Sen. Lindsey Graham (Graham photo gallery)
When we last heard from Sen. Lindsey Graham on Social Security, he was arguing that raising the retirement age is what our brave troops in Iraq would do. Or something like that; it was a little hard to follow.
He's not being any more coherent on the issue now, talking about the legislation he's developing with Sen. Rand Paul to raise the retirement age and implement means testing.
"We're going to have a Social Security solvency bill next week that deals with age adjustment and means testing," said Senator Lindsey Graham, who is working on legislation with newcomer Rand Paul, a Tea Party activist.
Graham did not give details but an age adjustment would raise the age for full retirement benefits from the current level, which already is gradually increasing to 67. Means testing would diminish Social Security benefits for the wealthy.
"I've never seen a better moment to deal with Social Security in a bipartisan fashion than right now," Graham told reporters, saying company-backed pension plans "are going by the wayside" and "a lot of Americans are going to outlive their 401k (retirement) plans."
Graham must somehow thing that if he says the magic word—"bipartisanship"—he'll get what he wants, even when he's devising his plan with, of all people, Rand Paul. According to The Hill, he's also working with Sen. Mike "child labor laws are unconstitutional" Lee on the effort. With the company he's keeping, this effort seems more like Graham hedging his bets against a teahadist primary challenge in 2014 than anything else.
Graham also "called on President Obama to join with Republicans to forge a bipartisan deal on Social Security." His choice of legislative companions make that offer questionable, and will likely only shore up the stiff opposition from a core group of Senate Dems.
A group of Senate Democrats, led by liberal Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), is trying to establish procedural protections to guard against cuts to Social Security benefits.....
At least nine senators, Sanders and eight Democrats, have signed a letter seeking co-sponsors for legislation to block changes in Social Security benefits, according to a copy obtained by The Hill.
“Our legislation would establish a point of order against any legislation that would reduce Social Security benefits or privatize Social Security,” the lawmakers wrote in a Dear Colleague letter dated February 28. “The point of order in our legislation could only be waived by the affirmative vote of two-thirds of the Senate and the House present and voting.”
Sens. Daniel Akaka (Hawaii), Sheldon Whitehouse (R.I.), Sherrod Brown (Ohio), Barbara Mikulski (Md.), Barbara Boxer (Calif.), Debbie Stabenow (Mich.), Mark Begich (Alaska) and Richard Blumenthal (Conn.) also signed the letter.
It took a while, but Senate Dems and the White House have seemed to coalesce behind telling the truth about Social Security—it's not a crisis. They unfortunately let that narrative go unanswered for too long, thanks in large part to Obama's catfood commission, and now have to fight doubly hard to get the truth out, and to protect Social Security from the likes of Graham, Paul and Lee.