For decades, the assault on Social Security has been led by those who want to "means-test" it -- to give full benefits only to the very poor, while cutting them for "those who can afford it". This way the wildly-successful intergenerational retirement savings program would be turned into a welfare system, undermining the broad public support that FDR secured for the SS system and making it much easier to cut benefits in the future.
In the Democratic debate Hillary Clinton joined Wall St, deficit hawks, and Republicans in pushing for such means-testing...
Clinton was asked by CNN’s Dana Bash whether “Senator Sanders’ plan to expand Social Security” was “something that you would support.”
“Well, I fully support Social Security,” Clinton began. “And the most important fight we’re going to have is defending it against continuing Republican efforts to privatize it.”
Case closed? Not quite. Bash pressed on: “Do you want to expand it?”
That yes-or-no question got neither. “I want to enhance the benefits for the poorest recipients of Social Security,” she said, singling out “particularly widowed and single women” who didn’t make a lot of money during their careers. “I will focus on helping those people who need it the most,” she concluded.
What alarmed Social Security activists is that underneath Clinton’s positive language – “fully support,” “enhance” – appears to lie support for policies, including from leading conservatives like Pete Peterson – that would actually undermine Social Security.
Read the whole
article by Isaiah J. Poole, it's short. And -- though it's hardly been noticed yet by the fawning corporate media -- this could be the issue that turns the election.
Social Security benefits are already miserably low. Bernie Sanders wants to raise them by raising the cap on the tax. Hillary wants to open benefits to changes based on income. This is what she calls "protecting" Social Security.
Will we cry out, stand up, and stop this attack on Social Security, or will we twist ourselves into pretzels trying to rationalize that it's "reasonable" or "understandable" or even "sadly, necessary"? Will we watch passively, again, as yet another major plank of FDR's Democratic platform is pulled up and thrown away.