Romney-Ryan Want to Cut Your Social Security and Medicare to Pay for Tax Cuts for the Wealthy

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.aflcio.org/Blog/Political-Action-Legislation/Romney-Ryan-Want-to-Cut-Your-Social-Security-and-Medicare-to-Pay-for-Tax-Cuts-for-the-Wealthy

Oct 12, 2012 Jackie Tortora | Political Action/Legislation

Last night, we learned vice presidential contender Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) and running mate Mitt Romney envision a pretty bleak future for working people. The Romney-Ryan future is one where seniors (part of the 47%) toil until age 70 when they can collect on a woefully inadequate privatized Social Security account—where people must wait until age 67 to receive a coupon (a.k.a. Medicare voucher) for health care. A future where millionaires and billionaires, the richest 2%, continue to receive massive tax cut giveaways at the expense of working people.

Last night, we learned vice presidential contender Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) and running mate Mitt Romney envision a pretty bleak future for working people. The Romney-Ryan future is one where seniors (part of the 47%) toil until age 70 when they can collect on a woefully inadequate privatized Social Security account—where people must wait until age 67 to receive a coupon (a.k.a. Medicare voucher) for health care. A future where millionaires and billionaires, the richest 2%, continue to receive massive tax cut giveaways at the expense of working people.

Besides Ryan's support for partial Social Security privatization, we also learned Romney wants to raise the retirement age to 70 and cut Social Security benefits for middle-income workers using the progressive price indexing formula change, which is code for: cutting benefits. According to the Social Security chief actuary, a medium income earner, someone who made $43,000 in 2010, would see substantial benefit cuts under Romney's plan. For a person retiring in 2030, the cut is $2,396. For a person retiring in 2050, the cut is $4,730.

This is not a future President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden support.

Last night, Biden told Republicans to stop obstructing policies that would grow the economy and stop blocking the American Jobs Act and foreclosure relief. He called on Republicans to stop holding the middle class tax cuts hostage in order to continue tax cuts for the wealthiest 2% of taxpayers. Biden reiterated he and President Obama would not turn Medicare into a privatized voucher system, leaving seniors at the mercy of private insurance companies.

FULL story at link.

[leftstreet]

1. Why didn't Biden just say it's a lie that SS is busted?

Sounds like both parties are running with the lie that SS and Medicare are busted, broken.

So they need to get their 'fixes' out on the table. Apparently privatizing is the GOP option. What ideas are the Democrats offering?

Also, why didn't the Democrats let the tax cuts expire again?

[Honeycombe8]

2. Their position is that those programs WILL go bankrupt in the near future, if something isn't done.

Here's what Paul Krugman has said in an article:

The serious (as opposed to Serious) thing to say here is that on current projections, Social Security faces a shortfall — NOT bankruptcy — a quarter of a century from now. OK, I guess that’s a real concern. But compared to other concerns, it’s really pretty minor, and doesn’t deserve a tenth the attention it gets.

It’s also worth noting that even if the trust fund is exhausted and no other financing provided, Social Security will be able to pay about three-quarters of scheduled benefits, which would mean real benefits higher than it pays now. I don’t want to see that happen, but it’s worth keeping in perspective — especially when you look at the solutions “reformers” propose, which all seem to involve reducing future benefits relative to those currently scheduled.

Let us reason together*: the dire fate we’re supposed to fear is that future benefits won’t be as high as scheduled; and in order to avert that fate we must, um, guarantee through immediate action that future benefits won’t be as high as scheduled. Yay! Wait, what?

No, really. I guess there would be some virtue to making this all crystal clear well in advance, but that’s pretty second-order. Basically, the “solution” just locks in the bad things for seniors that the attackers claim will happen anyway.

Now, here’s the thing: none of what I’m saying is new. We’ve gone over this ground again and again, ever since Bush the Younger tried to ram through privatization. Yet the same tricks, the same old discredited arguments, just keep coming back.

Why, you might almost think that the goal is just to undermine Social Security, using whatever argument seems handy.


http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/04/09/socialsecuritymedicareandmedicaid-strikes-again/

So, something will eventually have to be done to prevent shortfalls in the future. But what, I don't know. Krugman makes sense.

This is above my head. I trust the Dems more than the Repubs on this, of course. The Republicans don't believe in social programs...period. They will end it as we know it, if they can. And we've seen how dedicated they are to taking things away from those not privileged.