As Green, it is our fundamental belief that we should strive to insure that the elderly do not live in poverty. Further, people in their working years should be confident of a system that will be there when they are elderly and retired. This system, instituted by the Roosevelt administration during the Great Depression, has been instrumental in providing reliable income. However, in recent years, ominous warnings have come from Washington D.C. that the Social Security Trust fund will not be able to meet its full obligations sometime in the future- generally between 2040 and 2070 depending on how dreary an estimate is used.

What solutions have the Democrats and Republicans proposed so far? One solution is to continue to raise the retirement age-forcing people to continue to work longer. The other solution, generally favored by Republicans, is to put all or a portion of an individuals contributions at the mercy of the stock market in the hopes of higher investment returns equating to full benefits at retirement. As any financial who has seen their client's account statement fluctuate wildly over the past decade, the following holds true: The greater the potential return on the investment, the greater the risk.

So that leaves us with two no-win corporate party solutions: increase the retirement age, or risk losing your retirement funds in an unpredictable stock market environment. Some choice! Or are there other options? Currently, if you work for someone else, like most Americans do, you pay 6.2% of your wages as social security tax. That means if you make $33,500/yr, you will pay $2077 into the social security system. However, the maximum earnings you will pay the tax on is $87,900.00 . This means that if you work your way into middle management after 20 years at the same company earning $87,900/yr, you will pay the same amount of dollars into Social Security as the CEO who earns $20,000,000/yr. Each of you will contribute $5449.80 . Simply put, the CEO actually only pays 0.00027249% of their wages into social security. Not only is it not a flat tax, it is a regressive tax where the more you make, the less you pay! This is injustice if ever we have seen it. Greens are the only group with the guts to say: The rich do not pay their fair share. The Green Solution: Simply put, the solution to the problem of social security funding is this: abolish the cap on taxable earnings. Lets go back to our example of the CEO making $20,000,000/yr. If her entire income is taxed at 6.2%/yr, her contribution into social security goes from $5449.80 to $1,240,000/yr into social security.

As a Greens, we believe everyone should pay their fair share into our social safety net programs. Why? Because they benefit all of us, even if we do not directly collect funds or benefits from those programs. They support our society so that we can maintain our way of life, and insure that those who fall on economic disaster do not slip into a level of poverty they cannot escape. As a Green, it is simple, effective, and effecient solutions that we hope to bring to the electorate. With your support, we can do just that.