Dem, GOP Senators demand Social Security reform
posted at 12:55 pm on April 13, 2011 by Ed Morrissey
Barack Obama may avoid mentioning Social Security in his speech today, but the Senate may not let him off the hook. Both Democrats and Republicans in the upper chamber demanded movement on reform to salvage Social Security with calls for higher retirement ages. The Hill reports that a small group of Democrats have demanded reform — enough to give Republicans the votes to force it:
Several Democratic senators are separating themselves from their leadership and encouraging President Obama to cut Social Security benefits by raising the retirement age in order to keep the entitlement solvent.
Sens. Tom Carper (D-Del.) and Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and Sen.Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.), who caucuses with the Democrats, are all openly calling for reform, and making it plain that the party is disunited on the issue when a titanic debate over debt is gathering momentum.
If the president called for raising the Social Security retirement age by a year or two, phased in slowly over several decades, these senators say they could support him.
Later, Republicans answered with a plan for hiking the retirement age and means-testing benefits:
Three Republican senators on Wednesday will propose a Social Security reform package that would raise the retirement age to 70 and cut benefits for the wealthy.
Sens. Lindsey Graham (S.C.), Rand Paul (Ky.) and Mike Lee (Utah) previewed their proposal on Fox News, saying that it will put the entitlement program on a long-term path to solvency without raising taxes.
The senators said that their plan would gradually raise the retirement age from 67 to 70 and would not affect individuals age 56 or older. Graham said that the proposal uses the same formula Congress used to raise the retirement age from 65 to 67, so that people born in 1970 would become the first group to have a retirement age of 70.
Means-testing is a sensitive topic. Social Security is positioned as an earned pension system, not a welfare system, although in reality it’s closer to the latter than the former now. Means-testing will be popular in the same way that higher taxes on the wealthy are, ie, as a class-warfare argument. However, disconnecting benefits from contributions will turn Social Security into an explicit wealth-redistribution system, and it’s likely to lose more political support in the long run — and for little real benefit, as the issues of solvency hardly involve benefit payments to the wealthy but the structural issues of longer payments to everyone through extended life expectancy:
Having both Republicans and Democrats working on Social Security reform in the Senate makes it more likely that some sort of bipartisan compromise will emerge. If Obama fails to get ahead of this effort in the same way he failed to get ahead of budget cuts and entitlement reform in the last few weeks, the White House will lose even more credibility in political leadership.
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Sweet. How sweet it is.
Finally, Obama’s chikkinzzz are coming home to roost.
petefrt on May 19, 2013 at 8:22 PM
This.
When you have to plead incompetence to defend against charges of malfeasance, you know you might be in trouble.
petefrt on May 19, 2013 at 8:36 PM
ear relevant…
driguana on May 19, 2013 at 8:59 PM
Flush this lying tudd down the drain with the rest of the Obamacrap.
kemojr on May 19, 2013 at 9:34 PM
This was Dan Pfeiffer’s week in the barrel, like Susan Rice he was given the White House talking points and sent on a mission. He really needs to get copies of these tapes and watch them and see how foolish and unbelievable he looked and sounded. The White House is losing the little credibility it still had by sending these shills out every week trying to do damage control. Community organizers make poor leaders.
savage24 on May 19, 2013 at 9:42 PM
Pfeiffer’s statement that the law is irrelevant because the IRS conduct was “outrageous” and “inexcusable”, tells us all we need to know about this administration.
However, the follow-up should have been, “On what standard do you judge their conduct to be outrageous and inexcusable since the law is apparently not an appropriate standard?” (At least in Pfeiffer’s mind.)
What this comes down to is this: “if the Administrative deems something “outrageous” and “inexcusable,” then it is declared such. As we have seen in so many other areas, if the Administrative deems something to not be “outrageous” and “inexcusable,” then it is declared such.
In their mind, the law is – in fact – irrelevant. That’s what makes this situation so dangerous.
It’s not socialism. It’s worse.
EdmundBurke247 on May 19, 2013 at 10:36 PM
Irrelevant = “What Difference Does It Make?”
jaydee_007 on May 19, 2013 at 10:41 PM
A fitting capstone to Ed’s story about loss-prevention (aka employee theft) and management’s “permission structure” in this post.
(Not to mention the jaw-dropping statements of Eleanor Clift in this one.)
AesopFan on May 19, 2013 at 11:40 PM
I enjoy popcorn and hope it is a long week.
Drill and Fill on May 20, 2013 at 12:41 AM
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