(AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty) Judith Odyssey sets up her weekly medication, in Hartford, Maine. Odyssey, who has congestive heart problems, fibromyalgia, asthma, and arthritis, gets $674 a month in Social Security.
On January 31, 1940, the United States government cut a check for $22.54 to a 65-year-old woman from Rutland, Vermont, named Ida May Fuller. Ms. Fuller, who had spent most of her career as a legal secretary, was the first American to receive a monthly Social Security check.
(AP Photo/Brett Flashnick) Republican presidential candidate and Texas Governor Rick Perry during a South Carolina GOP lunch in Columbia, August 19, 2011
When I arrived at the Knightsville United Methodist Church, meeting place for the Low Country 9/12 project (and that night, a Cub Scout troop), Linda Ensor, the 2nd vice president, took care to explain the nonpartisan nature of her organization. "We don't tell them how to think, and we don't tell them to vote," she said as she described the mission of the Glenn Beck-inspired group. "We let them think how they think and vote how they vote."
Social Security checks (AP Photo/Bradley C. Bower)
To hear the deficit doomsayers, you would think the U.S.' fiscal collapse were imminent unless Democrats immediately agreed to painful cuts in core anti-poverty programs like Social Security. Last week, No Labels -- a supposedly nonpartisan group that seems to exist to promote Alan Simpson's austerity agenda -- blasted Democratic Senate Leader Harry Reid for refusing to join in the deficit hysteria. "Senator Reid's position is out of step with the majority of [the] country when it comes to our financial woes.
The battle over public-sector unions is, at least in part, a battle over benefits: From Wisconsin to New Jersey, public-sector unions are among the last employees who can expect to retire with defined pension plans. Wisconsin, where a political showdown just resulted in reduced bargaining rights for public employees, is expected to release new estimates on state pensions next week, according to The New York Times. The state will likely ask employees to contribute more money to their plans and make other concessions.
Conservatives in Washington have their knives out for Social Security. Soon after being named co-chair of President Barack Obama's deficit commission, former Sen. Alan Simpson -- who recently described Social Security as "a milk cow with 310 million tits" -- said unequivocally that Social Security has to be cut. He boasted, "It'll be a bloodbath." Simpson's co-chair, former chief of staff for Bill Clinton, Erskine Bowles, has been equally blunt: "We are going to mess with Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security." Commission member and retiring Sen. Judd Gregg jocularly defended cutting Social Security by quoting Willie Sutton who, when asked why he robbed banks, replied, "because that's where the money is."
Rep. Ted Deutch (D-Fla.) talks with a group of seniors.
Yesterday, the Social Security trustees released their annual report. Though they announced the program will be able to pay full benefits through 2037 (and 75 percent of benefits through 2084), critics immediately tried to spin it as evidence of the program's failures. "The reports released today again sound the alarm that spending on Social Security and Medicare is on an unsustainable path," Republican Rep. Dave Camp said. While progressives are reluctant to privatize or support benefit cuts, protecting Social Security over the long term will require them to propose other solutions.
Critics of Social Security have long perpetuated the myth that the system will eventually go bankrupt. It's time to dispel that claim once and for all.
There's a time-tested way to curry favor with the permanent Washington establishment. That is, having David Broder praise you for being "responsible" and being considered a Very Serious Person by the Sunday shows. All you need to do is proclaim ominously that entitlements are a ticking time bomb, a looming storm on the horizon, a hungry beast ready to devour our nation's finances, or whatever metaphor you find most frightening. The more unpleasant the solution you propose -- tax increases are good, but benefit cuts are even better -- the more the Beltway Brahmins will approve.
It's testament to how deeply the idea of an entitlement crisis has embedded itself in Washington that news that Obama planned a "fiscal accountability summit" was immediately taken as proof by The Washington Post that he was readying a frontal assault on Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security.
Budget hawks are trying to convince the public that we face an unavoidable choice between cutting social programs and budgetary Armageddon. But in reality, our budgetary problems stem from our out-of-control health care system.
"Saving our future requires tough choices today" may be a banal sentiment, but it's not an easy one to challenge. That is the headline on the "Fiscal Wake-Up Tour," a slide show created by David M. Walker, formerly head of the Government Accountability Office. In hopes that it will be to the long-term budget deficit what Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth" slide show has been to climate change, Pete Peterson has set aside a billion dollars out of his recent windfall from the Blackstone Group to fund Walker's national tour and like endeavors.
It seems so reasonable, particularly to many Democrats. To solve the long-term shortfall in Social Security, why not tax all earnings instead of just the first $97,500? Wouldn't taxing pay above that level be the economically progressive and fiscally responsible way to solve Social Security's problems?
Prodded by Tim Russert at two Democratic presidential debates this fall, Joe Biden, Barack Obama, and John Edwards agreed that it was indeed the thing to do. None of them challenged Russert's premise that Social Security faces so dire a prognosis that only a big tax increase or cut in benefits can solve the problem.
Do Social Security's potential fiscal problems in the 2040s really need to be addressed now by an increase in the payroll tax? It's not brave for the Democrats to put themselves on record for a tax increase -- it's just plain dumb.
It seems so reasonable, particularly to many Democrats. To solve the long-term shortfall in Social Security, why not tax all earnings instead of just the first $97,500? Wouldn't taxing pay above that level be the economically progressive and fiscally responsible way to solve Social Security's problems?
Prodded by Tim Russert at the Democratic presidential debate in New Hampshire on September 26 -- and again in Philadelphia on October 30 -- several of the candidates agreed that it was the thing to do.
Joe Biden endorsed the proposal without qualification. Barack Obama said lifting the cap was probably the best step. John Edwards also supported the idea, while saying he would apply the increase only to those making more than $200,000.
This February in North Carolina, George W. Bush told a giddy crowd, “I'm here to talk about an issue that is going to be an interesting experience in dealing with the Congress [laughter]. And that is Social Security -- formerly known as the third rail of American politics [laughter]. That meant, if you touched it, there would be certain political death.”
He may not have been electrocuted as the result of the felony he tried to commit against Social Security, but he seems to have learned what the rest of the conservative movement has known for years: Don't attack popular social programs directly. Instead, come at them from the side. While the indirect strategy may lack the glamour of a full-frontal counterrevolution, at least it's not suicidal.
In August, on the 70th anniversary of the signing of the Social Security Act, the White House released a three-sentence presidential statement. “For 70 years,” it read, “Social Security has been a vital program and helped millions of America's seniors in retirement. The Social Security system is sound for today's seniors, but there is a hole in the safety net for younger workers. On this 70th anniversary, we renew our commitment to save and strengthen Social Security for our children and grandchildren, and keep the promise of Social Security for future generations.”
A ripple of economic anxiety passed through middle America this spring when a bankrupt United Airlines ditched its pension obligations and General Motors announced it would cut 25,000 jobs. That's capitalism, you may say: Individual companies rise and
fall, and America's prosperity should never be equated with their fortunes. But United's abandonment of its pensions and GM's deepening troubles highlight a larger worry that ought to be a focus of our politics.
The old corporate America that took responsibility for workers' pensions and health care is dying, and the nation's political leadership has hardly taken notice of the implications.
“Just say no” has been a winning strategy for Democrats. Social Security privatization looks dead. Ditto with “progressive indexing” of Social Security benefits. CAFTA (the Central American Free Trade Agreement) is on its last legs. Tax “reform” is a nonstarter. But if the Democratic Party is to win back the Senate or the House in 2006 and the presidency in 2008, it needs a positive agenda.
