Former Utah Republican Sen. Mitt Romney has called for higher taxes on the super-rich to help save Social Security for future generations, saying “it’s time for rich people like me to pay more.”
Former Republican presidential candidate and Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney wrote in an article Op-ed published in The New York Times On Friday, wealthy Americans should donate more money to help save the Social Security trust fund.
POLITICS: Marco Rubio Shares Awkward Vanity Fair Photo — and JD Vance Really Got It Into It
The fund is expected to run out of money by 2034, and if Congress doesn’t act, that number will quickly approach a cliff and people’s retirement benefits will be significantly reduced.
“I believe in free enterprise, and I believe all Americans should be able to strive for financial success. But we have reached a point where any solution to our nation’s economic problems will allow the wealthiest Americans to contribute more,” Romney wrote in the column.
Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, during a Senate Budget Committee hearing on Tuesday, March 12, 2024, in Washington, DC. U.S. President Joe Biden unveiled a $7.3 trillion fiscal year 2025 budget proposal on Monday, laying out a second-term vision to provide voters with more services, middle-class tax relief and price controls through higher taxes on the wealthy and corporations. Bloomberg via Getty Images
Romney also said he supports closing tax loopholes exploited by the wealthy, calling them “tax caves.” That includes ideas many Democrats have floated over the years, such as raising the tax rate on carried interest and taxing large estates of more than $100 million that are passed down after the asset owner dies to avoid paying capital gains taxes.
The former Utah senator cited Tesla CEO Elon Musk as a prominent example of wealthy Americans taking advantage of these loopholes, noting that Musk’s now-defunct Department of Government Efficiency “failed miserably” to cut government spending earlier this year.
POLITICS: Gavin Newsom uses one word to repeat Trump’s speech over and over
“Yes, taxes slow growth,” Romney wrote. “But most of the measures I’m proposing will have relatively little impact on economic growth. If my party wants to be the party that provides more opportunities for working- and middle-class Americans — to be the party that tries to restore some confidence in our capitalist system — this would be a start.”
Romney was one of the wealthiest members of Congress before leaving the Senate when his term ends in 2024. He has long supported tax cuts and reforming benefits to improve Social Security’s long-term solvency.
But a growing national debt of more than $38 trillion, fueled in part by tax cuts for the wealthy in one of President Donald Trump’s beauty bills, and growing voter concerns about income inequality appear to have changed Romney’s mind on tax increases.
Romney concluded: “This will help us avoid the cliff ahead and may quell some of the anger that is sure to grow as unemployed college graduates see tax-advantaged billionaires sailing 300-foot yachts.”
Politics: Kennedy family slams Kennedy Center name change
Tom Steyer, the billionaire environmentalist running as a Democrat for California governor, agreed with Romney.
“Tax me more. I’ve been saying this for a long time,” Steyer wrote online. “Even rational Republicans agree with that because they’re focused on the numbers.”
Read Romney’s entire op-ed here.
political dynamics
Read the original article on The Huffington Post
