Report: Bernie Sanders Eyes Higher Taxes to Fund Social Security

Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., recently met with President Joe Biden to pitch an expanded payroll tax on affluent Americans to fully fund Social Security for decades, The Washington Post reported.

Sanders met with Biden and White House aides at the end of last month, where he proposed expanding the payroll taxes for high-earning Americans to fund Social Security for the next 70 years while providing an additional $2,400 per year to every beneficiary of the program. Biden reportedly was noncommittal to the proposal.

"It is not enough to point out the reactionary, anti-worker vision of the Republican Party. We have to present a positive, pro-worker alternative," Sanders told the Post. "The truth is that Social Security does have a solvency problem, and we have got to address that."

White House spokesman Robyn Patterson said in a statement to the Post: "The biggest threats to Social Security and Medicare are House and Senate Republican efforts to gut a program millions of Americans have been paying into since their first jobs as teenagers."

Patterson also noted that Biden "has promised more to keep Medicare solvent in his budget, but he won't budge on paying every penny of the benefits to Americans that have earned them."

The Post reported that Sanders' plan would involve applying the payroll tax to those who make more than $250,000 per year, lifting the current cap of $162,000 per year, and applying that tax to investment income as well. However, Biden has refused to break his campaign vow to not raise taxes on Americans earning less than $400,000 per year.

"The president's plan is that he's going to protect Social Security. He is going to protect Medicare," White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Monday. "These are programs that the American people pay into. These are programs that our veterans, that our seniors — right? — Americans across the country really value and need."

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