One measure that would help senior citizen middle income taxpayers would be to allow a $10,000 exemption on the Tax Form 1040 for Interest Income, and another $10,000 exemption for Dividend Income. This would encourage savings, and investment in more stable segments of the stock market. The dems might even go for this even if they don’t favor reducing the capital gains tax. Also reducing the short term capital gains tax encourages more jumping around in the market which in light of current events is beginning to look questionable.
Another measure that would favor senior citizens would be to change the one-time death benefit of $255 which hasn’t changed since, I think, 1957. I just spent 20 minutes on Google trying to verify the date, but couldn’t find it. At any rate it was a long time ago, and I think the purpose was to provide for a basic funeral, and or basic needs of the family for a few months. This amount was not indexed and needs to be updated to serve those purposes today as well as indexed for inflation.
A third measure that would help seniors would be to change the deduction categories to include disabilities for conditions other than blindness. One who is blind is often less dependent that one who has Alzheimers, or is in a wheelchair. Expanding this deduction would help a lot of senior citizens. As one who has just finished a three year spell of caring for someone with Alzheimers 24/7/365, he would have been a lot easier to care for than if he had been blind.
Why should the Social Security department be in charge of burying people? If you can't figure out how to save enough for a nice simple cremation, there are schlocky insurance companies willing to sell you a policy. Just check your junk mail.
You're right about the blind being some sort of sacred exemption. We just ought to eliminate it, with the ADA, they've been put on a more equal footing since that exemption was crafted.