The GOP has plans to not only gut Medicare benefits for seniors, but they also plan to cut Social Security Benefits in the future also...
Republican Budget Creates a Fast Track to Cut Social Security and Ends Medicare as We Know It
The House GOP’s FY2014 budget proposal, The Path to Prosperity: A Responsible, Balanced Budget, threatens the future of Social Security and Medicare, and the well-being of virtually all Americans. The Republican budget would expand tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires, while pulling away critical Medicare and Social Security protections from the middle class.
UNDERMINES SOCIAL SECURITY
The Republican budget strikes three major blows to Social Security, a self-financed insurance program, which past Congresses have worked hard to keep out of budget discussions, in recognition that Social Security does not and, by law, cannot add to the federal debt of the United States.
First, bucking legal and historical precedent, today’s Republicans make Social Security a major part of their budget proposal.1 In addition, the Republican budget, proposed by House Budget Committee Chairman Representative Paul Ryan (R, WI-1), would: Create an unprecedented new fast-track procedure to ram through Social Security benefit cuts.
In a radical departure from the way Social Security changes have been legislated since 1935, the Republican budget would force Congress to fast-track legislation determining the future of Social Security.
As the following bullet describes, the Ryan budget moves the goal posts, adding a new test of whether Social Security needs reform and then forces the president to submit legislation whenever the new test is violated. Within two months of the president submitting Social Security legislation, Congress would have to consider it “under expedited procedures.”2
Every year, the Social Security trustees project Social Security’s income and outgo for a 75 year valuation period, far longer than used by private pensions and most other countries for their Social Security systems.
Notwithstanding this already conservative practice, the Ryan budget requires the president and Congress to reform Social Security on an expedited, fast track basis, even if it is in 75 year actuarial balance—simply because it is found to be out of balance in the 75th year!3
The new requirement that the Republicans seek to impose is simply another way of forcing draconian cuts that the American people reject.
Projections over 75 years, by their nature, lack certainty. Projections of Social Security's solvency change every year, which means that Ryan's plan could force big changes to Social Security based on very short-term variations in the program's finances.
BOTTOM LINE:
Social Security affects virtually every American. Moreover, unlike many divisive issues, poll after poll shows that the American people are united and clear about how they want Social Security reformed. They do not want to see benefits cut and they favor asking all working persons and their employers to make payroll tax contributions on...
Read 6 page PDF with informative links here: http://www.strengthensocialsecurity.org/sites/default/files/Ryan_Budget_2014_Fact_Sheet_FINAL.pdf