Hillary Clinton on Workers Rights, Labor Unions, and the Social Security Tax Cap.

[progree]

20. So, what SPECIFICALLY does she propose to do about the S.S. funding gap?

I do not want to balance Social Security on the backs of our seniors & middle-class families. We have to move back toward a more fair and progressive tax system, and begin to move toward a balanced budget with a surplus.
-- 2007 Democratic debate at Drexel University (10/30/2007)

http://vote-ny.org/PoliticianIssue.aspx?State=NY&Id=NYCLINTONHILLARYRODHAM&Issue=BUSSocialSecurity

Hillary Clinton supports retaining the Social Security tax cap. The tax cap makes income in excess of $102,000 untaxable. The result is that the top 6% of income earners don't pay the social security tax on income above $117,000. Hillary Clinton called repealing the Social Security tax cap a "tax increase on the middle class."
-- Nov. 15, 2007 Democratic debate transcript

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_positions_of_Hillary_Rodham_Clinton#Social_Security_tax_cap

O.K. so she won't raise the Social Security tax cap, because she considers it a tax on the middle class (and it will catch some in the upper middle class, true). But it is about the only progressive way there is to close the Social Security funding gap and stave off trust fund exhaustion in around 2033, at which time, benefits will be reduced by 25% unless the law is changed. (And the projected trust fund exhaustion date has been advancing in recent years, for example, in 2002 it was projected to occur in 2041).

Other than means-testing S.S. retirement benefits which has the problem of making the S.S. retirement system more akin to a welfare program.

So what is she proposing?

[font color = red]On Edit[/font]And on making the tax system more progressive, specifically what is she proposing? Raising the capital gains tax? Raising the ordinary tax rate on the top bracket or two? Keeping in mind these changes have to be enough to meet her (2007) goal of balancing the budget.