Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders is boosting the size of his campaign staff and increasing state budgets in his challenge against the frontrunner for the party's nomination, Hillary Clinton.

http://www.ontheissues.org/celeb/Hillary_Clinton_Social_Security.htm

Privatization off the table; but maybe payroll cap increase

During her 2008 presidential bid, Clinton was relatively non-committal about reforms to the Social Security program. She said in 2007 that certain reforms such as cutting benefits, privatizing the program or raising the retirement age were "off the table." There were some articles at the time that gave mixed signals on whether she would be willing to increase payroll taxes. One account from the Associated Press featured a conversation between a campaigning Clinton and an Iowa voter in which the candidate said she might consider committing more of workers' income to Social Security. "She told him she didn't want to put an additional tax burden on the middle class but would consider a 'gap,' with no Social Security taxes on income from $97,500 to around $200,000. Anything above that could be taxed," according to the article. Ultimately, Clinton officially shied away from the increase in taxes, and stuck with official comments that revolved around improving the economy overall. Source: Megan R. Wilson in TheHill.com weblog, "Clinton vs. Warren" , Aug 24, 2014 No lifting cap on payroll tax; that taxes middle class

Q: Would you take a pledge of no tax increases on people under $250,000? OBAMA: I not only have pledged not to raise their taxes, I would cut their taxes. We are going to offset the payroll tax, the most regressive of our taxes. CLINTON: I don’t want to raise taxes on anybody. I’m certainly against one of Senator Obama’s ideas, which is to lift the cap on the payroll tax, because that would impose additional taxes on people who are educators, police officers, firefighters and the like. OBAMA: What I have proposed is that we raise the cap on the payroll tax, because right now millionaires and billionaires don’t have to pay beyond $97,000 a year. Now most firefighters & teachers, they’re not making over $100,000 a year. In fact, only 6% of the population does. And I’ve also said that I’d be willing to look at exempting people who are making slightly above that. Q: But that’s a tax on people under $250,000. OBAMA: That’s why I would look at potentially exempting those who are in between.

FactCheck: No, teachers & police won’t pay if cap over $102K

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