Obama Floats No Limit on FICA Tax

The Wall Street Journal reports:

President Obama's deficit pitch is that if only a fraction of the highest income Americans were "asked to pay a little bit more" the fiscal seas would part—but all those little bits are starting to pile up. Speaking Tuesday in Annandale, Virginia, Mr. Obama came out for lifting the cap on income on which the Social Security payroll tax is applied.

Currently, the employer and employee each pay 6.2% up to $106,800, a level that rises with inflation each year. (The rate is 4.2% for this year only due to the December tax deal.) "The point is, for the vast majority of Americans," Mr. Obama said, "every dime you earn, you're paying some in Social Security. But for Warren Buffett, he stops paying at a little bit over $100,000 and then the next $50 billion he's not paying a dime in Social Security taxes. So if we just made a little bit of an adjustment in terms of the cap on Social Security, that would do a significant amount to stabilize the system."

Er, $50 billion a year? Even for the sage of Omaha that's a lot. Mr. Obama must be getting his sense of economic proportion from his own budget.

Obama thinks some Americans should be paying over half their incomes to state, local ,and federal government.