During a roundtable discussion, Congressman Sean Casten talked about a stool.
The discussion, which took place April 13 in a meeting room at his district office in Lombard, centered around some of the problems senior citizens are facing and that includes some of the uncertainty of retirement security.
Casten (D-6th) calls it a “three-legged stool” comprising Social Security, private pensions and personal savings.
The Social Security leg is wobbly. Casten said that the issue has him worried as talk about less money being available is prevalent.
Casten said he had two solutions that he hoped his peers in Washington would consider.
“We need to fix the (Federal Insurance Contribution Act) Tax,” he said of money taken out of employees’ pay for Social Security.
“It’s obscene that if you make $185,000, you pay just as much FICA tax as (billionaire) Elon Musk. Fixing that would solve any solvency concerns that are there.”
Another idea he would like to see is a revamping of the collection of income tax, with some of the money going into the Social Security fund.
“We need to give the (Internal Revenue Service) enough bodies to do their job,” Casten said. “The IRS has told us that the taxes due every year and the taxes collected are almost a trillion-dollar gap.”
He said the IRS doesn’t have the resources to go through and audit to chase people down. He said they preferentially prioritize the simplest tax returns.
“That means the richer you are, the less likely you will get audited,” Casten said. “And that has a lot of FICA money in it, too.”
The resistance is that revamping the IRS would cost $280 billion over 10 years. Casten’s math is that it’s worth the investment if it means getting $10 trillion back in lost taxes.
He likes the two ideas, but is not sure how far they will get.
“Neither of these bills will get to the floor without overwhelming partisan majorities, which makes me sad,” Casten said.
Meanwhile, that leg of that stool is even more wobbly. Cheryle Bellamy-Bonner, who is president of the American Federation of Government Employees Local 1395 wants those who are in charge of helping seniors with their social security problems to be better prepared.
“The biggest thing right now is the 800 number,” she told the members of the roundtable. “They don’t get an answer on the 800 number. If they do get an answer…I tell people that if you call 10 times you will get 10 different answers.”
She said that normally training someone to do the job is three or four months but currently they get three hours of training.
“My take on it is that they really don’t care if they give service,” Bellamy-Bonner said. “They don’t care if they can answer the questions. They just care that Congress is looking at their answer rate.
“Yes, they are answering the phone, but they are not answering the question.”
Diane Slezak, the executive director of AgeOptions, a support service for aging individuals, hopes that this issue can get cleaned up soon as she said her organization has received numerous calls about receiving wrong information about Social Security.
“Getting the wrong answers is just horrific,” she said.
I agree completely with Sean Casten on this issue. I managed to work at least half of my adult “working years” after removing myself from a very difficult situation. The fortunate part is that I managed to work in technology where there was high demand, and thus, I not only supported my children who now live successful lives, but also managed to pay enough into Social Security and savings to now live somewhat frugally but decently in retirement. Every retired person has their own story, but I am sure most of us did not inherit from wealthy families, but worked hard for these benefits. We didn’t contribute into these funds to have this greedy grifter try to get his hands on any bit of “spare change” he thinks has half a chance of being available to him. HOW DARE HE!
Thank you.