re: The social security tax cap is going to be lifted before 2033.

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Social security is the most successful program of the 20th century. It did more to eliminate senior poverty and needs to be funded.

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That's quite a trick sense the main beneficiary of SS is Uncle Sam, not seniors

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I think I see the problem here.

Everyone who lived through the Great Depression is dead.

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No.

The problem here is the ROI on SS as a retirement vehicle sucks.
If the program was simply about retirement and senior stability, i.e., a national pension fund, the size of SS checks for seniors could easily exceed 2x their current payout based on contribution amounts, and sustain those within a permanently solvent program.

But SS is not a retirement vehicle.
It is a government borrowing program masking itself as a senior benefit.

As I've pointed out many times, FDR's motivation for SS was to attain a source of borrowing to fund New Deal initiatives at a time where willing lending entities were few and far between. Labeling the program as a senior "benefit" was marketing genius.

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Ive never understood why we dont increase cost on new earners vs everyone who has already contributed for years.

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That might be the most Boomer thing I've ever read. I'm not one to blame Boomers but in this case, they've known SS was heading for a cliff but refused to act during their peak earning years. Now the problem is foisted on younger generations and they are a large enough demo to resist cuts.to their own benefits. Although, realistically govt just spent their contributions anyway and issued debt so what would the point of more contributions to get ahead of the problem be?

The whole “raiding ss” thing is a bit of a myth:

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A common argument asserts that Social Security’s financial difficulties are simply the result of lawmakers raiding its $3 trillion trust fund. In reality, the trust fund was always just an accounting mechanism. It never contained real economic resources from which to pay benefits, and there was never any statutory mechanism for Congress to “save” the $3 trillion surplus that Social Security ran between 1983 and 2009. Instead, the Social Security Administration (SSA) was required by law to lend its surpluses to the Treasury to finance current government spending—with a promise that the Treasury (i.e., the taxpayers) would repay the Social Security system (with interest) down the road when it begins to run deficits. The balance of the Social Security trust fund is merely a running tally of how much of that $3 trillion loan has yet to be repaid to SSA by the Treasury and taxpayers. It is not a savings account with economic resources from which to pay the benefits.

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The whole “raiding ss” thing is a bit of a myth:

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Correct.

SS was designed to be "raided" from its inception. It's never strayed from that mission.

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To know what is going to happen would mean they know what congress is going to do with all the waste and fraud being uncovered.

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DOGE already said they expected to save 150B through FY26. While significant amount of money, that's a drop in the bucket compared to other budget items.

So we aren't looking to DOGE for any significant savings

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Because you can quickly get a much higher figure by adding up some of the most publicized things they have identified

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They posted shite on X but never followed through. The DOGE website itself reflects the much lower number.

Govt spending ahead of last year and above current budget

You're right, they should really be trying to squeeze more out the bottom 10%.

I feel sorry for you.

I dont know how you do that without taxing unrealized gains as Biden/Harris proposed but that would be problematic. Biden also proposed capping stepped up basis at death to $1m and taxing anything above that at 30+% which would be outrageous. Whenever I go back and lookmat those proposals it surprises me there was nearly zero backlash. I think a strong case can be made for eliminating stepped up basis but it wouldnt bring in more than a few dozen Billion $/yr. Still, makes no sense to me that the earner/investor pays tax on gains in their lifetime but heirs that neither earned the capital to invest or risked it, never pay tax on those same gains when eventually realized. Also, I know we want to encourage investing in the economy but tax rates on an individuals labor income are much higher than passive investment income which seems unjust.