WASHINGTON — Democrats slammed the House GOP for targeting Social Security in its new budget resolution unveiled Tuesday, contending that the move is part of an emerging Republican strategy to create a crisis atmosphere and set the stage for dramatic changes in how the program works.
Though the budget was mostly similar to previous years’ budgets, one major new item was a provision to prohibit a traditionally routine transfer of funds from the Social Security retirement fund (which is solvent through 2033) to the Social Security Disability Insurance fund, which has long been projected to become insolvent in 2016. It was a formal affirmation of a rule adopted by House Republicans on the first day of the new Congress to block such a “reallocation.”
“They’re trying to create a crisis. The point is to create a crisis,” Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN), co-chair of the progressive caucus, told TPM in an interview. “This is how they operate. It’s governance by crisis. And it’s a pattern.”
Notably, the GOP budget, authored by Rep. Tom Price (R-GA), did not endorse any immediate changes to Social Security, a crown jewel of liberalism. It did warn of “looming insolvency” and proposed a “bipartisan commission” to offer reforms to keep it solvent in the long term.
“In short,” the budget says, “there should be no raiding of the Social Security retirement program to bailout another, currently unsustainable program. Truly what’s needed is a long-term solution to the problems facing Social Security.”
“It’s a manufactured crisis,” Rep. Raúl Grijalva (D-AZ), the other co-chair of the progressive caucus, told TPM. “Past practice has been that the trust took care of that as a shift and a pay-for.”
Ellison accused Republicans of playing a sneaky game by “trying to make Democrats share in the blame” for cuts to Social Security when the time comes. “They’re also trying to signal to the American people that government is dysfunctional and cannot be relied on,” he said. “So it’s a short and a long game.”
Grijalva insisted that Democrats should not play along, and should instead push to raise revenues to cover the long-term shortfall as well as expand, rather than cut, Social Security. “It would behoove us on anything dealing with Social Security that at the end of the day, whatever happens, we own it,” he said.
Sen. Chuck Schumer (NY), the third-ranked Senate Democrat, also attacked Republicans for “monkeying around” with Social Security.
“I think that they’re monkeying around with Social Security in a bad way, and I think it’s not going to stand,” he told reporters. “We should not cut Social Security. I don’t think we should privatize Social Security, I don’t think we should raise the age of Social Security.”
Here I go again:
Tax paychecks at the standard rate with no cap. Any other form of compensation should be paid by the corporation at 100%. That includes deferred income, stock options, private jets, apartments in Paris, London, DC and NY stocked with fresh flowers and expensive artwork, and any other form of privilege or monetary transfer from company to executive. Let the stockholders start questioning the real value of their highest-level executives.
Means test benefits. Anyone receiving non-SS income (not assets) over 1000% percent of the mean SS payment receives no benefits. Those people have already profited from the system built on those lower down on the economic rung, and their SS benefits amount to greens fees, not a vital portion of their retirement.
Real social security, beyotches!
gibberish!
you means test SSI, and it’s gone in two election cycles.
I have a fancy-assed solution: Vote the GOP out of office.
There. Done.
Some of these young folk had better wake up and wake up fast.
SS benefits are already subject to DOUBLE means-testing:
The benefit-to-contribution ratio is steeply tilted in favor
of workers with low (lifetime average) incomes. If/when
the cap is raised to include all income (from all sources!)
the benefit calculation could (and should) be revised to
include additional “bend points” – thus tilting the ratio
even further as lifetime income (and contributions) rise.
Higher income retirees are taxed on up to 85% of their
SS benefits. For many, this results in an effective marginal
tax rate approaching 30% on non-SS retirement income.
(That’s even more than Warren Buffet’s secretary pays.
Notice that the first test is based on pre-retirement (lifetime
average) wages, while the second is based on each year’s
post-retirement (non-SS) income. IMO, it makes sense to
consider both.
As a high-contribution retiree (with a comfortable pension)
I have no complaint with the current double means-testing,
but I believe it would be a serious mistake to cut off SS
benefits entirely for those who have contributed the most.
It’s better to tilt the benefit-to-contribution ratio enough to
ensure that the top contributors have a net positive effect
on SS sustainability – without excluding anyone.