The White House is reportedly eyeing a tax on high-earning Americans to fund Social Security after Bernie Sanders pushed it

• Bernie Sanders met with Joe Biden to pitch a tax on high-earning Americans to fund Social Security, The Washington Post reported.
• The current system taxes workers' first $160,200 in earnings, and many Democrats have called for changing that cap as the Social Security trust fund faces insolvency.

Sen. Bernie Sanders took his concerns about Social Security to the White House — and it seems like the administration is listening.

That's according to The Washington Post's Jeff Stein, who reported on Thursday that Sanders had a private meeting with President Joe Biden concerning the retirement program. Per the Post, Biden aides have recently discussed potentially hiking payroll taxes on the wealthy, similar to Sanders' plans.

Sanders advocated for Biden to increase payroll taxes on high-earning Americans to fund Social Security for 70 more years as the program approaches insolvency in the next decade. Sanders' proposal would raise the cap on how much income is subject to the payroll taxes that pay for Social Security. Currently, workers' first $160,200 in earnings are taxed; any earnings beyond that are untaxed.

Under a proposal from Sanders, Senator Elizabeth Warren, and other Democrats, that cap would be lifted, and income over $250,000 would be subject to payroll taxes. They reintroduced that legislation this month, showing that some Democrats are responding to a potential renewed Republican push for Social Security and Medicare cuts.

According to a White House official, the White House has not endorsed any specific bill — but the president welcomes proposals from members of Congress on how to keep Social Security solvent and make the program even stronger.

The idea of an expanded payroll tax to shore up Social Security isn't new for President Biden. During his campaign, Biden proposed raising payroll taxes on those earning over $400,000 a year, which the Tax Policy Center estimated would raise $740 billion over ten years.

"The biggest threats to Social Security and Medicare are House and Senate Republican efforts to gut a program millions of Americans have been paying into since their first jobs as teenagers," Robyn Patterson, a White House spokesperson, said in a statement to Insider, noting that president has promised to keep Medicare solvent and "won't budge" on paying out every penny in benefits.

"We look forward to Republicans sharing their plan with the American people as well, since they have promised to pass a budget this year," Patterson added.

Although Social Security and Medicare have been a site for partisan warring for decades, 2023 is shaping up to be an especially heated year as some Republicans increase their push for cuts after regaining control of the House of Representatives.

Reports show that GOP lawmakers are willing to use the debt ceiling as a bargaining chip in order to get the Biden administration to cave on spending cuts, potentially including changes to Medicare and Social Security; failing to raise the debt ceiling by the summer could cause the US to default on its debt for the first time in history, the consequences of which would be dire.

Sanders and Warren have been outspoken about the federal retirement programs in recent months.

"At a time when half of older Americans have no retirement savings & 55% of seniors are trying to survive on less than $25,000 a year, our job is not to cut Social Security or raise taxes on workers," Sanders wrote on Twitter last month. "Our job is to expand it so all seniors can live with the dignity they deserve."