During a "Fight Oligarchy" event in Asheville, North Carolina on Sunday, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) spoke about lifting the cap on taxable income to increase funding for Social Security.
00:00Now, there are some Republicans who actually want to cut Social Security.
00:11Well, we're not going to let them cut Social Security.
00:16We are going to expand Social Security benefits.
00:20And it ain't hard to figure out how you do it right now.
00:27One person makes $10 million a year, one person makes $176,000.
00:32They both pay the same amount into the Social Security Trust Fund because there's a cap on taxable income.
00:41You lift that cap, you make these guys on top start paying their fair share.
00:49We can substantially raise benefits and expand the solvency of Social Security.
00:57Now, for the young people here, some of us older people know this, but for the young people here, you may not know that there was once a time not so many years ago that if a worker worked for a company for a number of years, he or she had a defined benefit pension plan.
01:24You know what that is?
01:26That means as part of your work life, when you leave the job and you retire, you know the retirement benefits, the pension that you are going to have.
01:38We used to have it.
01:40Corporate America, by and large, took that away from most American workers.
01:45Think about what it will mean to workers in this country to know that in addition to a strong Social Security system, they have a defined benefit pension plan.
01:55Now, a lot of you say, well, these are ideas, they're really nice and they're good, they sound pretty good, and how are you going to pay for them?
02:10Well, I'll tell you how you're going to pay for them.
02:13Gee, you took the words right out of my mouth.
02:17You know, maybe I'm wrong, but when Mr. Musk is worth some $400 billion, some of his other friends are worth a few hundred billion, and we've seen an explosion of billionaires,
02:29and when in many instances these billionaires pay an effective tax rate lower than a truck driver or a nurse, you know what?
02:38The time is now to say, guess what, oligarchs?
02:41You're going to pay your fair share of taxes.
02:44You're going to pay your fair share of taxes.
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