O

ver 
Fourth 
of 
July 
weekend 
last 
summer, 
Florida residents turned 
on 
their 
televisions 
to 
see 
California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a 
Democrat, slamming their state 
government and its conservative 
policies. Newsom spoke in plain, 
inflammatory terms: “Freedom is 
under attack in your state […] I urge 
all of you living in Florida to join 
the fight or join us in California.”
Newsom’s stunt seems to have 
fallen flat with Florida voters. 
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a 
Republican, wields more than a 
10-point lead over his Democratic 
opponent, Charlie Christ. The 
message is clear — Floridians do 
not want Newsom’s fight.
Rising interstate tension has 
led many cynical pundits to warn 
of impending civil war, but this 
cataclysmic appraisal misses the 
mark. Jenna Bednar, a professor of 
public policy and political science 
at the University of Michigan, 
explains that in reality, “The 
states are not in conflict with 
one another, at least not as states. 
Florida has nothing particular 
against Massachusetts. Instead, 
federalism has been weaponized 
by politicians pursuing a partisan 
agenda.”
America 
today 
is 
not 
the 
America of 1861. The institutional 
differences 
between 
North 
and South that allowed us to 
descend into the Civil War have 
been 
eliminated. 
Florida 
and 
Massachusetts 
are 
no 
longer 
split by such a fundamental issue 
like 
slavery. 
The 
incendiary 
regionalism 
that 
motivated 
Californians and Texans to take 
up arms against one another has 
cooled.
In its place, crippling red and 
blue factionalism has emerged to 
dominate the scene. Opportunist 
politicians 
have 
noticed 
and 
capitalized. Bednar makes clear, 
however, that their “partisan 
games are not as threatening 
to the federal union as much as 
they exacerbate the threat to 

democracy by feeding polarization 
and the distrust of the democratic 
process that polarization spawns.”
Democratic 
and 
Republican 
governors are making headlines 
for radical acts of political theater, 
while 
the 
average 
American 
suffers. Newsom is busy with 
attack 
ads 
while 
California’s 
homeless population makes up 
one-fifth of the national number. 
Rather than sitting down with 
the 
Biden 
administration 
to 
discuss fixing illegal immigration, 
DeSantis 
threatened 
to 
send 
migrants 
to 
the 
President’s 
Delaware home, and the situation 
at the border remains a disaster.
Too much spectacle, never 
enough solutions. Bednar says, “At 
the state level … these politicians 
are seeking national attention, 
often because they have national 
ambitions like wanting to run 
for president.” Governing in the 
interest of the moderate majority 
does not make you a household 
name. Noisy, political messages do. 
America cannot survive such 
intense dissonance forever. A 
union built upon good faith, trust 
and mutual respect has no place 
for animus and enmity.
We 
have 
seen 
the 
early 
consequences of our discord. The 
January 6 insurrection at the 
Capitol was only the beginning if 
hyper-partisan suicide is the path 
we choose. And there is evidence 
from February 2021 to suggest 
we already have, with 20% of 
Republicans and 13% of Democrats 
believing political violence to be 
justifiable.
These are large, dangerous 
numbers, 
with 
obvious 
implications. “Partisan games,” as 
Bednar calls them, do not remain 
games indefinitely. They escalate 
out of control quickly. While 
conflict in the U.S. still remains 
unlikely, the lesson of the Civil 
War and the years preceding is 
clear: we must reconcile now. We 
do not have much time, and each 
act of political violence makes the 
task harder.
Nevertheless, there is cause 
for hope. Fringe groups and 
paramilitaries 
may 
yearn 
for 
bloody societal breakdown, but 

