There goes an old joke about the three biggest lies ever told. The first can’t be repeated in a family publication. The second: “The check is in the mail.” The third: “I’m from the government, and I’m here to help.”
To this, I think we should add a fourth: “You paid into Social Security all your life. That money is yours.”
Theoretically, of course, that would be nice, which is why it’s been sold to you that way. Politicians will occasionally admit that this isn’t the case — remember Al Gore’s famous “lockbox?” — but by and large the federal government pretends they’re just keeping your money under their mattress for you because, you know, reasons. Can’t be too safe!
Well apparently, someone’s been raiding that mattress, because a June 2025 trustees report indicated that benefits will start sharply decreasing in 2033, according to CNBC.
That’s because how the program actually works is that the government takes your money and puts it under the mattress they use to pay the people who used to pay into it — and not only is the number of payees growing smaller, the number of people living longer is growing larger, and there’s also ballooning government overhead.
But, they’ll tell you, it’s still your money. Unless they’re speaking frankly, as Sen. Patty Murray of Washington — a Democrat, in case you needed to ask — did on Wednesday.
Murray was speaking with Molly Dahl, the chief of long-term analysis at the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, about what people pay into Social Security by income level.
“Is it right that those making under $184,500, their effective payroll tax rate is roughly 12.4 percent?” Murray asked.
“That’s right, the statutory rate is 6.2 percent, but consensus view is that the employee pays, basically the employer cost is passed onto the employee, so the employee basically faces a rate of 12.4 percent,” Dahl said.
“What is the effective payroll tax for someone making a million dollars a year?” Murray said.
“So, they would pay the 12.4 percent on that first $185,00 roughly and then would not pay additional tax on the labored income above that amount, and so that math would work out to about 2.2 percent,” Dahl responded.
“OK, so, 12.4 percent for someone under $184,500, a millionaire would be about 2.2, what if you’re a billionaire — like Trump or Musk—your Social Security tax would be effectively, on my understanding—” Murray continued.
“Very, very much smaller,” Dahl said, to which Murray asked, “0.002 percent?”
“Yes,” Dahl said.
“That just doesn’t make sense to me,” Murray said.
MURRAY: Is it true that people making under $184k pay a 12.4% Social Security tax rate?
DAHL: Yes.
MURRAY: And the rate for someone making $1 million?
DAHL: 2.2%.
MURRAY: So, a 12.4% tax for people making less than $184k, but 2.2% for a millionaire or .0002% for billionaires. pic.twitter.com/vgQWi886Ut
— Senate Budget Democrats (@SenateBudget) March 25, 2026
It doesn’t — if, of course, you admit that Social Security isn’t “paying into” anything but an entitlement program. Because billionaires like Donald Trump or Elon Musk, they don’t get what they paid into Social Security in their dotage.
A peak monthly benefit is capped at $5,181 per individual if you retire at 70 in 2026, according to the Social Security Administration, and Congress is looking at capping benefits at $100,000 a year for couples, according to Fox Business.
So, in other words, this isn’t a contribution — it’s a straight-up tax to pay for people who haven’t paid into the system. Which is fine, if you want to admit that’s what it is: an entitlement.
Other people are paying for you, just as you paid for other people. Something has to be done, because of the mess we’ve gotten ourselves into — and I’m not saying that taxapalooza 2026 is the answer, given the pittance it would generate, but doing nothing isn’t, either.
But herein lies the problem: Murray won’t sell this as a tax on the campaign trail, and neither will anyone else. Nor will anyone agree to touch Social Security, which is the third rail of American politics.
In fact, it has almost become an addendum to the Declaration of Independence at this point: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness … and also you paid into Social Security all your life; that’s your money, and don’t anyone dare touch it.”
That’s how we got into this mess. That’s how Social Security became 22.6 percent of federal expenditures.
Taxing a few billionaires may sound nice, but that won’t get us out. Sen. Murray’s solution is prima facie bunkum. However, if we threw away the rhetoric and started talking about it like the program it actually is, maybe — just maybe — we’d steer the ship of entitlement largesse away from the iceberg of reality, no matter how much the passengers whinge that they spent all their life to ride the unsinkable SS Social Security and they’ll be darned if some fools let their voyage be troubled by any delay.
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