[lucaspm98]

Okay, let's assume we take every last dollar from every billionaire in the U.S. regardless of the legality, feasibility, or morality. We now have $5.5 trillion dollars.

This would more than double the current $4.2 trillion in funds and extend the runway to bankruptcy ~10 years. That's not nothing, but it's a move you can only place once as no one with any chance of being impacted would stay around.

[acdha]

I feel it’s worth remembering that Social Security’s insolvency was created by the Republicans choosing to exempt everything over $125k from taxation. Restoring that would help immensely because there are a lot more millionaires than billionaires, and you should be thinking about cash flow rather than current asset holdings.

[everforward]

Social Security's insolvency was created by it being a rotating door of money rather than an actual pre-funded retirement account. Its funding only ever worked so long as there were more contributors than withdrawers (i.e. the population keeps growing, and retirees don't live too long).

I also think Social Security's implementation is regressive, and this only makes that worse. Social Security is a payroll tax, so it only gets paid on payroll. I suspect that millionaires and billionaires pay very little in Social Security and would continue to pay very little because their income is almost all investments, which doesn't require Social Security tax.

Highly compensated employees are often paid largely in stock, which I believe also doesn't get hit by Social Security (but I could be wrong there).

We are talking a significant swing in tax burden for people in the upper-middle/lower-upper. At $200k, it's about close to a 3 point increase in overall tax burden (i.e. from 20% of income to 23% or what have you). At $400k, it's close to a 5 point increase (~16% increase in overall tax rate). It also double-dips because employers pay half of that; at a $200k salary, it's about an extra $4,500 in taxes from the employee and $4,500 from the employer ($16.5k from both at $400k). In reality, the employee will likely pay for both with withheld raises/bonuses that the company uses to pay for the new tax.

[nine_zeros]

> Okay, let's assume we take every last dollar from every billionaire in the U.S. regardless of the legality, feasibility, or morality. We now have $5.5 trillion dollars.

This would be stupid. You collect money from the passive gains that are rising automatically.

If the $1 billion grows automagically to $1.1 billion - that is $100 million earned without doing anything - just tax that $100 million at say 10% which will make their return $90 million instead of the $100 million. They will still end up with $1.09 billion but they also return some value to the rest of the society that is making them wealthy.

Do this over and over for every concentrated billion in existence and keep funding social security deficits.