most of us do not. Roughly three in 
10 Americans see polarization as a 
top issue. The number might sound 
low, but only inflation and crime 
ranked higher on Americans’ lists.
We know who to blame for 
the problem, too. Dissatisfaction 
with Republicans and Democrats 
is at an all time high, with 62% 
of Americans now supporting 
the idea of a serious third party. 
DeSantis and Newsom can spend 
their 
time 
dueling 
for 
2024 
presidential bids, but the rest of us 
will get to work.
The American primary system 
leads to more fanatic candidates 
moving onto the general election, 
guaranteeing resentment among 
the 
losing 
party. 
Americans 
more aligned with third party 
candidates still often vote for one 
of the major party candidates 
because of how unlikely their first 
choice actually winning office is.
Nonpartisan primaries force 
all candidates to run in one 
election, giving more moderate, 
generally appealing candidates an 
advantage. In Alaska, one of few 
places in the U.S. to have adopted 
nonpartisan primaries, moderate 
Lisa Murkowski’s victory provides 
proof of the concept. Despite 
voting to impeach Trump, a near 
death sentence in many other 
Republican primaries, Murkowski 
won the primary for her seat by 
a significant margin. Ranked-
choice voting, another system 
Alaska uses, allows voters to list 
candidates in the order they prefer 
them, which gives third party 
supporters the opportunity to 
voice their opinion without tossing 
away their ballot. 
There are realistic options 
to bring us back from the brink. 
America is not beyond fixing, 
but we must care enough to meet 
the task. Cynicism by moderates 
allows the fate of our nation to be 
decided by the passions of radicals. 
Now is not the time for indifference 
and aversion, but confidence and 
resolve. If we view our current 
system as unchangeable, then our 
future becomes inevitable.
Jack 
Brady 
is 
an 
Opinion 
Columnist and can be reached at 
jackbra@umich.edu.

Opinion
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
10 — Wednesday, November 9, 2022

Taxing the rich may be the answer to our Social Security crisis

Ambika Tripathi/Opinion Cartoonist

I

f you’ve ever been paid for 
a job and received a pay 
stub, you would have seen 
a section off to the right that lists 
all the money you’ve paid to taxes, 
and where it is going. Outside 
of Federal income taxes, the 
largest section is one called Social 
Security, listed under your taxes as 
FICA SS.
What is social security? Social 
Security is a flat rate paid by all 
workers (6.2% of income) and 
employers (a matching 6.2%) into 
a transfer program. FICA, the 
Federal 
Income 
Contributions 
Act, is a payroll tax (meaning 
it comes out of your income) 
that funds both Social Security 
and Medicare. In the case of 
Social Security, workers pay the 
designated percentage of their 
income and retirees receive that 
money in the form of a monthly 

payout to help support them after 
retiring. The program succeeds 
under the assumption that those 
workers will receive the same 
benefits once they retire. 
This 
assumption, 
however, 
seems to be less of a guarantee 
in 
recent 
years. 
The 
fear 
surrounding social security has 
grown dramatically in the past 
few years, with the possibility 
that Generation Z (current and 
soon-to-be 
college 
students) 
is paying into it without the 
promise of receiving the benefits. 
Current college students would be 
drastically affected by this, as they 
would pay 6.2% of their lifetime 
into this program, only to not 
receive any benefits by the time 
they retire. 
This could happen for a few 
reasons. First, people are living 
longer than when the program 
was initially created, meaning 
that payments are being paid 
out for much longer than was 
anticipated when Social Security 

started. Additionally, the birth 
rate 
is 
going 
down. 
Social 
security was instituted in 1935, 
and was followed shortly after 
by the generation nicknamed 
the “baby boomers” due to the 
drastic increase in the birth rate. 
Because there were many young 
workers paying into the program, 
Social Security was much easier 
to maintain. The U.S. fertility 
rate has decreased by almost 50% 
since 1960, leading to a decrease in 
funding for Social Security. Lastly, 
there has been a significant decline 
in funding of real wage growth, 
meaning wages are staying more 
stagnant 
than 
expected, 
and 
hence, funding from increased 
incomes is not a source of growth 
for Social Security.
The solution to this problem 
comes in the form of a popular 
sentiment 
from 
college-aged 
voters: tax the rich. A key factor 
of Social Security is that there is 
a taxable income cap. What this 
means is that workers are only 

taxed for Social Security on the 
first $147,000 of their income, 
but not on any income made over 
that. This taxable income covers 
about 83% of aggregate earnings. 
If the tax were raised to cover 
90% of aggregate earnings, 20% 
of the long term shortfalls of the 
Social Security budget would be 
solved. The more this cap is raised, 
the more the long-term problem 
of Social Security funding is 
mitigated. 
This is not an unprecedented 
approach. The other FICA tax 
on your paystub is Medicare. 
Medicare also used to have a 
taxable income cap; however, it was 
removed in 1993. It is important to 
note that the Medicare tax is only 
1.45% of income, so raising the cap 
was less controversial and led to 
greater funding for the program. 
Nevertheless, what this shows is 
that this change is a feasible one, 
and necessary to guarantee the 
financial safety of retirees in our 
country. 

