social security

There is more confusion about Social Security today than ever before. We are hearing contradictory claims from individuals, organizations, and government, and nobody knows who to believe.

Conservatives opposed Social Security and have been trying to undermine it since it was signed into law August 14, 1935, Right from the day it was proposed Republicans and conservative Democrats were howling at the moon that it was deepen unemployment-- their standard false argument against everything under the sun. The same crew also accused Social Security of being socialism-- since the words have many letters in common.

Last night I mentioned that a progressive Member of Congress who had just endorsed Hillary's very establishment campaign instead of Bernie's-- with which he is much more ideologically aligned-- had written that he believes "that Bernie has pushed her far enough to the left now that she is supporting more progressive policies that help regular people and the poor.

During the past three decades the American people have been kept in the dark about the true status of the Social Security program. Politicians, from both political parties, give out false and conflicting information on a regular basis, and nobody knows who to believe. At the Republican presidential debate, held in Boulder, Colorado, on the night of October 28, 2015, New Jersey governor, Chris Christie, shocked a lot of people when he said, “Let me be honest with the people who are watching at home. The government has lied to you and they have stolen from you.

The Social Security payroll tax hike of 1983 generated $2.7 trillion in surplus revenue. The surplus was supposed to be saved and invested in marketable U.S. Treasury bonds, which could later be resold to raise money with which to pay benefits to the baby boomers. If this had been done, Social Security would not have major financial problems today, and it would not be a major political issue.

As we've been discussing for the last month or so-- and despite the indisputable fact that real costs the seniors have to spend (housing, medical, food...) have been rising-- next year will see no Cost of Living Adjustment (COLA) for Social Security beneficiaries. Progressives in Congress-- as opposed to Republicans or Democrats from the Republican wing of the Democratic Party (the New Dems and Blue Dogs)-- are furious that seniors are being kicked to the curb.

As we've been discussing for the last month or so-- and despite the indisputable fact that real costs the seniors have to spend (housing, medical, food...) have been rising-- next year will see no Cost of Living Adjustment (COLA) for Social Security beneficiaries. Progressives in Congress-- as opposed to Republicans or Democrats from the Republican wing of the Democratic Party (the New Dems and Blue Dogs)-- are furious that seniors are being kicked to the curb.

Hillary Clinton explains her Social Security ideas to the Politics and Eggs Event in New Hampshire (source) by Gaius PubliusSure seems like it, but judge for yourself. Watch the above video starting at about 28:50 (if all is well in HTML land, I've queued it up for you). In case you haven't thought it through, raising the retirement age is a benefit cut. There's no other way to say it. From a transcript (paragraphing and emphasis mine):

Establishment Democrats seem upset that Bernie has turned out to be more than just a nuisance vanity candidate, quite a lot more. His popularity and rising poll numbers have certainly been forcing their candidate to take stands on issues she would have rather not talked about-- from Keystone XL Pipeline to the disastrous trade agreement she was complicit in negotiating, the TPP, and which she has now been forced to disown.

Boehner's revenge on the GOP's far right fringe?Yesterday afternoon brought word that Obama and Boehner had come close to reaching a deal to raise the debt limit until March 2017 and bust sequestration spending limits by $112 billion, split evenly between defense and domestic spending.