Scrap the Cap, Not Your Grandma's Groceries

40% of Texas seniors depend on this program. Here's what's actually on the ballot.

Yesterday, I got to do something fun. I went to a town hall about Social Security, hosted by the former Commissioner of the Social Security Administration and a couple of congressional candidates. Of course, fun is subjective. I told my middle-schooler about my day when picking them up and was called a “nerd.” 😂

But as much as a town hall about Social Security or any government thingy might sound “nerdy” or unsexy, this is the program standing between 40% of Texas seniors and poverty. Anywhere in America, that matters a lot, but especially here in Texas, this program can mean the difference between life and death.

Here are the important FACTS you need to know about senior citizens in Texas:

• More than 3.7 million Texans 65 and older depend on Social Security benefits for at least half of their income.

• 12.3% of Texans age 65 and older live below the poverty level.

• 13.6% of Texas seniors are at risk of hunger.

• Texas seniors waiting on Meals on Wheels face some of the longest waitlists in the country as funding hasn’t kept pace with rising food, fuel, and labor costs.

• Medicaid covers more than 4.5 million Texas residents (third-most in the nation), and elderly and disabled beneficiaries account for almost two-thirds of the state’s total Medicaid spending.

Social Security is a literal lifeline for millions of elderly Texans, already at risk of poverty and hunger.

Why are we talking about this now?

We’re 47 days away from the election, and who winds up in Congress and in the Senate ultimately matters for this federal program. Republicans have spent years decades on their privatization of America. Social Security is next on their agenda.

While Ken Paxton has claimed he doesn’t want to privatize Social Security, only a dummy would believe the word of a crook. Republicans can’t be trusted. Not after what they’ve done to education. Not after what they’ve done to healthcare.

This upcoming election is important for a billion reasons. The future of Social Security is one of them.

The privatization scheme.

When Republican politicians talk about moving public services to “the free market,” what they are actually talking about is funneling your tax dollars into their donors’ pockets and then blaming Democrats when it doesn’t work out. That’s the entire con.

We don’t have to guess how it would end. Republicans have shown us. Repeatedly.

Take healthcare, for example. Every other wealthy country on Earth has figured out that healthcare is not supposed to be a commodity. Instead, we handed it to private insurance companies. Medicare Advantage gets billions in extra taxpayer subsidies and pays for it by burying seniors in prior authorization denials. Meanwhile, private equity firms have been buying up hospitals, ERs, and physician groups, stripping them for parts, and shutting down the ones that aren’t profitable enough. Universal healthcare is the boring, normal thing literally every peer nation on the planet already does. The only reason we don’t have it here is that too many people are getting rich off the fact that we don’t.

Then there are prisons. Private prison companies get paid per person, per day. Their profit margin goes up every single day a human being stays locked in a cage. It’s a system designed to keep beds full, and Texas is one of the country’s biggest customers. You want to know why “tough on crime” politicians never seem interested in actually reducing crime? Follow the money.

Or take our own power grid. Texas deregulated electricity decades ago and handed it to private operators who compete on profit margins instead of keeping the lights on when it’s 9° outside. In February 2021, hundreds of Texans froze to death in their own homes while energy companies raked in record profits. Push profit up and push risk down onto you.

Notice the pattern yet?

So when Ken Paxton tells you, with a straight face, that he doesn’t want to privatize Social Security, but billionaires largely fund him, ask yourself who benefits if he’s lying. Because Wall Street has wanted its hands on that $2.5 trillion trust fund since the day it was created, and every privatization scheme in this state’s history tells you exactly what they’ll do with it the second they get the chance.

The Social Security town hall.

Here is the full playback, from Progress Texas:

There was former Social Security Administrator and former Maryland Governor Martin O'Malley, along with Congressional candidates Chelsea Hockett (TX05), Danny Minton (TX06), Kevin Burge (TX24), Dan Barrios (TX32), Representative John Bryant (HD114), and Eric Cedillo, the National Legal Advisor to LULAC.

Governor O’Malley gave a presentation in which he gave three concrete fixes to Social Security.

