They’ve gotten a tad more savvy about how they label their deep aversion to these purportedly vested federal investment programs. They call them “entitlements” still, as if no one contributed a dime of their lifetime earnings to these “giveaway” programs. Even as seniors are a mainstay of GOP support, Republicans still refer to “fiscal responsibility,” “shoring up the financial structures behind Social Security and Medicare,” having all federal statutes subject to automatic “sunset provisions” that end statutes unless renewed by Congress every five years, the superiority of private investment over federal control, etc. They do not speak of the chaos that would result from the five-year review, that these programs were passed decades ago when American birth rates far exceeded the “replacement” numbers, what the recent stock market collapse would have done to a mandated private investment plan without any Social “Security,” and how their votes have been the primary eroders of the stability of the programs.
According to a government post: “On August 14, 1935, the Social Security Act established a system of old-age benefits for workers, benefits for victims of industrial accidents, unemployment insurance, and aid for dependent mothers and children, persons who are blind, and persons with disabilities.” The system was predicated on an assumed flow of babies, so that the taxes on working Americans would easily support the oldest segment of the population.
According to Statista.com, the dip in WWII birth rates due to soldiers at war, “changed quite dramatically in the aftermath of the Second World War, rising sharply to over 3.5 children per woman in 1960 (children born between 1946 and 1964 are nowadays known as the 'Baby Boomer' generation, and they make up roughly twenty percent of today’s US population). Due to the end of the baby boom and increased access to contraception, fertility reached its lowest point in the US in 1980, where it was just 1.77. It did however rise to over two children per woman between 1995 and 2010, although it [did] drop again by 2020, to just 1.78.” The “replacement rate” is 2.1 live births per couple, so without immigration – fiercely opposed by the GOP – as with most developed countries in the world, the US population is contracting. That also means that the assumptions that accompanied the passage of Social Security and Medicare have not been valid for a while. Yes, these programs need fixing. But why not ask the mega-rich for the necessary funding for an updated program that reflects 2023 demographic realities, not outdated statistics.
Aside from the fact that GOP immigration policies and failure to understand simple demographic statistics are the major contributors to any underlying instability of underlying financing of these programs, the GOP prefers to find backdoor excuses to defund these programs… slowly if they cannot simply wipe them away. Every GOP proposal to cut these programs has met with severe resistance from seniors, and the only concession that Republicans have been able to extract when they were in complete control of the presidency and Congress has been to push retirement age back from its original 65 age trigger. But as President Joe Biden correctly pointed out in his State of the Union message, despite jeers from GOP Congresspeople, they’re baccccck! Actually, they never left.
The problem with the GOP denial that Social Security and Medicare are in the crosshairs of their budget-cutting axe: there is so much concrete evidence of their actual goals to make that denial truly “fake news.” For example, as noted, they refer to these programs as “entitlements,” so when they say they will cut “entitlements,” substitute the words “Social Security and Medicare” and reread their pronouncements. The real “entitlements” probably came in the form of a massive 2017 corporate tax rate cut from 35% to 21% that added trillions to the deficit. And when they say that Social Security should continue but be “privatized,” they are both cutting that out of the budget and turning the word “Security” into a joke. By the way, that’s the George W Bush plan that infuriated seniors and a current plank of undeclared presidential candidate Mike Pence.
Writing an OpEd for the February 15th, Michael Hiltzik adds more evidence to the fire, starting with those Republicans gathered and forced to listen to the State of the Union message who pretended they never wanted to touch these sacred programs: “Not so, they say. Never happened. Sens. Mike Lee (R-Utah) and Rick Scott (R-Fla.) were even caught on camera during the speech wearing ‘Who, me?’ expressions of injured innocence… Unfortunately for them, we have the evidence, as does Biden. Cutting Social Security along with Medicare has been part of the Republican platform for decades… As I’ve reported before, they often hide their intentions behind a scrim of impenetrable jargon, plainly hoping that Americans won’t do the necessary math to penetrate their subterfuge…
“They know they’re on thin ice with the public when they talk about benefit cuts, which is why Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) once recommended discussing their ideas only ‘behind closed doors.’…Now we can turn to the specifics of Lee’s and Scott’s plans. In widely circulated videos from Lee’s first successful Senate campaign in 2010 he can be seen and heard stating as follows: ‘It will be my objective to phase out Social Security, to pull it out by the roots.’ He said that was why he was running for the Senate, and added, ‘Medicare and Medicaid are of the same sort. They need to be pulled up.’
“As for Scott, his 12-point ‘Rescue America’ plan, issued last year, included a proposal to sunset all federal legislation after five years. ‘If a law is worth keeping, Congress can pass it again.’ The implications for Social Security and Medicare, which were created by federal legislation, were unmistakable — so much so that the proposal made Republican officeholders’ skin crawl… McConnell disavowed the proposal on the spot and has continued to do so, telling a home-state radio host after the Biden speech that the sunset provision is ‘not a Republican plan. That was the Rick Scott plan.’…. The GOP can’t easily wriggle away from its intentions. Let’s examine the fiscal 2023 budget proposal issued by the Republican Study Committee, a key policy body, last June under the title ‘Blueprint to Save America.’
“This plan would increase the Social Security full retirement age, which today is 66 or 67 (depending on one’s year of birth), to 70 by 2040. According to Kathleen Romig, the Social Security expert at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, this would translate into a 20% cut in lifetime benefits compared with current law.
“As I’ve reported before, raising the full retirement age is a Trojan horse that would affect all retirees across the board, but harm Black workers, lower-income workers and those in physically demanding jobs the most… It would create particular hardships for those choosing to retire early and collect their benefits prior to their full retirement age.” Ja sure, the GOP has no plans to touch Social Security and Medicare. And I am the Easter Bunny. On February 17th, under pressure, Rick Scott deleted the potential of removing these programs from his rescue plan… but trust me, it will come back… with different wording. If the GOP were to win control of Congress and the presidency…
I’m Peter Dekom, and the number of people in our workforce with zero private retirement savings (including employer pension plans) is 25%... and rising.
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