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"The ultra-wealthy are avoiding nearly $2 trillion in taxes every 10 years," said Sen. Ron Wyden. "That's where we ought to go to start making progress."
The Democratic chair of the Senate Finance Committee said during a hearing Wednesday that instead of tossing Social Security's sacred guarantee "in the trash" by cutting benefits, lawmakers should crack down on mega-rich tax dodgers as a way to keep the New Deal program fully solvent for decades to come.
"The ultra-wealthy are avoiding nearly $2 trillion in taxes every 10 years," Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) said during a Senate Budget Committee hearing. "That is enough to keep Social Security whole till the end of this century."
"That's where we ought to go to start making progress," Wyden added.
The senator's remarks came during a hearing titled "Social Security Forever: Delivering Benefits and Protecting Retirement Security," which featured testimony from Social Security Administration Commissioner Martin O'Malley and several expert witnesses.
Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), who presided over the hearing, used his opening remarks to blast GOP proposals to raise the retirement age, a change he said would "especially hurt low-income retirees."
Whitehouse, the chair of the Senate Budget Committee, acknowledged that some Republicans have pushed back on the notion that the GOP wants to cut Social Security benefits. But if Social Security benefit cuts "really are off the table," the senator said, "that leaves only one other option to prevent insolvency: raise revenue."
"There is no third option. And that means it's time to get to work identifying smart, fair ways to raise revenue, fund the Social Security Trust Fund, and preserve and protect benefits," Whitehouse continued. "Fortunately, there are solutions that would both extend Social Security solvency indefinitely with zero benefit cuts and make our tax system fairer, like my Medicare and Social Security Fair Share Act."
At today's @SenateBudget hearing, @SenWhitehouse slams Republican plans to slash $1.5 trillion from Social Security.
Whitehouse plans to strengthen Social Security by requiring the wealthy to pay their fair share! pic.twitter.com/nWRJt3hUWp
— Social Security Works (@SSWorks) September 11, 2024
Wednesday's hearing came in the heat of a presidential race in which Social Security has featured prominently, with Democrats warning that GOP nominee Donald Trump would push for deep benefit cuts if he's elected to another White House term.
During Tuesday night's debate, Democratic nominee Kamala Harris made the only mention of Social Security, vowing to protect the program that lifted 28 million people out of poverty last year.
Max Richtman, president and CEO of the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare, said in a statement following the debate that while Harris reinforced "her commitment to Social Security and Medicare," Trump "was mum on the topic."
"At least when Trump has nothing to say, he cannot compound his many conflicting and confusing statements about Social Security and Medicare—from calling Social Security a 'Ponzi scheme' to saying he's 'open' to 'cutting entitlements' and proposing to eliminate some of the taxes that fund Social Security," said Richtman. "Tonight's debate underlines the fundamental reality that one candidate in this race will truly protect Social Security and Medicare—and that is Kamala Harris."
According to the latest trustees report, Social Security is positioned to fully pay all benefits and administrative costs until 2035 and is 90% funded for the next quarter century.
Progressive lawmakers and advocacy groups have argued for years that the best way to ensure Social Security's long-term solvency is clear: make the wealthy pay their fair share into the program. Due to the payroll tax cap, millionaires stopped contributing to Social Security just 60 days into 2024.
"Warren Buffett stops paying into Social Security 30 seconds into the new year," O'Malley said during his testimony at Wednesday's Senate hearing, "and the people that clean these buildings pay in all through their paychecks."
"The behavior of Donald Trump and the oil and gas industry has added to evidence of possible misconduct," said three U.S. lawmakers.
A trio of senior congressional Democrats on Tuesday admonished fossil fuel executives to comply with a request for "information regarding quid pro quo solicitations" from former U.S. President Donald Trump, who earlier this year promised to gut climate regulations if they donated $1 billion to his Republican presidential campaign.
In May, Trump reportedly told Big Oil executives at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida that he would sign executive orders and take other action to boost the fossil fuel industry if they raised nine figures for his campaign. Executives from ExxonMobil, Chevron, Occidental Petroleum, and other corporations reportedly attended the dinner.
A May analysis by the green group Friends of the Earth Action found that the fossil fuel industry would reap an estimated $110 billion windfall from tax breaks alone under Trump's proposed policies—an 11,000% return on Big Oil's billion-dollar investment.
Following the revelation of Trump's quid pro quo offer, House Oversight and Accountability Ranking Member Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), Senate Budget Committee Chair Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), and Senate Finance Committee Chair Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) wrote to the head of the American Petroleum Institute—the leading Big Oil lobby—and the CEOs of eight companies seeking answers about whether they accepted what Raskin called "Trump's explicit corrupt bargain."
Nearly four months later, the lawmakers are still awaiting satisfactory answers.
"Not only was your response to our inquiries insufficient; tellingly, none of the responses we have received to date refute the accuracy of the reporting, renewing our concern that Donald Trump is actively seeking to sell out American energy policy to the highest bidder," the trio wrote on Tuesday.
