President Ronald Reagan is the president who signed the 1983 amendments that, based on recommendations from the Greenspan Commission, began taxing Social Security benefits. While often described as "borrowing" or "taking" money, it is a standard practice for the government to borrow from the Social Security trust fund surplus to pay for general expenditures, a practice continued by subsequent presidents including George W. Bush.
Bush financed income tax cuts and the Iraq war by plundering money from Social Security.
President Reagan signed major bipartisan Social Security reforms in 1983, primarily to address funding shortfalls, which included making some benefits taxable, gradually raising the full retirement age to 67, and accelerating payroll tax increases; he also signed legislation restoring minimum benefits and increasing penalties for misuse of Social Security numbers.
The taxation of Social Security began in 1984 following passage of a set of Amendments in 1983, which were signed into law by President Reagan in April 1983. These amendments passed the Congress in 1983 on an overwhelmingly bi-partisan vote.
The Government Has Borrowed $1.7 Trillion From The Social Security Trust Fund. The government has borrowed the total value of the Trust Fund to pay for other government spending.
Meanwhile, the tax rate reduction reduced the tax payments of middle class and poor taxpayers. The net effect was a marked shift in the tax burden toward the top 1 percent amounting to about 10 percentage points. Lower top marginal tax rates had encouraged these taxpayers to generate more taxable income.
President Ronald Reagan stated in October 1984: "Social Security has nothing to do with the deficit... Social Security is totally funded by the payroll tax levied on employer and employee. If you reduce the outgo of Social Security that money would not go into the general fund to reduce the deficit.
Washington, D.C. – Today, the President signed into law the Social Security Fairness Act (SSFA), bipartisan legislation authored by U.S. Senators Susan Collins and Sherrod Brown (D-OH). Senator Collins attended the bill signing ceremony at the invitation of the White House.
HEW reorganization plan published in Federal Register, creating the Health Care Financing Administration to manage the Medicare program. President Carter signed the Social Security Amendments of 1980. Major provisions involved greater work incentives for disabled Social Security and SSI beneficiaries.
Debt held by the public was actually paid down by $453 billion over the 1998-2001 periods, the only time this happened between 1970 and 2018. Federal spending fell from 20.7% GDP in 1993 to 17.6% GDP in 2000, below the historical average (1966 to 2015) of 20.2% GDP.
Lyndon B. Johnson (LBJ) significantly expanded Social Security by signing the landmark 1965 Amendments, creating Medicare for the elderly and Medicaid for the poor, and boosting benefits; he also reorganized the Social Security Administration (SSA) and controversially moved its finances "on-budget," though he didn't steal funds, but rather shifted accounting to disguise war-related deficits.
After a Conference which lasted throughout July, the bill was finally passed and sent to President Roosevelt for his signature. The Social Security Act was signed into law by President Roosevelt on August 14, 1935.
So with Reagan's signature, Congress undid a good chunk of the 1981 tax cut by raising taxes a lot in 1982, 1983, 1984 and 1987. George H.W. Bush signed another tax increase in 1990 and Bill Clinton did the same in 1993.
In a 2020 research paper, economists David Hope and Julian Limberg analyzed data spanning 50 years from 18 countries, and found that tax cuts for the rich increased inequality in the short and medium term, and had no significant effect on real GDP per capita or employment in the short and medium term.
Multiple other analyses have found that higher debt and deficits lead to upward pressure on interest rates. Paying for the cost of extending and expanding tax cuts will directly lead to lower interest rates than extension without offsets. Lower interest rates mean lower borrowing costs throughout the economy.
The short answer is yes. Under the current law, an individual's wealth or current income level has no impact on their eligibility to receive a Social Security retirement benefit. In other words, even if you have $10 billion in assets, you could qualify for Social Security as long as you meet the requirements.