Republicans Want to Gut Social Security, and Reduce SS Disability Benefits

[SeaBreeze]

Looks like this is high on their agenda, to gut social security and reduce SS disability benefits. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rj-eskow/on-tuesday-will-obama-sta_b_6470984.html

Republican candidates certainly didn't campaign in 2014 on a platform of gutting Social Security. But now that they control both houses of Congress, that's been their first order of business. Their arguments are based on bad arithmetic. They've also relied on phony "crises," and the new Congress moved to trigger another one on its very first day in office by blocking a minor shift of funds between the retirement and disability funds with a procedural "rule change."This adjustment's been made 11 times before. But the Republicans characterized it in histrionic terms, describing a shift of one-tenth of one percent of the retirement fund as a fundamental threat to its stability. Their action, if upheld, would lead to a 20 percent cut in disability benefits by late next year.

The disabled are being used pawns in a larger, and very cynical, game. The House's action can only be undone if changes are made to the overall Social Security program -- which, in this Congress, can only mean cuts to retirement benefits.

Spreading Panic

The GOP's latest move is part of its escalating rhetorical war against Social Security.Rep. Sam Johnson, the head of the Social Security Subcommittee, inflated two recent court cases in order to argue that the disability program is "plagued by fraud conspiracies." The fraudsters were caught in both cases, and they represented only a tiny fraction of disability claimants. Nevertheless, Johnson said "The public is fast losing faith in Social Security, and I don't blame them, because I have too."

Republicans have been asserting widespread disability fraud for years, but the Social Security Administration's Office of the Inspector General (OIG) has found no evidence to support them. Still, the histrionics keep coming. The new chairman of the House Budget Committee, Rep. Tom Price, told a conservative gathering that Social Security "is a program that right now on its current course will not be able to provide 75 or 80 percent of the benefits that individuals have paid into in a relatively short period of time ..."

This assertion, like those of Price's GOP colleagues, is flatly untrue. Without any other changes, Social Security will be forced to reduce its retirement benefits by approximately one-fourth in the mid-2030s -- not by 75 or 80 percent, as Price asserts. But even that relatively modest shortfall is easily addressed, primarily by "lifting the cap" (so that wealthier people pay into the fund at the same rate as other Americans.

Why don't the Republicans ever mention "lifting the cap"? Because they hate taxes as much as they hate government, and because they've received a great deal of financial support from people who would pay more if the "cap" were lifted -- people like hedge-fund billionaire Pete Peterson, a major backer of anti-"entitlement" initiatives. Social Security privatization, another Republican goal, would also bring trillions of dollars under Wall Street's control.

No Bargain

Normally one would expect a Democratic president to be one of Social Security's most stalwart defenders. Together with Medicare, it's one of the Democratic Party's signature achievements. Unfortunately, the party's so-called "centrist" wing has also embraced the Peterson crowd's spin.

Economist Monique Morrissey of the Economic Policy Institute told Talking Point Memo's Dylan Scott that "advocates do not trust the President on Social Security." There are reasons for that. President Obama appointed two Peterson-backed anti-Social Security operatives, Alan Simpson and Erskine Bowles, to head a "deficit commission" whose mandate included Social Security. He proposed the "chained CPI" benefit cut in his budget for the 2014 fiscal year. And he has repeatedly expressed interest in a "Grand Bargain" with Republicans, which includes benefit cuts.

Now there are worrisome signs that the "Grand Bargain" may be coming back. And the White House refused to comment on the Republican move to slash disability benefits, and perhaps the entire program, despite Scott's repeated attempts to get the administration on record.

 

[QuickSilver]

It's always been high on their priority... that's why any Senior who is not part of the top 1% and independently wealthy is insane for voting for them. If you depend on your SS... why are you voting Republican... What they want to do... since they know they cannot get away with abolishing it is to turn the SS surplus and all FICA contributions over to their friends on Wall Street who have been salivating over that money for decades... They want to be able to gamble it away on high risk trades skimming a little off the top for themselves as they do.. ONLY when they screw up and lose it... all the risk is on the Seniors.. YOU lose your SS or have drastic decreases in payment.. So they get all the profit... we take the risk. Imagine what would have happened to our benefits in 2008 when the Market tanked.. This is the Holy Grail to Republicans... Privatization of SS... They will keep trying so long as there's a breath in their bodies... They owe their big doners.. and this is part of the extracted price for the huge campaign contributions.

 

[Josiah]

Seabreeze and Quicksilver, you've both stated the situation very accurately, but you'll recall all the success GWB had when he tried to pursue this agenda during his first term. S.S. disability might be a lot more vulnerable, I hope not.

 

[QuickSilver]

Seabreeze and Quicksilver, you've both stated the situation very accurately, but you'll recall all the success GWB had when he tried to pursue this agenda during his first term. S.S. disability might be a lot more vulnerable, I hope not.

But as I understand it... the transfer of funds can work both ways.. not only from SS to disability, but back again. So SS would eventually be affected.. It's all poison pill Josiah.. just like what they did to the poor Post Office in hopes of bankrupting them and privatizing them.. Everything the GOP does... no matter how seeminly innocuous, has the end goal of privatization and slashing benefits..

 

[SeaBreeze]

Bernie Sanders' thoughts on the issue. http://www.politicususa.com/2015/01...cial-security-11-million-disabled-people.html

 

[AZ Jim]

They have been using former SSTrust funs for everything under the sun and yet they've tried to kill it at least since LBJ days. I do not and will never under a senior who votes the greedy, self serving, mean spirited, "I've got mine, screw you" Republican ticket. Some Republicans including some our members think "oh the Dems always alarmists" until they feel the bite themselves.

 

[QuickSilver]

They have been using former SSTrust funs for everything under the sun and yet they've tried to kill it at least since LBJ days. I do not and will never under a senior who votes the greedy, self serving, mean spirited, "I've got mine, screw you" Republican ticket. Some Republicans including some our members think "oh the Dems always alarmists" until they feel the bite themselves.

Yeah.. well they keep voting in Republicans we KNOW where it's going to bite them.... Unfortunately all the rest of us too.

 

[Jackie22]

They have been using former SSTrust funs for everything under the sun and yet they've tried to kill it at least since LBJ days. I do not and will never under a senior who votes the greedy, self serving, mean spirited, "I've got mine, screw you" Republican ticket. Some Republicans including some our members think "oh the Dems always alarmists" until they feel the bite themselves.

When that happens, they'll find a way to blame Democrats and President Obama, the corporate news will dress it up real well and sell it to the public, they will then embellish it yet again and sent it round and round on the email express.