Actually, its not fully accurate to say Republicans have a plan for seniors. They have several. For seniors that are too poor to buy medicines, Republicans would replace Medicaid with block grants to states, so Republican governors can give that money to billionaires instead of giving granny her medicine. For seniors on Medicare, they would give Granny a voucher and let Big Insurance cancel her policy, as soon as she gets sick. For seniors, who die because of the other Republican plans, they have the RepubliCare Death Benefit. When Granny cannot pay, pro-life Republicans never charge her extra to die. But the Republican plan for Granny at issue today is their plan to gut Social Security.
Something strange is happening in the Republican primary — something strange, that is, besides the Trump phenomenon. For some reason, just about all the leading candidates other than The Donald have taken a deeply unpopular position, a known political loser, on a major domestic policy issue. And it’s interesting to ask why.
The issue in question is the future of Social Security, which turned 80 last week. The retirement program is, of course, both extremely popular and a long-term target of conservatives, who want to kill it precisely because its popularity helps legitimize government action in general. As the right-wing activist Stephen Moore (now chief economist of the Heritage Foundation) once declared, Social Security is “the soft underbelly of the welfare state”; “jab your spear through that” and you can undermine the whole thing.
But that was a decade ago, during former President George W. Bush’s attempt to privatize the program — and what Mr. Bush learned was that the underbelly wasn’t that soft after all. Despite the political momentum coming from the G.O.P.’s victory in the 2004 election, despite support from much of the media establishment, the assault on Social Security quickly crashed and burned. Voters, it turns out, like Social Security as it is, and don’t want it cut.
It’s remarkable, then, that most of the Republicans who would be president seem to be lining up for another round of punishment. In particular, they’ve been declaring that the retirement age — which has already been pushed up from 65 to 66, and is scheduled to rise to 67 — should go up even further.
Thus, Jeb Bush says that the retirement age should be pushed back to “68 or 70”. Scott Walker has echoed that position. Marco Rubio wants both to raise the retirement age and to cut benefits for higher-income seniors. Rand Paul wants to raise the retirement age to 70 and means-test benefits. Ted Cruz wants to revive the Bush privatization plan.
For the record, these proposals would be really bad public policy — a harsh blow to Americans in the bottom half of the income distribution, who depend on Social Security, often have jobs that involve manual labor, and have not, in fact, seen a big rise in life expectancy. Meanwhile, the decline of private pensions has left working Americans more reliant on Social Security than ever…
Inserted from <NY Times>
Granny beware! Click through for the remainder of this fine Paul Krugman editorial.,
19 Responses to “The Republican Plan for Granny”
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The information on Social Security – who it helps, what it costs, that it's not bankrupt – is not new of course. Even the information on who owns the Republcan Party is not new – it just keeps getting more so. 130 families? Aren't we now talking, not the 1%, but the 0.01%? Someone commenting on the site pointed out that no one seems to know WHY these people are so opposed to Social Security. It's a good question. Are they so out of touch as not to realize that their own wealth depends on customers, who cease to be customers if they have nothing to spend? Yes, I realize many are living on income from investments totally – but somewhere down that food chain there are companies that actually produce something, or else the whole thing falls apart. Are they envisioning a sort of investment circle jerk, where all the money in the world goes around them in circles, magically reproducing? Hey, I said they'd have to be out of touch. Well, I don't use cash very often, but I finally went to stampstampede.org and got one.
That's what they have now, interrupted each time the poor and middle classes lose what little we have when the bubble bursts..
I also went to Stamp Stampede. For the few times that I ever use cash, this will certainly spread the word in this red part of a purple state! Also have spread the word among friends…..
If they cut Social Security, over half of the seniors in this country will be in line at food banks!
Raising the age for retirement is a sure fire way to increase the demand for social security disability–especially among those with physically demanding jobs that capacity to do often ends by mid-50's, like in construction trades. Many TP folks are in that kind of work…
Excellent point.
There's a fair, simple easy to understand solution:
SCRAP THE CAP
OK, OK … we all know that is HIGHLY unlikely to happen. So I'm willing to compromise:
I agree with you. They could also use the money they want to spend on another war to repay the money that has been taken from the Social Security fund.
Love your solution!
It's like Obamacare, I wanted Medicare for all, but I took a step in the right direction.
I almost think scrapping the cap is more likely than ever repaying any loans to Social Security, though I would love to see both. And I also will settle for a step as long as we keep going in the right direction.
Krugman is so right. Government will be run for the 1% by the 1%. The Republicans are in no hurry to overturn Citizens United, either, the dastardly ruling that allowed only 130 families to bankroll Republican politicians. Both parties are taking the money, but the Republicans are determined to get rid of anything that benefits the poor and middle class, at the behest of their owners.
The last line says it all!
The Republicanus/Teabaggerum would love people like my younger brother. When I visited by brother last year, I asked him what his plans were for retirement. His reply: he would continue to work until they let him go or he died at his desk. So for him, there is no retirement age. Wouldn't the GOP just love him!
Raising the cap to at least a $1 million annual income and having a means test for receipt of social security would go a long way to helping seniors.
Here's the problem with the means test. People pay fortheir benifits all their working life. That makes it an earned entitlement. Republicans want to means test the benefits, because if the rich don't get their benefits too, they can call it wellfare.
It looks as if they want to asset-strip the social security fund – then blame the fund (currently in credit for decades) for having no more money in it.
Pat from the beginning, the people paying in today are paying current retirees. Therer used to be a big surplus, but the government invested in governmnent bonds with it.
As I understand it, there is no real reason to cut social security, doing so would only undermine the economy further and in general the American public insists that politicians and government keep their hands off it. But all Republican hopefuls, out of touch with their voters as much as their conscience, have put Social Security on their agenda as something to be stripped to the bone, and then discarded as too costly and ineffective in time. Once again Republican candidates show they only have ears for their corporate masters and the extremist fringes of right wing voters.
The Republicans want to cut it for this reason, Lona. Every penny the government returns to a deserving senior is a penny Republicans can't give to a billionaire.
Exactly, no real reason…
Thanks all! Pooped heatwave hugs.