Draw the line on payroll taxes

Today’s editorial in USA Today urged a rise in the retirement age to stave off the problem of Social Security’s solvency in “As lives get longer, benefits should come later.” But it also served as an important reminder on some critical facts:

Government of and for the retired. Forty cents of every federal dollar spent go to a retired person. That includes Social Security, Medicare and benefits for retired government workers. This amount, about $800 billion, is almost 10 times what government spends on education at all levels from Head Start to post-doctoral fellowships.
A heavy tax burden on workers. The amount of benefits paid annually is more than 4,000 times what it was in 1941. To pay for these soaring benefits, the tax rate has been increased 22 times, taking it from 2% to 12.4%.
The new workforce. Many economists see healthy people ages 65 to 75 as the nation's biggest untapped resource. Currently, 12% of those older than 65 are in the workforce. If that number rose to just 25%, about 4 million jobs would be added to the economy, producing $360 billion a year in economic output.

Look at point #2: benefits have risen sharply over the years and payroll taxes have skyrocketed to keep pace. From Rome to modern day, history has proven time and again that when the tax rate becomes too burdensome on the populace, widespread tax evasion follows. To meet the level of promised benefits, it’s been estimated that payroll taxes will have to rise to 18%. Will younger Americans meet this burden when they have no guarantee the system will be around for them in the future? Unlikely.