A newly formed bipartisan group of senators is meeting to quietly discuss solutions for shoring up Social Security, including gradually raising the retirement age to 70, according to the global news network Semafor.
The group expects to release legislative recommendations by the end of the year, according to Sen. Mitt Romney, a Utah Republican who spoke to the press in late February.
While few details have been released, there are reports that members of the group—including Sen. Angus King, a Maine independent, and Sen. Bill Cassidy, a Louisiana Republican—are also proposing raising the taxable wage threshold as a way to extend the solvency of the Social Security trust fund beyond 2032.
“I think [our recommendations] will likely be introduced this year,” Romney told The Hill. “I’m not sure it’ll pass this year, but obviously, it’s a huge topic with enormous interest, and the fact that we have both Medicare and Social Security that are slated to become insolvent within a decade suggests that we need to make sure to save them.”
The push to find solutions is fueled by a Congressional Budget Office report released in February warning that the Social Security trust fund is on track to run out of money by 2032, a year earlier than previously reported.
The potential creation of a new sovereign wealth fund to help finance Social Security—which could minimize new taxes and reduce benefits—appears to be arousing interest from both parties.
Semafor was the first to report that this fund could involve more than $1.5 trillion in seed money to help finance investments.
There are still unknowns, like exactly how the fund would help raise money for the program, which is expected to pay out $1 trillion in benefits in 2023.
Romney told The Hill that the proposal would allow the country “to be able to borrow at low interest rates and invest in the growth of our economy, and perhaps economies of other nations as well.”
“That’s what other retirement funds do around the world, in corporations and in the railway world, and it creates a substantial source of revenue,” he said.
In years where investments “didn’t do terribly well, we would kick in through other sources and make sure that we don’t threaten in any way the benefits of recipients,” Romney added.
Senators are also discussing plans in the event the wealth fund falls short of at least 8% returns. These discussions include increasing the maximum taxable income and the payroll tax rate, as well as rejiggering the formula for calculating monthly benefits.
While President Joe Biden continues to push for new taxes on the wealthy to extend the life of Social Security, even that plan may not be a comprehensive solution.
Currently, incomes up to $160,200 are subject to the 12.4% payroll tax that finances Social Security benefits. If the GOP-led House agreed to raise the cap so that the 12.4% tax applied to incomes up to $250,000, only 73% of Social Security’s shortfall would be covered.
Even if the Biden administration and Democrats were able to levy a 70% tax on higher earners, it would still bring in only $10 trillion in new revenue, short of the $18.8 trillion needed to shore up Social Security’s deficit, says Brian Riedl, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute.