Writing at Forbes, Sylvester Schieber – the former chairman of the Social
Security advisory board and a well-known expert on retirement issues – argues
that current retirees should play a role in fixing Social Security’s funding
gap.
Given the number of people who are nearing retirement or in retirement and the fact that older Americans tend to vote at higher rates than younger ones, this position might be good politics. But it is an inequitable policy proposition.
As a 69-year-old who has paid into the Social Security system for five decades, I believe we are all in this together and that it is unfair to put all the burden of fixing Social Security onto younger workers and those not yet in the workforce.
Click here to see what Schieber proposes.
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"it is unfair to put all the burden of fixing Social Security onto younger workers and those not yet in the workforce."
Yes very true. Yet equally true is that since the publication of "Leninist Strategy" by Butler and Germanis in the Fall 1983 Cato Journal Social Security issue every single proposal by Republican Party 'reformers' has exempted those "in or approaching retirement" from any cuts in THEIR benefits. I think without exception. Except of course for proposals that would introduce Chained-CPI or price indexing that could be presented as 'corrections' rather than 'cuts'
The fundamental factor that has prevented all attempts to 'reform' Social Security from the Right has been the understanding that what puts the real juice into the Third Rail of American Politics is the belief that the older white voting population that has always made up the Republican base since WWII believes that almost the most important thing Wash DC can do is "keep government hands off my Medicare and Social Security".
Which of couse if what drove the tactics of the Leninist Strategy to begin with: Scare the Young, Reassure the Old, Blame the Boomers. Why you could almost brand this as "Intergenerational Warfare". Or to be more appealing to Millenials "The Can Kicks Back".
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