[Moseley]

"That's all well and good, but none of it is relevant to the idea that the poor are getting a raw deal because they make contributions on a greater percentage of their earnings. The distortions created by the mechanics of the system do NOT find their root at the contribution/benefit formula. Consider the alternative: the rich pay based on 100% of their earnings but get a benefit based on 5% of their earnings. This is better?"

That's not the way it works. The more you pay in to ssi, the more you get when you retire. So the football player would get more ssi at 62 paying on 150k of his income.

We would not have a problem keeping ssi afloat, if the surplus had not been used to pay down the deficit and the ceiling on ssi taxes had increased with inflation.

The MAJOR problem is: Congress is having to come up with a way of dealing with the fact that they will no longer have 300+ billion in ssi surpluses to pay the deficit, while at the same time, having to come up with billions every year to pay back the 3 trillion ssi surplus.