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."
Not only can the government change the deal, they can in fact take the whole entire deal away. Absolutely nothing in the deal is guaranteed in any way, shape, or form.
Nobody should kid themselves into thinking that Social Security is any kind of true pension program. It's an intergenerational welfare program paid for by current workers' taxes and it always has been from day one. The first recipients paid in nothing into the system.
You don't touch your "private" account until you retire. At that time, a schedule is put together determining how much you would need per month, and that amount is doled out to you from the account for the rest of your days.
ROFL...
It's hilarious to hear someone say that in defense of the biggest socialist welfare program ever devised.
People who do "hard, manual labor" and who belong to unions, which provide pensions that kick in at retirement, can wait an extra year or two to collect social security benefits. Rather than using the phrase "retirement age", Republicans should use "benefit collection age". The age at which one can collect social security must be adjusted upward, even more than the measly one year this Senator proposes.
Some wise way which will not fulfill the intentions expressed in the minutes of the last Commintern (Communist International) that demonstrated its intent to bring class and group conflict into this Nation in order to impair the unity which existed.
Lack of unity is the current curse of the Nation. A large part of its' existence is due to the intentional actions of a group of America haters.
And where do you propose to get the money to do that?
I'm not. People are living longer than ever before. We have folks retiring and 65 and dying at 85. The younger generation of workers cannot afford to pay people Social Security and Medicare for 20 years. As for hard manual labor, you're not obligated to work in a coal mine for your whole professional career. If you have a manual profession, switch careers at age 30 or 40. Athletes and ballerinas do it, why can't the rest of the population?
" And where do you propose to get the money to do that?"
The same place it would be coming from if we didn't means test.
No need to tell me that. I know that there is no "lockbox." In fact, and I am sorry to say that I cant' cite the court case, but I recall that there is a ruling which states specifically that the gov doesn't owe us social security benefits. I just wish more people listened up when we told em about the intergenerational theft part (some of course would be happy about that part).
LOL...news flash for the gullible:
All the money you sent in for SS was spent as soon as it arrived!
The 'lockbox' is empty, folks...
Well, it does contain a pretty big pile of IOU's...worthless paper...
"First step towards solving the problem?
Means testing..."
Bingo! A good first step.
Man, oh, man, if only all conservatives understood that!
Those who do hard labor are not forced to do it all their lives. Ballerinas and athletes aren't in the business at age 35 either. If we don't raise the retirement age and people continue to live longer than ever before, how do you propose paying people medicare and social security for 20 years, given that folks retire at 65 and die at 85?
The fix for Social Security is simple but it will never happen because it is NOT pc. Social Security has become a "welfare program" for alcoholics, junkies, etc. SSD pays out disability payments to people that have never contributed a dime. Get rid of the disability side of ss.
People forget what a large proportion of assets are in the hands of the older population. It's substantial.
And SS just feeds it.
When my children were younger, I used to quietly seethe as I paid into SS out of my meager paychecks...knowing that me and my kids were living on little, while their grandparents and great-grandparents, who possessed very healthy assets, were drawing SS and running up their balance sheets at the same time.
Means testing just means taking away benefits from folks who have saved their money and giving them to people who shot theirs on boats and cocaine. I can find no moral justification for basically cancelling my account out so you can get full benefits. What's your justification for this?
Sounds like it must be something like, "Well, you already have money and I don't, so I should get a bennie and you shouldn't!" Run that past the folks at DU, they'll probably agree with you.
Does that tell you anything?
One more time....people over 55 are NOT eligible for private accounts. They will continue to receive benefits as promised.
In fact, for people UNDER age 55, private accounts will be optional. (But, why anyone eligible would not run to this opportunity like moths to a flame is beyond my ability to comprehend.)
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