LETTERS: PAY SOCIAL SECURITY TAX ON ALL INCOME

To the editor:

Here are some reflections on Social Security reform:

Current suggestions are limited to increasing age eligibility, reduced benefits, investing in private-industry financial instruments and increasing taxes in general.

Most lower-wage and salary earners are oblivious of the $64,800 limitation of the 6.2 percent Social Security deduction from earnings matched by employers and contributed to Social Security. This limitation leaves untouched by Social Security taxes earnings above that amount. The Medicare deduction of 1.45 percent applies to total earned income.

Rarely, if ever, is deducting the 6.2 percent for Social Security on total earned income mentioned in the public dialogue.

If contributions to Social Security were applied to total earned income, it would certainly produce a volume of current income to the Social Security funding process that cannot be ignored. Is this fair? If it is fair to deduct Social Security contributions from all incomes of those earning $64,800 or less, would it not be just as fair to continue the deduction from the total income of others?

If, however, deducting Social Security tax from total earned income were proposed or even brought into the discussion, it would bring a deluge of political opposition from high-income individuals, business interests and the investment community -- generally the segment from which the significant political contributions emanate.

Its impact would include downscaling higher salaries because of employer matching costs. It would cause widespread fancy footwork trying to circumvent the responsibility. It would probably necessitate increasing the top end of the retirement benefit scale.

Even though the concept is being virtually ignored, it is the nature of things that ideas held in obscurity sometimes have a way of surfacing as times and circumstances changes, as in the late 1920s and 1930s.

After perusing the foregoing, one is again reminded of Winston Churchill's observation: "Americans will always do the right thing, but only after they have tried everything else."

GILBERT DEGENHARDT

Cape Girardeau