Maybe it's early, but Boehner says raise retirement age to 70...where's the Dem response?!?!

Maybe it's still too early in the news cycle and response time to the current news, but come on, where are the Dems and Progressives out there regarding Boehner's comments about how the retirement age has to raised to 70!

It seems to me the Dems are given prize after prize and fail to capitalize on them like they should be.


Maddow just showed this clip on her show.....

Yeah, that's the ticket!

:woohoo:

Meanwhile, Congresscritters can retire long before that and get a nice fat pension.

let's see what toorrow brings.

retirement age is unrealistic. How many of us are healthy enough to perform a job that would provide and adequate living? Of course there are many seniors working beyond 70 but they are the exception.

... sit on his ass and tell others what to do.

to lose his reelection bid. Cincinnati's senior residents should be told where he stands on social security.

finding jobs right now.

...but something has to be done. Merely raising the cap will not provide the funding needed for SSI. People are living longer so it stands to logic that raising the age will have to happen at some point. With boomers retiring, we are down to three people paying for each retiree. The numbers just don't add up. I have seen people post here that think merely raising or eliminating the cap will do the job. It won't even come close. It may put the collapse of the system off a few years, but falls way short of solving the crisis.

Today's politicians are scumbags. They do not do the job they were elected to do, they do whatever will get them re-elected. Not a one of them want to touch the SSI issue, fearing it's the "kiss of death". We all want to retire as early as possible. The prospect of working into your seventies really sucks. Who the hell is going to hire a seventy yr old for anything other than a greeter or a clerk?

If they raise the eligibility age, they will have to do something in the way of incentives to employers to hire older workers. Eliminating employer subsidized healthcare and going to a universal healthcare program would help ease the problem.

The government never promised to take care of you in your old age, they only promise to help. That means people are going to have to save their own money for retirement. If you don't, you will never be able to retire and live anywhere close to comfortable.
So many people live for today, never taking into consideration they might actually live past seventy, but stats show most will.
In 30 or so yrs, we are going to see a population of elderly poor and there will be nothing in place to help them. The only real solution is to raise taxes back to where they were in the sixties. The wealthy will have to kick in a lot more than they are now. The problem with that is that the wealthy have the money to lobby congress, the rest of us be damned!

I have been frugal my entire life. I have never owned a new car or taken a lavish vacation. In fact, I have only taken one vacation in the past ten yrs, and that was for one week. I have the money, but fear I will need it later on. I see it as trading a few memories for a better diet and better living conditions in my old age, when I'll need it most.

Okay, you guys can pile on now!

All it really takes is one halfway serious illness, even with insurance. I watched my extremely frugal parents (Depression kids) die broke despite having owned two successful small businesses and now I'm headed in the same direction.

There are damn few jobs for anyone much over fifty, our insurance situation in this country makes sure of that. No one in their right mind would hire a sixty year old like me for any job at all if they had to provide insurance for that employee.

You start to rethink those priorities. One vacation in 10 years? All to save up for . . . what exactly? You're betting on the come, and sometimes the come don't come.

The prospect of being poor and unemployable is not pleasant. If it takes not having gadgets and new stuff to avoid that, then I am willing to do it. I like eating and I like air-conditioning! We grew up not having a lot, so it pretty much comes easy.

My wife is a 7 yr survivor of breast cancer, so we have assessed our priorities. My financial situation is so complicated, it would take too long to explain it. We plan to keep on keepin on for seven more years. If our health holds up, we hope to do some travelling then. Barring some unforseen tragedy, I should be able to afford to live nicely into my eighties or longer. If I don't make it that long, well, the kids will just get a little more. God knows they are going to need it!

Yeah, I'm betting on the come. If you hit, it's better to have a bet down. My frugality allowed me to weather three lay-offs and cancer. Heck, that alone makes most people live frugally, and not by choice! Your having gone through it twice, I'm guess I'm preaching to the choir.

in 2000, it was $34K per capita.

that's why it doesn't matter how many workers there are per retiree.

what matters is:

1. how productive the workers are
2. how the value of that production is divided

workers' income has been more or less flat for 30 years.

that means that capital took most of the monetized value of the last 40 years' productivity increases.

that's the problem, not the number of workers per retiree.

Every time someone posts about raising the retirement age, many here defend it. Let me rephrase the issue for those people.

You are not going to get your money when you were supposed to, because of Republican tax cuts and endless war.

Too bad for you!

You make a great point.

Silence would not mean they are failing to make policital hay on a point of difference - it would mean THEY AGREE.