Slate’s Jamie Bouie has a nice piece on how the politics of Social Security have changed, at least among progressives.
During a last-minute budget session, the Massachusetts senator introduced an amendment to “expand and protect Social Security” by raising taxes to keep the program solvent and increasing benefits to better assist seniors. The resolution failed to pass the Republican-controlled Senate, but not before Warren won support from all but two of her Democratic colleagues. (The holdouts were Tom Carper of Delaware and Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota.)
Now, I happen to think the Social Security expansion plans are largely delusional – there simply isn’t enough money to do it. But it’s a very interesting political development that will play out through next year’s Presidential campaign.
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Sanders introduced an amendment protecting all Americans from cuts to earned Social Security benefits.
When you say, "We earned it!", what exactly do you mean?
To me, this phrase is a righteous euphemism for making the more truthful statement: "We were snookered by this Social Security Ponzi scheme, and now we are going to snooker the next generation!"
If Social Security benefits have been "earned" who is obligated to pay benefits to those who "earned" them? Workers? On a regressive tax basis? Why? Why perpetuate a fraud upon the innocent? Who is responsible for bearing the burden of a fraud? The person defrauded? Or an innocent or unborn child?
I do applaud your recognition that the benefits that have been "earned" should be means/affluence tested. But this seems to go against the declared euphemism that benefits have been "earned". And why pay such means/affluence tested Social Security benefits with regressive taxes? What is the rationale for this? Why rob the poor and middle class to pay a need-based benefit to poor and less-well off elderly persons?
The only conclusion I can draw is that many people see it as a positive step for our nation to become a two-class society, with a perpetual underclass unable to use their resources to gain class mobility and a perpetual overclass in control of our nation's productive capital. So much for the American dream...
Social Security is broke and people want to expand it. When in a mine field, you stop and retrace your steps to get our of trouble. With many people to fix social security, they continue the same bad implementation with emotion.
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