A recorded conversation (Kirwan x TJ) focused on Democratic Party messaging and concrete economic proposals. Kirwan emphasizes rebutting false narratives, presenting the Democratic Party as representing all Americans, and offering policy solutions to improve voters’ economic lives. He advocates fixing Social Security and Medicare funding by raising the Social Security wage base (currently described as about $170k) to roughly $200k–$220k, increasing employer FICA contributions, and possibly exempting the first $20k–$40k of employee wages from FICA to put cash into lower-income workers’ pockets (Kirwan cites ~$3,000 annual benefit if first $40k exempt, or ~$1,500 if first $20k exempt).
Questions this video answers
About $170,000 (referred to as 'about 170').
Approximately $200,000–$220,000.
Exempting the first $20,000 or the first $40,000 of wages from employee FICA.
About $3,000 per year.
About $1,500 per year.
Chapters
We have to keep making the case that deep down you know better. You know that this is a lie. You know that what they're telling you isn't working, because is your paycheck going up? Are you able to buy more things? And you're not. So. So what they're pitching you is just deceit. This is not working. And so what we need to do is show people that there is a better way, that you can have an alternative, and that you don't need to be oppressing the minorities out there. They're not the reason why you're not doing better economically. We also need to show that we're the party of everyone. We have the country's best interest at heart, and that everyone will prosper, and they just need to follow the rules, work hard, and no one thinks that things are easy in life. But we're the party that is showing that there is a way forward, that tomorrow can be brighter. And I agree, T.J. we've got our work cut out for us. Telling lies has worked, unfortunately, and we just need to do a better job of dispelling those lies or presenting a better story and saying, keep telling your lies.
But what is a better story? Because you just mentioned that the Democrats should be the party for everyone, and that's certainly not the perception among a lot of voters. Many voters, if you look at surveys after the last election, said they perceive the Democrats as the party of special interest, the party of transgender, of they themselves of unlimited immigration. And if you are a white person, a white Christian, essentially, you're not even invited to the party. That's the perception that we hear from Fox News and top Republicans on a daily basis. How do you fight that perception? How do you. How do you create a new brand for the Democratic? It's hard for any one candidate to do it. But if you. If I could anoint you head of the Democratic Party right now, and you had to do that for two years, how would you go about rebranding the party in a way to actually help a candidate like you win an election?
Yeah. Well, T.J. i think what we have to do is show solutions. It's not simply finding the nearest TV camera and microphone and jumping in front of it and beating our chest and pointing out problems and blaming the other guy. We have to show that we can deliver for the American people. And one of the things that we can do and need to do right away is fix the funding for Social Security and Medicare. What we're hearing from the other side is, oh, we're Just going to let it run out and everyone will get a benefit reduction as a result, or we're going to privatize it, or we're going to do one of a million other bad ideas. Social Security and Medicare are essential for this country. They came about 80, 90 years ago, and they have been so successful for taking care of our elderly, taking care of the people that are in need of those benefits. And it's a system where people pay into it and they should get the benefit of the bargain that they have toiled their lives under. And the way we do that is by fixing the funding of it. We have given businesses and a huge tax break through the big beautiful bill and the tax cuts back in 2017, their corporate tax rates have fallen dramatically. What we need to do is increase the employer contributions for Social Security and Medicare, the FICA taxes.
Are you in favor of in. Are you in favor of increasing the cap? I mean, right now, someone who makes 160,000 a year, Warren Buffett, pay the same amount going into Social Security, you could simply eliminate the cap and say you're going to pay the social same rate of Social Security. If you make $10 million a year as if you made 30, $40,000 a year, are you in favor of that?
I believe the cap should be raised. I think there should be a cap because the benefits that you're getting are linked to what you're putting in. And because we haven't raised wages, we haven't raised the minimum wage that people need to be paid. I think a fair trade off is to say, okay, employers, you now need to pay more in the employer contribution. So I think the wage base is about 170 now. And so I think if you raise that to like 200, 220 somewhere in there, that probably would help to fix the funding issue if you couple it with an increased contribution from employers. And by doing that, TJ what you can also do is you can shift the employee wage base that is subject to the FICA tax. And so instead of saying it's from $1, what if we shifted it so it's from after the first $20,000 or after the first $40,000. If you did that, that would obviously reduce the amount of money going into the Social Security trust fund, but it would also give a huge cash benefit to the recipients. Everyone would receive additional dollars. And so if you were only making $40,000 a year, oftentimes the FICA taxes are the only taxes that you're paying. And so if you were exempt from FICA on the first 40,000.
And yet Republicans would say that person pays no tax because it's not officially an income tax. And yet it is.
Well, yes, it's based upon their income, but what you could do is by shifting it, they would have an extra $3,000 in their pocket. That's a huge benefit for someone making $40,000 a year. Now, said it was only 20,000. The first 20,000 is exempt. Well, that's roughly $1,500 a year. They would have extra in their pocket.
