Posted on 03/07/2005 9:24:05 AM PST by Cagey
WASHINGTON (AP) - A leading Republican senator is proposing to raise the Social Security retirement age from 67 to 68, while Democrats maintain their opposition to the president's plan to overhaul the retirement program with private investment accounts.
Nebraska Sen. Chuck Hagel's plan would raise the age that retirees could receive full benefits, beginning in 2023. "We are living longer," Hagel said Sunday on CBS'"Face the Nation.""So when you look at the total universe of this, I think that makes some sense to extend the age."
But some leading Democrats said they could not support Hagel's plan because he would pay for private accounts by borrowing and increasing the nation's deficit. Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., told ABC's "This Week" that would be "a great threat to seniors" because it would raise interest rates.
President Bush plans to travel across the country this week as part of his 60-day push to persuade a skeptical public to support personal retirement accounts. The president's plan would allow workers under age 55 to divert up to 4 percentage points of their Social Security taxes into private stock and bond investment accounts in exchange for lower guaranteed future benefits.
White House counselor Dan Bartlett said that while polls show most Americans don't like the idea, most of the opposition is coming from people over 55 who won't be affected by it. He said on "Fox News Sunday" that Bush will try to reassure those older Americans that their benefits won't change.
Bartlett said the White House wants to work with Democrats, but Democrats are vowing to fight unless the president is willing to change his plan to divert Social Security funds into private accounts.
"If the president takes privatization off, if he makes a commitment to the future of Social Security, we're ready to sit down on a bipartisan basis and put everything on the table," Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., said on NBC's "Meet the Press.""That's the only way to start a good-faith negotiation."
Democrats also object to the president's call for personal accounts because they would not make Social Security solvent. Treasury Secretary John Snow, appearing on ABC, maintained the personal accounts still must be part of the solution.
"They don't in and of themselves bring those lines together," he said. "But we'll never get a fair and equitable solution to the Social Security problem unless personal accounts are an integral part of the solution."
Hagel's plan, which he said is the first Social Security reform bill being introduced in the Senate this year, would allow workers 45 and younger to keep their guaranteed Social Security account, but set up a voluntary program of personal accounts that could supplement their retirement income.
"The president has not laid down a specific plan as to how he's going to get us to solvency," Hagel said. "I do that. It doesn't mean mine's best, but I do it."
Bartlett indicated the president may consider raising the amount of income that is taxed to fund Social Security above the current $90,000 per person. "He says the only thing that's off the table is raising the rate" at which income is taxed, Bartlett said on CNN's "Late Edition."
Also on Sunday, House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi said on Fox that because of Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan's support of personal accounts, some people "have seriously questioned the independence of the Fed." She declined to say whether she would describe Greenspan as a "political hack," as Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid did last week.
Other Democrats distanced themselves from Reid's comment. Sen. Joe Lieberman, D-Conn., said on CNN that Greenspan is "sometimes very mistaken," but he is an "above-average human." Durbin said he has disagreements with Greenspan, but that calling him a political hack "may have been slightly too strong."
Indexing the age at which you receive benefits is an excellent idea.
Not at all. I say that it is wrong for *government* to *forcibly confiscate* assets of a poor person and hand them to a rich person. (And yes, I believe the reverse is wrong as well, but is *sometimes* a necessary evil).
Please feel free to assuage your guilt by writing a check payable to the U. S. Treasury at your earliest convenience. I assure you they'll cash it. Every time.
Huh? I'm not receiving SS benefits, nor do I ever expect to. I'm 29, so I have the luxury of being able to plan far ahead. For older workers, note the long phase-in period I mentioned above.
Furthermore, FICA is not "just another tax."
And yet, it is.
I know. You make my point, exactly.
And we're gonna move heaven and earth to see they merely do what they said they would do. Nothing more, nothing less.
Yes, that is indeed what lying politicians told you. It has little relationship to reality.
Just because we were thrifty doesn't mean we're gonna roll over and play dead while the redistribuitonists tell us what is "morally right."
So you're the one saying that future workers should have their paychecks confiscated to fund your retirement, and those who disagree are the redistributionists? That's a new one.
This doesn't exactly answer your question, but I'm going to say the following.
What Private Retirement Accounts might do is end the skim on the SSI payments. Right now anything they don't pay out goes directly into general revenues. If they were saving that money there probably wouldn't be a problem. Of course this is what they call "borrowing". Two faced phoney b@stards. Just like when they talk about "Paying" for tax cuts.
JUST STOP SPENDING MY MONEY YOU PHONEY B@STARDS!!!
Ah, you're going to exert all your resources and energy to make sure that the promises of liberal politicians of the past are enforced on the next couple of generations.
Nice.
Even if the grandkids have to live on Ramen Noodles while you eat steak, eh?
Satire? I was thinking more along the lines of equanimity.
F U
Technical correction: It all goes into general revenues, and then is paid out.
Otherwise, you're absolutely right.
"So you're the one saying that future workers should have their paychecks confiscated to fund your retirement."
Yep, that's exactly what I'm saying. Now you know what our generation faced our entire working lives. And we damn sure paid plenty.
But like tabby said, EVERYONE gets a haircut. We ants aint taking the hickey without there being lots of politicians that get stung in the process.
I just think they ought to have to eat their own dog food and have SSI. It is a horrible hypocracy not to.
I tend to agree that raising the retirement age makes sense, even though this would affect me personally (assuming I will rely on Social Security-- my plan is not to rely on it). But I also don't like the idea of the govt reneging on it promises (as if we should be able to rely on govt promises!) As for raising the income cap, that's fine IF higher earners get more in SS benefits at the end of the line.
I would prefer just letting us keep our money and requiring an investment of some percentage of it (in safe funds of some sort), phasing it in over time. For those who can't make it, establish a welfare scheme to take care of them, provided they CAN no longer work. If you are able to work, then there is no retirement. I don't understand why anyone is owed a living after age, contributed by everyone else. We need more reliance on self, and failing that, on family. Only as a last, desperate measure, should govt (that is, the rest of us non-relatives, have our earnings confiscated to give to others).
I find it interesting how you and an earlier poster write in such a similiar fashion, even to the extent of using some of the exact same rather odd terminology.
You wouldn't be posting under multiple nics, now would ya?
Nope. This is the only username i've got. Please feel free to look up my profile.
Okay. My apologies, then.
How much do financial planners recommend putting aside for retirement? Imagine investing 15% of your income for 45 years, even at low interest rates. How much would one have? True, some become disabled, but better to deal with this as welfare matter than as retirement.
Tabby's grasshopper/ant analogy is spot on, though
You miss the point. It isn't for you or Hagel or anyone for that matter to determine how long one will work. It is solely up to the individual. And the individual did not do one damn thing to put Social Security in the mess we now find it. That was done by politicians.
I am tired, no I have HAD IT with people telling me I have to continually sacrifice for the good of the majority when I did nothing to contribute to SS's instability.
Why did our Founding Fathers come here anyway? To start up a bold, new Republic, only to see it, and our Constitution, centuries later rendered ineffectual and void of it's original, and once great, ideals?
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