Safety net can be mended

Re: “Debt forces entitlements into spotlight,” July 11. This story left out essential pieces already known to be the solution for this puzzle.

As recently verified by the U.S. Senate Special Committee on Aging, raising the retirement age incrementally can replace a small portion of the long-term forecasted Social Security deficit. However, there are ways to ensure solvency without cutting benefits or raising the retirement age.

Lifting the earnings cap (it’s now $106,800); slightly raising the payroll tax rate (by only one-twentieth of a percent annually over 20 years); extending coverage to more workers (including newly hired state and local government employees); and earmarking a small bit of estate tax revenue would fully close the gap.

These actions would only minimally impact the highest wage earners while ensuring Social Security continues as is. As any family must adjust its budget through carefully considered small reductions throughout, so can this essential safety net be preserved (and even strengthened) for all who would otherwise spend their “golden years” in poverty.

The Social Security sky is not falling and won’t if only we recognize there is not only one solution to the problem.

Melissa Rose

Republic, Wash.