1. Restore the 1.2% administrative overhead. Social Security used to run on about 1.2% overhead. Trump/Musk/DOGE cuts pushed it down to 0.7%, which is why customer service (phone lines, field office appointments) has collapsed. He wants that overhead funding restored so the agency can actually staff itself.

2. Peg COLA to CPI-E instead of regular CPI. Since 1986, benefits have adjusted to the general consumer price index, not one that reflects what seniors actually spend on (healthcare, prescriptions). He says buying power has eroded about 20% as a result, and wants the cost-of-living adjustment tied to the elderly-specific index instead.

3. “Scrap the cap.” This is the big one. Payroll tax currently stops applying above $184,000. So, someone making $187K and someone making a billion dollars each pay about the same $11K into the system. He argues this cap is why the trust fund surplus is projected to run out by 2032 instead of 2050 as originally planned (income inequality since the 1980s is why wages have concentrated above the tax cap). Raising or eliminating the cap would extend solvency past 2090.

Here are some bills currently sitting in Congress:

The Social Security Expansion Act (Sanders, Warren, and a coalition of Senate Democrats). It applies the payroll tax to all income, including capital gains and investment income, above $250,000 a year. In exchange, it expands benefits by $2,400 a year and extends full solvency for 75 years.

The Social Security 2100 Act (Rep. John Larson) scraps the cap on earnings above $400,000, increases the minimum benefit to 125% of the poverty line, and repeals the Windfall Elimination Provision that’s been screwing over teachers, firefighters, and other public-sector workers for 30 years. The Social Security Chief Actuary has confirmed this bill alone could extend solvency for decades without raising a single penny in taxes on 91% of Americans. While this same bill had over 200 co-sponsors last session, it hasn’t garnered the same support this time around.

All of this sounds great, and when Democrats take back control of Congress, we should expect them to act on fixing Social Security. Personally, I like the Senate’s fix.

Where it doesn’t go far enough.

For way too long, women have been left behind economically because of years taken out of the paid workforce to provide valuable yet unpaid caregiving services, and the average retired woman receives $13,000 less to live on each year than her male counterpart, largely because caregiving currently has no income value for future Social Security benefits.

Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT) has introduced the Social Security Caregiver Credit Act of 2026, which lets caregivers earn “deemed wages” for up to five years (60 months) while providing at least 80 hours/month of unpaid care to a dependent child under 12, an aging parent, a spouse, or a family member with a disability. Those deemed wages get folded into the Social Security benefit calculation, replacing what would otherwise be zero-earning years. Beto wanted to introduce the same thing when he ran for president.

Caregiving disproportionately screws over women, because women are still the ones who overwhelmingly leave the workforce to do this. If we’re serious about “everyone retires with dignity,” dignity has to include mothers.

We’ll have to tell James Talarico to support this, too.

Social Security isn’t broken. We just have to get the people earning above $184,500 a year pay in like the rest of us do.

That’s it. It’s a willpower problem, and the only thing standing between “solvable” and “solved” is whether we send people to Washington who are actually willing to do it.

We have a former Social Security Commissioner telling you, on the record, exactly how to fix it. What we don’t have yet is a Congress willing to vote for it.

And even the good bills still aren’t finished. They forget the caregivers who left the workforce for years to keep somebody alive.

We are 47 days from an election that will decide who sits in the room the next time this fight comes up, and thanks to the six-year Senate term, whoever Texas sends to Washington this November will be the person deciding your mother’s benefit check when the 2032 shortfall actually arrives.

Ask your Congressional candidates if they support scrapping the cap. Ask them if they’ve read the Caregiver Credit Act. Ask James Talarico directly whether he’s willing to say the word “caregiver” out loud on the campaign trail.

Because “nerdy” or not, this is the fight. And the people counting on adults to stay checked out are the same ones who’ve been quietly getting rich off every other public service they’ve gutted. Don’t give them Social Security too.

• 47 days until the November election!

• Did you know you can find links to all the previous Meet the Candidate articles on these lists?:

• Who Will Be On The 2026 State Ballot?

• Who Will Be On The 2026 Federal Ballot?

• Click here to find out what Legislative districts you’re in.

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