"In the weeks since our initial letters, the behavior of Donald Trump and the oil and gas industry has added to evidence of possible misconduct," the lawmakers continued. "Campaign finance records show that following Trump's quid pro quo solicitation at least one company made a significant contribution in support of Trump's presidential run."
"Specifically, on April 29, 2024, Continental Resources Inc. contributed $1 million to Make America Great Again, Inc.—a super PAC dedicated to Trump's reelection," they added. "Continental's CEO, Harold Hamm, who is also an informal adviser to Trump, has reportedly given $1.6 million to aid Trump's reelection so far this year, and he has raised millions more from independent oil producers operating in Texas and Alaska."
According to a Washington Post article published last month, Hamm's top priorities are "opening up more federal lands to drilling, easing the Endangered Species Act, and curbing numerous regulations at the Environmental Protection Agency."
During his first White House term, Trump rolled back regulations protecting the climate, environment, and biodiversity, resulting in increased pollution and premature deaths and fueling catastrophic planetary heating.
In addition to sounding the alarm over Trump's climate-wrecking policies, campaigners have expressed concerns about the GOP nominee's selection of Sen. JD Vance of Ohio as his running mate. Like Trump, Vance is a climate denier. He also has strong ties to the fossil fuel industry, his top donor.
"Since 1975, over $50 trillion in wealth has been redistributed from the bottom 90% to the top 1%," said one proponent. "That's trillion with a 'T.'"
Progressive advocates on Thursday threw their support behind a so-called billionaire minimum income tax endorsed by Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee, as a way to help tackle the wealth inequality that's worse in the U.S. than just about anywhere else in the Global North.
Left-leaning economists cheered news that Harris is embracing calls to tax the richest people in the country, who enjoy various ways of ensuring they pay lower tax rates than millions of working- and middle-class Americans including many nurses, teachers, and truck drivers.
"It's outrageous that billionaires pay less taxes than public school teachers."
The plan introduced by Harris' campaign this week would increase federal revenue by $5 trillion over a decade by hiking taxes on the wealthiest Americans. It contains tax increases proposed earlier this year in President Joe Biden's budget blueprint, which was welcomed by progressives with the caveats that much more needed to be done to help working-class Americans and that far too much money—nearly $900 billion—is allocated for military spending.
Republicans have falsely accused Harris of seeking to raise taxes on the middle class.
"There's lots of tax proposals in the Biden budget, which Harris has endorsed, so why are Republicans choosing to focus on the obviously false claim that the billionaire minimum income tax applies to the middle class when the name itself refutes that?" University of Wisconsin, Madison economic policy expert Harry Stein
said Thursday on social media.
As The New York Times reported Thursday:
No one making less than $400,000 a year would see their taxes go up under the plan. Instead, Ms. Harris is seeking to significantly raise taxes on the wealthiest Americans and large corporations. Congress has previously rejected many of these tax ideas, even when Democrats controlled both chambers.
While tax policy is right now a subplot in a turbulent presidential campaign, it will be a primary policy issue in Washington next year. The next president will have to work with Congress to address the tax cuts [then-President] Donald J. Trump signed into law in 2017. Many of those tax cuts expire after 2025, meaning millions of Americans will see their taxes go up if lawmakers don't reach a deal next year.
Harris' plan would raise the top marginal income tax rate from 37% to 39.6%, while also increasing Medicare surtax rates from 3.8% to 5% for Americans making more than $400,000 per year. Meanwhile, gains on investments would be taxed at the same rate as regular income for people making more than $1 million annually.
"The superrich don't make their money the way most people do. Their money comes from owning businesses, property, financial assets, and inheritances," economist Michael Linden
explained in a Wednesday social media post. "These types of income all enjoy special tax advantages, and that's why they end up paying less than middle-income Americans."
On Thursday, U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.)
said that "it's outrageous that billionaires pay less taxes than public school teachers. It's time that we make the wealthy pay their fair share. My ultra-millionaire tax would do just that."
In March, Warren and Reps. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) and Brendan Boyle (D-Pa.)
introduced an updated version of a 2021 bill that they said would bring in at least $3 trillion over 10 years by imposing a 2% tax on wealth over $50 million. The legislation also includes a 3% tax on the wealthiest households overall, with a 1% annual surtax on the net worth of households and trusts over $1 billion.
Last year, Reps. Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.) and Don Beyer (D-Va.)
reintroduced the Billionaire Minimum Income Tax Act with the support of scores of House Democrats. The bill—which was drafted in coordination with the White House and U.S. Treasury Department and is backed by dozens of labor and progressive groups—would amend the Internal Revenue Code to factor unrealized gains into a minimum tax on certain wealthy individuals.
Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) led 15 of his colleagues in introducing an upper chamber version of the legislation.
Meanwhile, Trump, the Republican nominee for president, has promised to extend the tax cuts from his $1.5 trillion plan, which was derided as the "GOP tax scam" when he signed it into law during his first White House term. A 2023 analysis by the progressive advocacy group Americans for Tax Fairness found that the collective fortune of U.S. billionaires skyrocketed by more than $2 trillion in the years after Trump signed the tax cuts into law.