Taxable Income. What comes to mind? Your paycheck? Or, your passive income, profit, dividends, and/or stockholder withdrawals?
If you receive your Taxable Income mainly by paycheck, you are the backbone supporting the independence, good health, and financial security for our society's elders, children, widows, and disabled. Although it's a noble cause . . . you have no choice. Social Security and Medicare responsibilities are deducted automatically from your paycheck earnings, and also create the record that you will be compensated for, when you enroll for your own benefits.
We all owe Federal Income Tax, but we do not all owe Social Security and Medicare taxes. Business owners, self employed, and other non-paycheck-earners can choose, decide, and avoid their responsibilities toward Social Security. These kinds of Taxable Income do not have automatic withdrawals taken because there is no paycheck. The amount of Social Security support that non-paycheck-earners volunteer to pay, in their Tax Return, is discretionary.
A $200k paycheck-earner has payroll taxes deducted based upon the 2015 'cap' of $118,500. Meanwhile, an individual paying taxes on $200k of other Taxable Income may decide to pay 'payroll taxes' on, say, $50,000 or . . . whatever. Like zero. Zero will get you bragging rights while enjoying a wine tasting under a trellis in Tuscany as you regal fellow luxury cruisers with your financial tips and tricks.
Well, and . . . if you do pay in to Social Security, you simply must, must, claim the Spousal Benefit, to maximize your return, dahling. hmmmmm You see, the spouse with the lesser (or zero) 'payroll-tax' record may claim a monthly benefit check that equals up to half of the other spouse's Social Security check. hmmmmm, so that $50k discretionary, voluntary, amount is worth a $75k basis to the marital retirement plan . . .
So. May we please consider a 'payroll taxation' arrangement that can be applied to 'all' Taxable Income? Why must we always hear about 'raising the cap to raise revenues'? Why not LOWER the cap, and broaden the demographic? Income-test the Spousal Benefit, maybe?
Social Security WILL be there in the future. Fear-mongering to the contrary, if you understand that Defense Spending (for example) gets allocations and/or borrows money every year, and you understand that Social Security CAN run a deficit (whether we'd like it to, or not), then you become more immune to the emotional, voter-turnout-blackmail. You can now begin to see that the relative-rosiness of Social Security's future is more about having the will to tackle boring, regular, budgetary, effort - perhaps even encourage imaginative solutions - than it is about any 'inevitable doomsday' poppycock.