Additionally, 
it’s 
important 
to note that the majority of job 
growth since 1979 has come from 
the top 10% of earners. This top-
heavy form of growth means the 
majority of taxable income is not 
growing (accounting for inflation), 
while the untaxed income is 
growing considerably.
Despite this, it is important 
to note that there is a reason for 
this taxable income cap. Social 
Security benefits are progressive 
in nature, meaning that the 
less money you’ve made in your 
lifetime, the higher percentage of 
the money you’ve given to Social 
Security you will receive. (This 
is designed to keep people with 
lower incomes out of poverty 
once they retire.) People with 
higher incomes are already giving 
more to the system and receiving 
proportionally less, so the taxable 
income cap is an attempt to cancel 
out how this may be unfair. 
Although 
individuals 
with 
incomes 
above 
$147,000 
may 

not benefit as much from Social 
Security as the taxable income rate 
is raised, there is a high chance 
that people they care about would 
be affected. An estimated 40% of 
older adults would be in poverty 
without Social Security. Mothers, 
fathers, siblings, friends and more 
are relying on this program to keep 
them afloat in retirement. This 
demonstrates 
how 
devastating 
the collapse of Social Security 
would be for everyone, as even if 
an individual isn’t affected, people 
in their life are. 
“Taxing the rich” is not a new 
phenomenon 
in 
our 
country. 
By raising the Social Security 
income tax, we as a country can 
make 
significant 
progress 
in 
guaranteeing people who have paid 
into this system for their whole 
lives the security they deserve in 
their retirement, as those before 
them were guaranteed.
Claudia Flynn is an Opinion 
Columnist and can be reached at 
claudf@umich.edu.

CLAUDIA FLYNN
Opinion Columnist

Why end-of-life paperwork is important 
even for young college students

T

his past June, two Phi 
Gamma Delta fraternity 
brothers at the University 
of Missouri were charged in the 
hazing 
of 
19-year-old 
Danny 
Santulli. On Oct. 20, 2021, the then-
freshman pledge had been forced 
to drink a liter of vodka in addition 
to being funnel-fed a beer. He 
arrived at the hospital in cardiac 
arrest, and experienced brain 
damage so severe that he currently 
lives wheelchair bound, blind and 
unable to communicate. 
Unfortunately, 
the 
Santulli 
hazing case is far from rare, and 
mirrors 
drinking 
and 
hazing 
incidents here at the University of 
Michigan. Our community, and 
Ann Arbor at large, is a hub for bar 
crawls, fraternity parties, block 
parties, tailgates and other events 
that are often the perfect recipe 
for a night in the emergency room. 
Given these risks, it is concerning 
that so many young people do not 
have a plan for what they would 
want to have happen to them 
in the event that they are too 
incapacitated to make their own 
medical decisions, especially in 
cases where life-or-death options 
need to be assessed.
In the U.S., the official document 
that outlines these predetermined 
medical wishes is known as an 
advanced health care directive, or 
living will. An advanced directive 
provides a crucial framework for 
health care professionals to tailor 
their choices or treatments to 
patients’ preferences and keeps 
autonomy in the patient’s hands 
when they are the most vulnerable. 
Similarly, it clears up confusion 
or disagreement about a patient’s 
preferences between loved ones 
making decisions on their behalf. 
However, college-aged students 
have a dangerous mindset that 
terminal illness, coma or injury 
won’t apply to them for the 
foreseeable future, and they opt to 
focus on more immediate issues 
like 
longitudinal 
internships, 
graduate school or job offers. 
The long life expectancy of the 
average American further instills 
the disregard for the creation of 
advanced directives at a young age. 
The COVID-19 pandemic, coupled 
with 
the 
increasingly 
higher 
rates of intoxication incidence 
and mortality in this age group, 
clearly demonstrates that college 
students are more vulnerable than 
they think. By forgoing the steps 

