Yves here. It can’t be said often enough that Social Security’s looming budget shortfalls can be easily fixed and allow for improved benefits. But since the Clinton Administration, both parties have been planning how to implement this plan, and the big problem is how to get away with it. The headline of this piece misleadingly portrays only Republicans as on the verge of cutting or eliminating Social Security, when none other than the saintly Obama tried to make the Grand Bargain. That certainly does not mean that Team Trump is a friend of Social Security, but the Democratic track record says they are not, save the progressive wing that has been disadvantaged.
By Nancy J. Altman, president of Social Security Works and chair of the Strengthen Social Security coalition. Originally published in Common Dreams
On Labor Day, we celebrate the contributions of workers. The best way to honor those contributions is to increase their compensation. A significant portion of their pay is deferred compensation in the form of Social Security. Working families receive their Social Security when they work and collect benefits when their work stops due to old age, disability, or death, leaving dependents.
It’s long past time to extend those earned Social Security benefits. Congress hasn’t raised them in more than half a century.
Whether to expand or reduce Social Security is a matter of prices, not affordability. That value choice is on the ballot this November. The two major groups have very different values when it comes to Social Security.
Democrats recognize that expanding Social Security is the solution.
It is the solution to the nation’s retirement income crisis, where too many workers will not be able to retire without a significant reduction in their standard of living. As traditional pensions continue to disappear, replaced (if at all) with riskier, less reliable, inadequate 401(k), Social Security is more important to the economic security of American workers than ever before.
Social Security is surprisingly higher than its private sector counterparts. It’s extremely efficient, secure, nearly universal, perfect for both long-term and mobile workers, and fair. Its one drawback is that its benefits are very low. By increasing those limited Social Security benefits, we increase security for all of us.
Recognizing the growing importance of Social Security to workers and their families, several bills introduced during this Congress to increase minimum Social Security benefits, and the Biden-Harris administration said that supports those efforts.
Representative John Larson’s (D-CT) Social Security 2100 Actwhich is over 185 sponsorswill increase benefits across the board for all current and future Social Security beneficiaries. It would improve cost-of-living adjustments (COLAs) to better match the actual costs faced by seniors and people with disabilities. This bill would improve benefits for widows and widowers, students, children living with grandparents, government employees, older Americans, low-income seniors, those with disabilities, students, and more. And it pays for all this by making the rich finally pay their fair share.
Likewise, Senators Bernie Sanders (VT) and Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) were silent Social Security Extension Act. Their proposal would increase Social Security benefits by $200 a month and revise how COLAs are determined to better reflect the costs faced by seniors and other beneficiaries. In addition, it would revise and increase the minimum Social Security benefit and restore student benefits. And, it would pay for all these increases and restore Social Security’s long-term actuarial balance by requiring millionaires and billionaires to pay their fair share.
Additional bills that would make positive changes to Social Security have also been introduced. All of these bills not only address our nation’s retirement crisis, but other challenges the nation faces, including rising incomes and wealth inequality. Actually, growing inequality cost Social Security billions of dollars each year. That’s billions of dollars that should go toward expanding Social Security.
In short, Democrats want to increase Social Security and ensure that all benefits are paid in full and on time for the foreseeable future, by requiring billionaires and other uber-wealthy to start paying their fair share.
In stark contrast, Republican politicians see Social Security not as a solution, but as a threat. On top of that, Donald Trump and his Republican allies in Congress want to give more tax breaks to the wealthy. They certainly don’t want to force their plutocrats to pay their fair share of Social Security.
Republicans want to cut Social Security benefits—or worse—because they don’t believe in them. In fact, at its inception, they called it socialism and voted for its creation. Today, it gives the lie to their view that government is the problem, not the solution.
In line with that disagreement, when Trump was president, he included, in all four of his budgets, proposals to cut Social Security and Medicare. When he couldn’t cut it, he used the old trick of “starving the beast.” Getting a tax cut is easier to do than a benefit cut, he cut the income tax used to fund Medicare and Medicaid, and he wanted return Social Securitywhich has its own dedicated benefit.
To further his goal of undermining Social Security, Donald Trump seized the dubious power to go after his own money without discretion—an unprecedented move. Because Trump had limited executive action, he was only able to roll back revenue, but he made it clear that he would not only roll back revenue, but go further. finish it, if he is re-elected. And, you said that Cuts to Social Security are on the agenda if he is elected for a second term.
That’s the decision in November: Trump-Vance and his Republican colleagues want to cut Social Security and give handouts to the super-rich. Harris-Walz and her Democratic colleagues I want to increase Social Security benefits are modest, but important, while requiring those with incomes above $400,000 to pay their fair share.
Indeed, Harris and Walz have long advocated this. Vice President Kamala Harris was the original sponsor of the Social Security Expansion Act while in the Senate. And while his partner, Governor Tim Walz, was in Congress, he was the original sponsor of the Social Security 2100 Act.
Each generation has built on the solid foundation laid 89 years ago, when President Franklin D. Roosevelt—and his Secretary of Labor, Frances Perkins (the first woman to ever serve in a presidential cabinet)—shepherded Social Security into law. But it was not without a fight.
For those who believe in the value of Social Security and the freedom that economic security brings, let’s honor our working families this Labor Day by doing everything we can to ensure that the party that builds Social Security, and that always protects and expands it, wins. great this November.
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