Social Security Cuts

WASHINGTON -- Peter Peterson, a Wall Street billionaire who has been calling for cuts to Social Security and other government programs for years, is h...

When the trustees of the Social Security and Medicare programs release their annual reports, one of the first thing folks look for is whether the life of the trust funds that finance these retirement security programs have been extended or reduced. Well, the reports came out on Monday, and the key takeaway from where I sit is that these remain critically important programs whose future can and should be ensured by policy actions designed to enable both programs to continue to provide retirement security for generations to come. As with so much else in our fiscal and economic landscape these days, the best thing to do in the near term is everything we can to get the recession behind us and get back on a stronger growth path.

Cuts to Social Security -- whether they're in the form of means-testing or the Ryan/Romney proposals to raise the eligibility age and reduce cost-of-living benefits -- will hurt most seniors. They'll cause the most pain to elderly and disabled women and minorities.

Throwing the debate over Social Security on its head, the AFL-CIO is issuing a call to expand the program rather than shrink it. Social Security's ...

WASHINGTON -- The senior citizens lobby AARP on Monday will kick off a national Social Security and Medicare "listening tour" called "You’ve Earned ...

Young people are worried Social Security will not be there for them and are looking for other options to ensure their future economic security. My generation doesn't want to be paying into a system from which we won't receive anything.

KEENE, N.H. — Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum called Friday for immediate cuts to Social Security benefits, risking the wrath of...

The determined efforts of the enemies of Social Security to sacrifice the program on the altar of deficit reduction have been frustrated, at least for the moment.

We need to remind the Super Committee that in the end, they are accountable to the 99%, who overwhelmingly want no cuts to Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.

WASHINGTON — Just as 55 million Social Security recipients are about to get their first benefit increase in three years, Congress is looking at ...

Democrats cannot keep putting cuts on the table that will hurt low-income people, only to see their package rejected by the Republicans, who are likely to adopt every spending cut proposal but little or none of the revenues.

WASHINGTON -- The massive drop in the stock market Thursday afternoon provides an ominous, albeit politically inviting, backdrop for the Republican de...

Any tweak, reduction, or downsize of Social Security would virtually guarantee that the economic pain to blacks and Hispanics would be unimaginable.

WASHINGTON -- Congress and the president are set to reduce the federal deficit in the least popular ways possible, according to data from a new Bloomb...

In the most recent Republican debate, Perry said he wanted "a conversation." That's usually when candidates get into trouble.

WASHINGTON -- Mitt Romney's charge that Texas Gov. Rick Perry's views on Social Security are not only out of the conservative mainstream but make him ...

What do the Republicans in Congress not see and hear when they say that we can't and shouldn't sensitively raise taxes now in order to stimulate our badly stressed economy?

But how can drastic action be necessary when the Social Security trust fund reportedly has over $2.4 trillion in it at present? This is a misleading sleight-of-hand. Here is how.

WASHINGTON — Laid-off workers and aging baby boomers are flooding Social Security's disability program with benefit claims, pushing the financia...

Calling Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid the "Middle Class Safety Net" makes it much easier to defend them politically. It's easy for politicians to call for "Entitlement reform" or "Entitlement cuts". It's not so easy to call for shredding the Middle Class Safety Net.

Martin Feldstein makes it sound as if Social Security is doomed to failure by demographic changes. But that's far from the case. A series of modest changes, which have wide support, would assure Social Security's future.

WASHINGTON – As President Barack Obama campaigns for re-election, he has to sell a controversial deal he endorsed to end the impasse over the debt c...

Future debt ceiling crises can be averted by enforcing the Fourteenth Amendment, which mandates that the government pay its debts already incurred, including pensions. That means Social Security.