necessary to establish proper end-
of-life procedures, they are at the 
forefront of propagating a public 
health crisis that leaves providers 
and loved ones choiceless. 
It is true that undergrads have a 
million things on their plates, and 
the last thing we want to concern 
ourselves with is enumerating the 
resuscitation efforts we would 
and would not be comfortable 
with. But, for some young people, 
they don’t even know how they 
should go about consenting to 
chest compressions, defibrillation, 
intubation, 
ventilation, 
vasopressors and more. What the 
heck even is a “vasopressor,” and 
why should I care?
In addition to the seeming 
disregard of advanced health 
care directives among adults, at 
no point in our lives are we ever 
explained how exactly we should 
handle this situation. The state 
of Michigan mandates a health 
class as a requirement for a high 
school diploma, but nowhere in 
that curriculum does it encourage 
young people to consider if being 
stuck on a ventilator is something 
they want their bodies to rely on, 
or if pharmacological intervention 
to constrict their blood vessels in 
attempts to raise a failing blood 
pressure is worth it.
So, even for the youth proactive 
enough to make an advanced 
directive for themselves, their 
lack 
of 
understanding 
about 
resuscitation procedures leaves 
them consenting to interventions 
they might not truly be comfortable 
with if any ever became necessary. 
The 
only 
instance 
where 
resuscitation 
procedures 
are 
explicitly explained and discussed 
to a patient is when they are 
already in a hospital or clinic with 
their attending physician — long 
after their initial malady. 
Eastern Michigan University 
student 
Dominic 
Consiglio, 
a 
911 dispatcher and EMT for 
Washtenaw County, has witnessed 
some of the most gruesome scenes 
involving college-aged students. 
In his time at Huron Valley 
Ambulance Partners, Consiglio 
explains, 
“constantly 
hearing 
and seeing people my age beg 
for medical help when they are 
bleeding out, high off drugs, or 
smashed between two cars scared 
me enough to get my own advanced 
directive. I can’t imagine not having 
precautions in place to affirm that I 
do want to be resuscitated, but will 
want to peacefully pass away if 30 
days on a ventilator isn’t working 
for my body.” 

The solution to the decision-
making burden of college students, 
most of whom have no medical 
knowledge, is known as a Durable 
Power of Attorney (DPOA). Instead 
of consenting to a limited number 
of procedures or time frames, a 
DPOA form allows you to name 
a person, known as a healthcare 
proxy, to make decisions for you if 
you are unable to do so. However, 
DPOAs are not equitable for young 
people who a) do not have people 
they can trust to respect their 
decisions or core values, and b) 
have no one in their circle with an 
intimate understanding of the dire 
outcomes of a resuscitation. 
Critics of advanced health care 
directives, DPOAs and other end-
of-life 
paperwork, 
particularly 
for youth, often cite a religious or 
moral code to substantiate their 
belief that humans do not have the 
right to deny life-saving treatment. 
For example, the Catholic Church’s 
official stance is that any kind of 
physician-assisted death is both 
a sin and congruent to suicide. 
Parents of terminal young adults, 
too, fight back against end-of-life 
paperwork that does not allow 
them to determine their child’s 
fate. 
These concerning stances are 
strikingly similar to anti-abortion 
arguments that catalyzed the 
recent overturning of Roe v. 
Wade by demonstrating a one-
dimensional perspective on life 
quality. Some pro-life proponents 
do not believe that the extent 
to which a baby would live a 
comfortable life should be a factor 
in the decision to have an abortion. 
This belief mirrors their opinion 
that our inherent personhood is 
something we do not have the 
right to give up, even in the case of 
permanent brain damage, organ 
failure or hospitalization.
The future can be bright, 
however. 
Michigan 
legislation 
mandating 
organ 
registry 
questions 
for 
the 
acquisition 
of driver’s licenses needs to be 
expanded to push youths to 
complete a more exhaustive list of 
yes and no questions about their 
wishes coming out of a critical 
car accident. Health insurance 
companies, too, can do their part 
to incentivize young adults to plan 
for a terminal health care crisis 
through life co-insurance plans, 
lower ER copays for people with 
end-of-life paperwork and same-
rate health insurance coverage for 
post-resuscitation care. 

NAMRATHA NELAPUDI
Opinion Columnist






Call 
Katie!


248-808-8587

Tackling political polarization in the U.S.

JACK BRADY
Opinion Columnist

 Read more at MichiganDaily.com

