Here are my questions for the community, given the latest front-page report by Susan Gardner on the coming attacks on Social Security through cutting back benefits and raising the age of retirement:
- What happens if the Social Security Commission, led by the likes of Peterson and the deficit peacocks, recommend that the age of retirement be lifted, and benefits sharply cut back?
- What will you specifically do to prevent this from happening?
- How do we advance the progressive solution, which is lifting the payroll cap, and point out it is the easiest way to ensuring the stability of Social Security for generations to come?
- What happens if Democrats accept the recommendations of the Social Security Commission, cutbacks in benefits and raise in age of retirement, and the Blue Dogs and conservative Democrats join with Republicans to vote in favor of the recommendations?
Let's not forget that the CBO pointed out that options such as applying the payroll tax to all earnings would more than eliminate the actuarial deficit in Social Security. This is the kind of point that we can trumpet in saving Social Security from the deficit peacocks in Washington, D.C., and public opinion is with us on Social Security, as you can see from the Huffington Post article written by Lawrence Jacobs and Benjamin Page of Social Security Works:
Remarkably, however, AmericaSpeaks got lucky (or perhaps, from Peterson's point of view, unlucky.) Despite all the biases, on several issues town hall participants came up with opinions not very different from those that have been expressed by majorities of Americans in dozens of well-designed national surveys. Participants opposed cuts in Social Security benefits, insisting that benefits must be preserved when balancing the budget. They wanted to strengthen the economy, favoring the current stimulus bill (stalled in the Senate) by a margin of 51% to 38%. In order to reduce budget deficits, most favored cutting defense spending and enacting progressive tax measures: raising the payroll tax "cap" so that incomes over $106,800 are subject to the tax (85% in favor); raising high-end corporate and personal income taxes; and imposing new taxes on carbon and on securities transactions. Only on the Social Security retirement age did the results conspicuously stray from actual public opinion.
We have carefully reviewed the best available survey-based evidence concerning public opinion on budget deficits and Social Security. It is this evidence, which provides a fuller, more representative, and more accurate picture of Americans' thinking, that the Deficit Commission and others should pay attention to.
For decades, for example, highly respected studies by the General Social Survey and the Chicago Council on Global Affairs have found large majorities of Americans wanting to expand rather than cut back spending on Social Security. In the most recent CCGA survey, for example, 69% said the program should be "expanded," and only 10% said "cut back."
Support for Social Security is found in virtually all segments of the American population. The opinion that "too little" is being spent on Social Security is shared by majorities of Republicans, Democrats, and Independents; by majorities of men as well as women; by whites as well as African Americans or Latinos; by people with a lot of formal education as well as people with little. Most important, support is very strong among young (age 18-29) Americans, fully 63% of whom told the most recent GSS that we are spending "too little" on Social Security. The supposed generation gap on Social Security is mostly a myth. There is no intergenerational war between "greedy geezers" and the young.
We have every right to be concerned about the recommendations of the Cat Food Commission getting a vote, since there has been stated support from Democrats in the House about being okay with lifting the age of retirement as reported by Talking Points Memo:
House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer explicitly put the idea on the table as well in a speech last month. "We should consider a higher retirement age or one pegged to lifespan," Hoyer said.
He echoed House Majority Whip James Clyburn, who put it this way: "With minor changes to the program such as raising the salary cap and raising the retirement age by one month every year, the program could become solvent for the next 75 years." One month a year may not sound like much, but if you're 30 years away from retirement, that adds up to almost three years.
....
There's one catch, though. Last week, Democrats included a rider to the supplemental war spending bill that will likely force the House to vote on a forthcoming fiscal reform plan, if the Senate passes it first. That package is being put together by President Obama's deficit and debt commission, and will be ready to go after the midterms. Pelosi had already pledged to give the package a vote, so perhaps nothing has really changed. But in a way, she also tied her own hands: if the Senate passes a broad tax-and-entitlement reform package at the end of this Congress and her own caucus is willing, she'll be hard-pressed to stop the Social Security reforms she thinks should come last.
And even if the onus is put on the Senate to pass the recommendations of the Cat Food Commission, there's no guarantee that Senators will be able to stop this from happening---since the hysteria about the deficit and the need to cut back on benefits for our elderly will be coming thanks to deficit peacocks like Peterson and the media in D.C. will only be too happy to promote that hysteria, while playing down or ignoring progressive solutions such as raising corporate taxes on Wall Street and lifting the cap on the payroll tax. We can't rest easy on this---given that many of the 18 member commission have expressed views in favor of cutting back on Social Security benefits and raising the age of retirement. And it only takes 14 votes to pass the recommendations of the Cat Food Commission on a majority vote.