Free Republic

The Trump administration, at work on a new plan for tax reform, is reportedly considering a plan to cross into one of the most dangerous territories in American politics: fiddling with the Social Security system. According to multiple reports, the administration is entertaining the possibility of eliminating the 12.4 percent payroll tax, which would require it to find a new dedicated funding source for the retirement checks that millions of Americans count on in their old age. The plan, first reported by the Associated Press, would be part of a major overhaul of the tax code that would make the...

Social Security benefits will be cut at the start of 2017 for everyone who has yet to turn 62. Those cuts will grow in each year to 2022, reaching 7% for everyone now 56 and under, as the official retirement age rises two months per year to 67. Those benefit cuts are part of the daunting math for Social Security and the federal budget that could cause speed bumps for, or perhaps even curb, President-elect Donald Trump's big fiscal plans. 1) Once the retirement age rises to 67, Social Security's early retirement penalty will cut annual benefits by 30%... 2)...

Democratic senators are pleading with President Obama to abandon his proposal to trim Social Security benefits before it becomes a liability for them in the midterm elections. The president proposed a new formula for calculating benefits in his budget last year, in hopes that the olive branch to Republicans would persuade them to back tax increases in a broader fiscal deal. But Democratic lawmakers say Obama should shelve the idea now that they are facing a difficult midterm election where they need to turn out the liberal base to preserve their Senate majority. “I’m not sure why we should be...

No wonder it's taking so long for Barack Obama to send his budget proposal to Congress. The budget is almost two months overdue, but Republicans may find it worth the wait. The Washington Post reports that Obama will offer cuts to Social Security in exchange for tax hikes to close the deficit --- in effect, the grand bargain he and John Boehner nearly made two years ago: President Obama will release a budget next week that proposes significant cuts to Medicare and Social Security and fewer tax hikes than in the past, a conciliatory approach that he hopes will convince...

President Barack Obama next week will take the political risk of formally proposing cuts to Social Security and Medicare in his annual budget in an effort to demonstrate his willingness to compromise with Republicans and revive prospects for a long-term deficit-reduction deal, administration officials say. In a significant shift in fiscal strategy, Obama on Wednesday will send a budget plan to Capitol Hill that departs from the usual presidential wish list that Republicans typically declare dead on arrival. Instead it will embody the final compromise offer that he made to Speaker John Boehner late last year, before Boehner abandoned negotiations...

This is another important story being smothered by the Democrat controlled media. The Obama administration has quietly announced there will be no raise in social security payments next year and maybe not until 2012, a presidential election year. Citing a 2008 third quarter cost of living decline, Congress has voted no cost of living increase in next year’s Social Security checks for the first time since 1973. The Democrats are pointing to their own prediction of a “… [steady] decline in consumer prices through the first three quarters of this year…” Based on this they claim to foresee no need...