President Obama definitely had a bad night when he faced Governor Romney in Denver for the first presidential debate. However, for many listeners the worst moment was not due to his atypical inarticulateness. Rather, the worst moment was when he quite clearly told the country that there was not much difference between his position on Social Security and Governor Romney's. He also expressed his desire to "tweak" Social Security to improve its finances.
This is very bad news to the tens of millions of people who depend on Social Security now or expect to in the near future. It's also bad news to the hundreds of millions of people who have been counting on the Social Security system to provide a degree of financial security to their retired or disabled family members.
After all, Governor Romney clearly does not seem to have warm feelings toward the program. His vice-presidential pick, Paul Ryan, has been the most ardent proponent of privatization in the House. If Romney is committed to Social Security, picking Representative Ryan as his running mate would be a strange way of showing it.
When President Obama links arms with Romney on Social Security, it is not good news for supporters of the program. Nor was the situation made better by the desire to "tweak" the system.
In Washington, tweak is a code word used by people who want to cut Social Security but lack the courage to say it explicitly.
For example, their favorite "tweak" is changing the cost of living adjustment formula in a way that reduces retirees' benefits by 0.3 percentage points annually. This would add up to a 3 percent cut in benefits after 10 years, a 6 percent cut after 20 years and a 9 percent cut after 30 years.
In other words, this tweak is real money, especially for the oldest beneficiaries who also tend to be the poorest. In fact, this tweak of Social Security is likely to have more impact on the income of most retirees than taking back President Bush's tax cut on the wealthy would have on their income. The other items that are usually part of the tweak package are phasing in a further increase in the age for getting full benefits (beyond the increase to age 67, which is already in current law) and a reduced benefit formula for workers who earned more than $40,000 a year in their working lifetime.
The public has every reason to be furious at President Obama for suggesting that he would cut Social Security. We know that the retirees and near retirees are not wealthy as a group. A recent study by the Pew Research Center found that the typical elderly household had net wealth of just over $170,000. This is slightly less than the median house price of $180,000.
That means that if the typical household headed by someone over age 65 took all of their money, they would have almost enough to pay off the mortgage on their house. They would then be entirely dependent on their Social Security check, which averages $1,200 a month, for their income. And President Obama wants to cut these people's Social Security.
The situation is especially infuriating because the poor state of the finances of retirees and near retirees is largely the fault of the people in both the Obama and Romney camps who steered the economy into a huge ditch. In the '90s they thought the stock bubble was cool and in the last decade they thought the housing bubble was the way to boost growth.
As a result, many middle class retirees and near retirees saw much of their savings disappear when the stock bubble burst in 2000-2002. They took another hit when the markets crashed again at the start of the last recession.
And many saw the equity in their home vanish when the housing bubble burst. In addition, recent spells of unemployment has forced many older workers to dip into their retirement savings. In other words, people who took the advice of the experts and tried to do the right thing got nailed.
The government has also badly failed workers in pushing them to rely on 401(k)s for retirement instead of traditional pensions. The managers of these tax subsidized accounts can easily siphon off more than one third of annual returns as administrative expenses. While this allows the financial industry to pocket tens of billions annually from these accounts, few workers are able to accumulate substantial savings by the time they reach retirement.
Given all the harm that economic policy has done to the current generation of retirees and near retirees, it is incredible that President Obama would tell us that we have no choice; we have to vote for someone who wants to kick them in the face yet again.
Last month, Vice President Joe Biden took the opposite position, assuring an audience there would be no cuts to Social Security in a second Obama administration. Biden was completely unambiguous; he pledged no changes whatsoever and told his audience that he guaranteed it.
Tens of millions of people will be much happier after the next debate if President Obama can assure us that Biden was speaking for the administration. Bad economic policy from both parties has done much harm to retirees and near retirees.
If our politics were not dominated by Wall Street we would be talking about raising Social Security, not lowering it. A renewed commitment to protecting Social Security from the tweakers would at least be a big step to limit further damage.
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AARP has also suggested raising the limit from $110,000.00 to about $500,000.00. AARP also has said that the SS Trust Fund is capable of paying SS Retirement benefits until 2032.
Everyone should remember that our Social Security Retirement System was set up as a minimum support plan for elderly people.
And his supporters will go "ho hum...." just like they did with indefinite detention, expanded unwarranted surveillance, hit lists and all the rest.
And yes, I'll still vote for him--but it is only because Romney is so much worse.
Obama was steadfast to his message.
I am not one who is impressed with someone who snakes around offering meaningless but provoking phrases. It is a surprise that "Conservative" means "being true to your values" and yet "Conservatives" get so easily swayed by a man known to change positions as easily as he changes his pants, by a man who denies ownership of the pair of pants he wets.
Yet more surprising is Democrats who think Obama lost the debate. Obama did not lose the debate because he did not lose me. I am surprised that independents and Democrats questioning why Obama did not hit Romney with an equally potent deception. Two wrongs don't make a right.
