Bernie Sanders
Related: About this forumHillary Clinton Indicates She is Open to Raising the Retirement Age
http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/say-it-aint-so-hillary-clinton-youre-open-idea-raising-retirement-age
At a forum in New Hampshire on Wednesday, Hillary Clinton stood by her support for the death penalty, which made headlines. But her remarks about Social Security that day didn’t get as much attention.
She offered a lot of the same rhetoric many Democrats are now saying, that we need to look at how the poorest Social Security recipients are faring and think about how to shore up payments there. But she also left the door open to raising the retirement age if there were a way to exclude people who are not working labor-intensive jobs, while at the same time not fully endorsing simply raising the tax cap, which would ensure the system is fully funded going forward.
Clinton: Yes, you know, I think there are three parts to what we have to do with Social Security, and the first is we really have to defend Social Security from the continuing efforts by some to privatize it, which I have been studying and opposing for a long time because the numbers just don’t work out. And in the Bush administration when I was in the Senate I was one of the leaders in the fight against the plan to privatize and it is something that I, number one, will focus on: we are not going to privatize Social Security.
Secondly, I am concerned about those people on Social Security who are most vulnerable in terms of what their monthly payout is. That is primarily divorced, widowed, single women who either never worked themselves or worked only a little, so they have either just their own earnings to depend on or they had a spouse who also was a low-wage worker, and the first and most important task I think is to make sure that we get the monthly payment for the poorest Social Security recipients up. So that would be the first thing I would look at.
Thirdly, we do have to consider ways to make sure that the funding of Social Security does maintain the system. I think we have a number of options; this would be something that I would look at, I would not favor raising the retirement age. And I don’t favor it because it might be fine for somebody like me, but the vast majority of working people who have worked hard and have had a difficult, maybe last couple of decades trying to continue to work, it would be very challenging for them. If there were a way to do it that would not penalize or punish laborers and factory workers and long-distance truck drivers and people who really are ready for retirement at a much earlier age, I would consider it. But I have yet to find any recommendation that I would think would be suitable.
And I want to look at raising the cap. I think that’s something we should look at how we do it, because I don’t want it to be an extra burden on middle-class families and in some parts of the country, there’s a different level of income that defines middle class. So what do we skip and what level do we start at? And we have to consider that. So those are my three priorities in looking at Social Security.
To be clear, Clinton is not outright endorsing a clear hike in the retirement age like many of the Republicans are. But while she also seems to be open to raising the tax cap, she is not giving a figure or specific plan yet, and is making the suggestion that raising payroll taxes on families that earn over $100,000 would be an “extra burden” to those people, when actually the increase would be fairly modest.
Opening the door to any hike in the retirement age or offering opposition to simply eliminating the tax cap would put her out of step with most Americans on this issue, according to polls.
I AM POSTING THIS HERE, BECAUSE IT WOULDN'T BE TOLERATED IN THE APPROPRIATE SPOT
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LiberalElite
(14,691 posts)
Demeter
(85,373 posts)It's all in her record. And then, there are the personal ones...she rubs me the wrong way, and always has.
no argument there. (I was looking for additional places this could be posted - maybe Good Reads and Populist Reform of the Democratic Party??)
Scuba
(53,475 posts)
MisterP
(23,730 posts)
JDPriestly
(57,936 posts)You pay in. People including elderly women who have not paid in should receive more than they do, but the additional money for them should come from the general fund.
All earnings and not just wages should be taxed for the payroll including Social Security tax and the percentage taken out of the earnings taxed might be subject to reduction.
It is true that the cost of living varies greatly. How you live on $7.25 per hour in A small town in Eastern Georgia is very different from how you live on that in New York City.
But if we could raise the cap and impose payroll taxes on CEOs' incomes and earnings on stocks and commodities sonehow, then we could make Social Security much fairer.
I look at history. We were an agrarian nation. We lived on farms. We either owned the land or had an arrangement so that we might live on or near it as we aged.
That changed. City people cannot subsist on their land, pass it on to their children and have their children care for them in their final years or sell their land and live on the proceeds. It's either a system like Social Security in which saving for retirement is mandatory or homeless elderly people.
Had wages of lower paid people increased at the rate that CEO's wages increased in proportion to the wages of working people, there would be no problem. Tax the windfall in compensation increases that top earners including people who live in places like New York, and society as a whole have gained over the years rather than imposing on working people the loss in Social Security funding caused by the increased disparity in earnings..
We already pay for a lot of things for the indigent elderly out of the general fund. Hillary wants to transfer those costs to the Social Security fund out of Social Security? That will not strengthen Social Security. That will weaken it as more benefits are to be taken out without putting enough more money in. I assume she will not be putting more money in because she does not really sound clear and enthusiastic about raising the cap. Payroll taxes should be imposed at the same rate on all earnings of all people. It is a social obligation we all share: making sure that our waitress at McDonald's and the CEO of McDonalds who may, who knows, fall on hard times in his senior years will be able to live in some dignity as they age. Benefits should be raised for all.
The Social Security system should not have the task of means-testing. That would require it to set up a duplicative bureaucracy. The IRS is the department that should collect taxes on income regardless of source
Then let!s widen the base of money subject to Social Security taxes. What is there now was paid in be retirees.
Retirees often cannot afford on $1400 or $13400 or so average per month to pay the dentist and the property taxes and the health insurance premiums and co-pays and buy a hearing aid and repsir the car -- all expenses that increase with age and tend to be associated with the frailty of age.
When an older person cannot pay for necessities, the middle-class children usually step in and pay or the elderly person does without necessities or gets government assistance from the general fund or the state. Just increase their share of Social Security taxes and make everyone"s lives easier.
I also like Bernie's idea of adding a small amount of tax to payroll taxes to pay for childcare for all. Let"s spread the costs for our first and final years across our entire lives. Early childhood is another time when medical expenses can be very high and Obamacare does not cover them all.
Hillary's plan is not what we need.
Lower the percentage of the tax, and tax all earnings and mney. Then expand what is paid out of the payroll taxes which include Social Security taxes.
Hillary's plan sounds weak but I would need more details.
SoapBox
(18,791 posts)once she was in office.
CharlotteVale
(2,717 posts)to support Hillary is to be in complete, utter, total, denial about her own statements....which often are very inconveniently indefensible.
Rosa Luxemburg
(28,627 posts)wait til her 'older age group' voters hear about this!
