping people less fortunate than you.\u201d<\/p>\n

The GOP proposals stalled because Republicans were trying to tie them to their push to privatize Social Security. However, the payroll tax initiative soon became part of the House Progressive Caucus\u2019s proposed budget in 2012<\/a>. A year later, DeFazio, Bernie Sanders, and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Nevada Democrat, introduced new legislation<\/a> to lift the cap.<\/p>\n

Sanders then campaigned<\/a> on the initiative in his presidential bid, and Biden endorsed<\/a> a more limited version of the concept as well.<\/p>\n\n \n\n \n \n \n

Who Will Show Up: the Old Biden or the New Biden?<\/h2>\n \n

If Republicans ignore former president Donald Trump\u2019s new demand<\/a> to avoid Social Security cuts, the outcome of this matter will hinge on which version of Joe Biden dives into the fight.<\/p>\n

During the 2020 presidential campaign, Sanders called out the old Biden \u2014 the one who proposed to cut and\/or freeze Social Security funding. As the American Prospect<\/em><\/a> reported at the time:<\/p>\n

Going back to 1984, Biden has expressed interest in deals that would cut Social Security. He proposed freezing Social Security spending and periodically highlighted that desire; he voted for a balanced-budget amendment even after failing to shield Social Security from it; and he demanded that Social Security be \u201cput on the table\u201d during his last presidential run. He associates himself with a crowd known for foregrounding deficit concerns and fully willing to make \u201ctough choices\u201d on earned benefits like Social Security. Bruce Reed, Biden\u2019s vice presidential chief of staff from 2011 to 2013 and a top campaign aide, was executive director of the Bowles-Simpson commission, which pursued deficit reduction and proposed increases in the retirement age.<\/p>\n

As a coup de grace, in 2012 and 2013 then-Vice President Biden helped lead a publicly advocated scheme to reduce future Social Security benefits as part of a \u201cgrand bargain\u201d with Republicans.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Despite video of Biden publicly boasting<\/a> about his push to freeze Social Security, corporate media instead attacked<\/a> Sanders for daring to criticize Biden.<\/p>\n

Soon after, Yahoo News<\/em> reported<\/a> on Biden brazenly lying his way through a televised debate, pretending he had never once tried to cut Social Security.<\/p>\n

The 2020 campaign pressure, though, did elicit a shift: Biden reversed course and endorsed<\/a> a more limited proposal to lift the payroll tax cap to shore up Social Security\u2019s finances. He also pledged<\/a> to expand rather than cut Social Security. As president, he has promised<\/a> he will not try to cut the program and he has slammed<\/a> what he called the GOP \u201cplan to put Social Security and Medicare on the chopping block\u201d \u2014 an attack he reportedly<\/a> plans to repeat this week.<\/p>\n

It is impossible to know if this new version of Biden will hold the line as tensions inevitably ratchet up and brinksmanship ensues. After all, Biden\u2019s senior adviser remains Bruce Reed, who was the executive director<\/a> of the Obama-Biden administration\u2019s commission that proposed Social Security cuts<\/a>. And a new White House personnel move could be a bad omen.<\/p>\n

This weekend, Biden named longtime corporate consultant Jeff Zients as his new White House chief of staff. As an Obama administration budget official in 2013, Zients defended<\/a> the White House\u2019s so-called chained Consumer Price Index (CPI) plan that would have resulted in a cut to Social Security benefits.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe switch to chained CPI, like the additional domestic discretionary spending cuts in the budget, is a clear example of the President\u2019s willingness to make tough choices in order to reach a bipartisan agreement,\u201d Zients said in congressional testimony. \u201cThe President has made it clear that he is willing to make these compromises as part of a deal that calls for shared sacrifice.\u201d<\/p>\n

Whether or not Biden reprises a push for a similar deal with Republicans depends on who shows up this year: the new Biden or the old Biden.<\/p>\n\n \n \n \n\n \n \n

You can subscribe to David Sirota\u2019s investigative journalism project, the\u00a0Lever<\/i>,\u00a0here<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This post was originally published on Jacobin<\/a>. <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When West Virginia Democratic senator Joe Manchin this weekend endorsed bolstering Social Security by ending a payroll tax exemption for the rich, he was backing a proposal pioneered by progressive lawmakers more than two decades ago. The question now is whether President Joe Biden \u2014 who has pushed Social Security cuts in the past and [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1777,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/967460"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1777"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=967460"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/967460\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":967461,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/967460\/revisions\/967461"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=967460"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=967460"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=967460"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}