In fact, I am disgusted with the insincerity of Romney. You think for yourself whether you can trust Romney not to sell this country piece-meal for an agenda we all scantly now. An agenda that motivates him to change positions every few days.
Is that what "Conservatives" cheer for - for the snake to use cunning tempt them eat of the forbidden fruit. Are "Conservatives" masochistically crying out and begging Romney, "Please verbally abuse us, please, we beg you!"? Are Democrats wishing that Obama has the same tendency?
If there are thousands of underutilized doctors and tons of unused medicine what difference does it make if the government helps to provide these services to people?
The only constraints are real constraints. We simply have to insure we have the productive capacity to provide what is needed and then simply provide it. Time we start concentrating on the real problems and issues.
"Social Security is structurally sound."- Pres Obama during the debate
Just some quotes for those who like watching a car wreck (Mitt Romney) rather than paying attention to the road signs in front of your face
Strange - to say the least.
independence is NOT having to rely on social security when you retire......... i live in one of the top five retirement areas of the country and most of the seniors here are very independent and wealthy...... few are waiting for thier social security checks......
saving for your retirement should include things that you do yourself too....... like retirement accounts....
""What is wrong with these people"" that they allowed their assets to be drastically reduced, when the Wall Street players bet the "farm", when they were playing financial rouelette, and risky derivitives with pension funds and faulty mortage bundles ?
And Bain Equity i.e. was wholesaleing the job market to anywhere on the Pacific Rim where wages are all but nonexistent.
And Republican text-book ruling has frozen minimum wages, with footnotes for eleminating the ruling altogether. Lazziere faire pay is preferred.
Why would these "irresponsible" people not planned for their retirement in "One Of The Top Five Retirement Areas" in the country. Responsible people are actually "com se, com sa" whither their Social Security INSURANCE check arrives................or not (shrug)
Social Security *isn't* welfare, for moochers to use when they're too lazy and shortsighted to save for retirement.
It's the the largest part of what a huge percentage of the working populace can afford to set aside for retirement. MOST people aren't independently wealthy, although kudos to those who are.
ps. Even independently wealthy senior citizens get Social Security checks. Also, I firmly believe that they do deserve those checks as well, as Social Security ISN'T welfare and shouldn't be means tested for eligibility, but are the repayment of what people paid into the SS system when working.
The combined witholding rate is 15.3%. A hypothetical person enjoying a high income of, say, $22 million/year now pays a maximum of about $17,000 per year into the system. Removing the cap and expanding the income base to include dividends and capital gains would change that to about $3.4 million per year. A guy with $100 million-plus in his IRA like Mitt has would hardly notice it...
As a side note, once you have raised taxes to shore-up your retirement system. How are you going to raise taxes on the rich to pay for medicare, disability, infrastructure, and debt control? If your idea fixes Social Security, it does so by breaking everything else.
Our Congress is composed of millionaires. The Executive Branch has been composed of millionaires for a long time. The Judicial Branch is composed of millionaires as well. Just what does this tell us? We are being controlled by the rich 1% of this country and they are making the rules and laws for the 99% rest of us whether we like them or not. One wonders why the Occupy Movement finally started protesting and why the government fought back so hard against them and us? They are afraid of we, the people and what we might do. We might change the status quo of Washington DC and bring it back to the way it is supposed to be by representing the people again and not the corporations and the rich. We are at this point right now.
Will the rich win or will the people? Both parties are just a left and right wing of one-corporate party. We need more third parties to bring the people back into Washington again. These present two have already been purchased by big business.
As a candidate for president, Vice President Gore made a central part of his campaign a plan to put Social Security's surplus in a "lockbox" to keep its assets from being used for other government spending. When the Supreme Court decided the 2000 election in favor of Bush, however, a very different view of the Social Security surplus became operative.
The federal budget surplus of 2000 quickly disappeared when Bush took office, turning into a sea of red ink. Bush borrowed heavily from the Social Security surplus to help obscure the fact that federal taxes were not bringing in enough revenue to pay for the wars and his tax cuts.used for other government spending. When the Supreme Court decided the 2000 election in favor of Bush, however, a very different view of the Social Security surplus became operative.
Somebody needs to put a stop to SS being used as a slush fund. Seriously.
It is very unhealthy and decidedly undemocratic to allow a certain segment of the populace that ran up the debt to stockpile cash and designate it untouchable while everyone under 50 faces austerity.
As a member of the next generation, it looks to me like you would like to raise taxes to fund your retirement account and put the rest of the government on my credit card. When I hear ideas like yours, I have a simplier idea : just end it. That alone would let us pay down 600 billion of debt every year.
Biden can win the debate on Thursday night by repeating his pledge that this Administration will do nothing to diminish Social Security and Medicaid.