Clinton’s Plan For Gutting Social Security

[Tom Joad]

Warning to Hillarybots everywhere. If she cuts my Social Security and/or Medicare by as much as one dime, I am holding each and every one of you personally responsible.

http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/11/...cial-security/

In the recent Wikileaks revelations confirming Hillary Clinton’s duplicity, one of the clearest disclosures of her policy plans concerns her intention regarding Social Security. She stated that she would return to the position of the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, charged with producing recommendations for reducing the deficit, i.e. cutting government social spending.

The Commission, or “Simpson-Bowles committee” -named after co-chairs former Wyoming Republican senator Alan Simpson, and Erskine Bowles, former Morgan Stanley board member and chief of staff under Bill Clinton- was appointed by Obama in 2010. Among its members were some of the most persistent deficit hawks. Most significantly, the Commission was stacked with leading enemies of Social Security flailing their arms over the “impending insolvency” of the program. The day before his appointment as co-chair, Simpson said in an interview with the Washington Post: “How did we get to a point in America where you get to a certain age in life, regardless of net worth or income, and you’re ‘entitled’? The word itself is killing us.” (Feb. 17, 2010) In a later e-mail he described Social Security as “a milk cow with 310 million teats,” and had characterized its beneficiaries as “greedy geezers.” Bowles’s record was in line with Simpson’s. He had earlier negotiated with Newt Gingrich how best to cut safety net programs. The ultimate objective was to privatize Social Security.

[nailer]

To the millions with empty rice bowls, and lots of millennials for that matter, many SS beneficiaries radiate a "greedy geezer" aura.

[Boreas]

Originally Posted by nailer

To the millions with empty rice bowls, and lots of millennials for that matter, many SS beneficiaries radiate a "greedy geezer" aura.

If true, and I see no evidence to support it, that judgment will change after those millennials have been paying into the system for a few years. There's nothing greedy or geezerish about getting something you paid for.

[finnbow]

Oh my!!! Hillary actually plans to make Social Security solvent again. How dare she.

[nailer]

Originally Posted by finnbow

Oh my!!! Hillary actually plans to make Social Security solvent again. How dare she.

The concepts of solvency, sustainability, and budget impact are common in discussions of Social Security, but are not well understood. Currently, the Social Security Board of Trustees projects program cost to rise by 2035 so that taxes will be enough to pay for only 75 percent of scheduled benefits. This increase in cost results from population aging, not because we are living longer, but because birth rates dropped from three to two children per woman. Importantly, this shortfall is basically stable after 2035; adjustments to taxes or benefits that offset the effects of the lower birth rate may restore solvency for the Social Security program on a sustainable basis for the foreseeable future. Finally, as Treasury debt securities (trust fund assets) are redeemed in the future, they will just be replaced with public debt. If trust fund assets are exhausted without reform, benefits will necessarily be lowered with no effect on budget deficits. https://www.ssa.gov/policy/docs/ssb/...v70n3p111.html

Hillary, with Congress' blessing, can increase SS taxes and/or decrease benefits. Nothing new here.

[Boreas]

Originally Posted by nailer

The concepts of solvency, sustainability, and budget impact are common in discussions of Social Security, but are not well understood. Currently, the Social Security Board of Trustees projects program cost to rise by 2035 so that taxes will be enough to pay for only 75 percent of scheduled benefits. This increase in cost results from population aging, not because we are living longer, but because birth rates dropped from three to two children per woman. Importantly, this shortfall is basically stable after 2035; adjustments to taxes or benefits that offset the effects of the lower birth rate may restore solvency for the Social Security program on a sustainable basis for the foreseeable future. Finally, as Treasury debt securities (trust fund assets) are redeemed in the future, they will just be replaced with public debt. If trust fund assets are exhausted without reform, benefits will necessarily be lowered with no effect on budget deficits. https://www.ssa.gov/policy/docs/ssb/...v70n3p111.html

Hillary, with Congress' blessing, can increase SS taxes and/or decrease benefits. Nothing new here.

There's a third way that doesn't involve raising taxes across the board.

[bobabode]

Originally Posted by Boreas

There's a third way that doesn't involve raising taxes across the board.

Yep, eliminate the cap and viola!

[CarlV]

I like Bernie's way, make everybody pay for their fair share but this country is too much into giving the richest of us a free ride.


Carl

[nailer]

Originally Posted by Boreas

There's a third way that doesn't involve raising taxes across the board.

Sounds like raising taxes to me.

[Boreas]

Originally Posted by nailer

Sounds like raising taxes to me.

Read what I wrote.