Appreciate the thorough response. Sorry to have been somewhat glib: I've just run into a few too many folks who argue that SS solutions are as easy as "lifting

Appreciate the thorough response. Sorry to have been somewhat glib: I've just run into a few too many folks who argue that SS solutions are as easy as "lifting the cap". I think voters (especially the high income voters who would be affected) aren't likely to be fooled by the employer/employee split, even putting aside those who are self-employed. And raising taxes on a whole bunch of "moderately" high earners in deep blue, high cost-of-living cities isn't particularly popular even with Democrats: They worked hard in the last go-round to push President Obama to only end the Bush rate cuts for the "truly" wealthy households at $400K+. I also think you're slightly over-estimating the money available over the cap: There are presumably many more households with two earners closer to $85,000 each than households with one earner at $170k, and SS taxes are collected per-earner. A little calculation from here... https://www.ssa.gov/policy/docs/chartbooks/fast_facts/2016/fast_facts16.html https://www.ssa.gov/policy/docs/chartbooks/fast_facts/2016/f... ...suggests that the total taxed income base of Social Security is around $6.4T. Total AGI is somewhere around $9T, so 1% of the difference is $26B (and of course that AGI includes capital gains, so that's all you can get in total with both tweaks). Maybe another $10B or so since the taxes could come off gross income rather than adjusted gross. Anyway, it's certainly not impossible to make the numbers work, especially if the economy doesn't go into a Trump-induced tailspin.