Social Security turns 80 this year, and Medicare turns 50. That makes it an auspicious time for Democrats to make a real push in not just strengthening the programs, but expanding them. Since Monday also marked the once-in-a-decade White House Conference on Aging, it made for a really great day for Bernie Sanders and congressional Democrats to
deliver a letter to President Obama urging him to embrace the idea of expanding Social Security. That letter was accompanied by
more than 2.5 million petition signatures (including
one whole box full from Daily Kos).
To see how much traction that call is getting, here it is getting a call-out from Hillary Clinton in her speech today on economic policies:
“We’ll help families look forward to retirement by defending and enhancing Social Security and making it easier to save for the future."
Now, "enhancing" Social Security isn't quite the same as "expanding" Social Security, but it's a helluva lot better than the previous Democratic rhetoric buying into the Very Serious Person idea that Social Security must be cut to be saved. Speaking of which, here's what President Obama
had to say on the issue at the Conference on Aging.
Now, we're often told that Medicare and Social Security are in crisis. We hear that all the time. And usually, that's used as an excuse to try to cut spending on those bedrock programs. But here's the truth. Medicare and Social Security are not in crisis, nor have they kept us from cutting our deficits by two-thirds since I took office. Both programs are facing challenges because of the demographic trends I just talked about. And for Medicare, that means we've got to keep slowing the growth of health care costs, and keep building on the progress we've already made in the past few years. […]
Number one, we have to keep Social Security strong, protecting its future solvency. (Applause.) And I think there are ways, creative ways that people are talking about to protect its future solvency, but also strengthen retirement security for our most vulnerable neighbors. So that's step number one.
That's sure a welcome rhetorical change, one that recognizes the economic reality for retirees in the 21st century. Obama also spoke about that reality, about the looming retirement crisis and the fact that "too many older Americans leave the workforce without having saved enough for a dignified retirement." It's "not as if they haven't tried, he added, but there "are a lot of folks out here who work really, really hard, but at the end of the day just still don't have enough of a nest egg. In today's economy, preparing for retirement has gotten tougher."
For the moment, the rear-guard action to save Social Security is behind us (at least with Democrats; Jeb Bush is still on his brother's privatization train). We're not going to be hearing any more talk about "grand bargains" that trade away Social Security for quite a while. Congratulate yourselves on the victory in this skirmish, because we're well-positioned to win the war to make expanding Social Security a key Democratic platform plank for 2016.