Romney: 'Rich People Like Me' Must Pay Higher Taxes

Former senator offers his ideas to stop the looming Social Security 'cliff'
Posted Dec 21, 2025 7:15 AM CST
Romney: 'Rich People Like Me' Must Pay More Taxes
Then-Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, in 2023.   (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer)

Mitt Romney is suggesting a fix for the looming Social Security "cliff" that won't please many of his fellow Republicans: Higher taxes—specifically for the wealthy. "It's time for rich people like me to pay more," the former senator writes in a New York Times essay. Romney lays out the familiar math problem facing the Social Security Trust Fund, one that will result in greatly reduced benefits in the future if no fixes are made.

  • "I believe in free enterprise, and I believe all Americans should be able to strive for financial success. But we have reached a point where any mix of solutions to our nation's economic problems is going to involve the wealthiest Americans' contributing more."

Romney runs through some possibilities, including closing loopholes that are more like "caverns" in his view. And he argues that his particular suggestions—he details tightening up the estate tax—will have almost no impact on growth and will restore needed confidence in our nation's capitalist system. Raising taxes "would help us avoid the cliff ahead, and might tend to quiet some of the anger that will surely grow as unemployed college graduates see tax-advantaged multibillionaires sailing 300-foot yachts." Read the full essay.

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