Republicans Sneak Bill To GUT Social Security, RAISE Retirement Age & REDUCE Benefits
Late last Thursday, Rep. Sam Johnson (R-Texas), the chair for the House Ways and Means Social Security subcommittee, introduced a bill that would raise the retirement age and reduce benefits as much as a third. The bill, called the the “Social Security Reform Act of 2016,” is intended to extend the life of the retirement program another 75 years, but the plan favors wealthier retirees and adds no new funding for the program.
According to ABC 10 News, Rep. Johnson introduced the bill labeled as a reform for the program instituted by beloved President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Johnson introduced the legislation just before the end of the congressional session, which is breaking for the holidays. Johnson claims that the bill would “permanently save” social security, but rather than helping to provide better benefits to American retirees, the changes would delay and curtail a dignified retirement.
As reported by CBS News, The Social Security Office of the Actuary estimates that the act would keep the trust fund solvent for another 75 years, but would include a $2 trillion decrease in revenue into the program and a $13.9 trillion decrease in benefits.
Currently, the Social Security system will require a 21 percent reduction in benefits in 2034 if not reformed. But rather than increasing the cap on Social Security pay-ins by workers, as suggested by Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, the Republicans seem determined to dissolve the national pension and force workers to rely more heavily on risky investment plans to secure a dignified retirement.
‘The GOP proposals don’t include any revenue increases to shore up the system. In fact, the proposal overshoots the current funding deficit with net benefit cutbacks of 122 percent of the current deficit in order to fund a tax decrease with a present value of 17.5 percent of the deficit.’
One of the more drastic measures in the Republican bill is raising the retirement age to 69 for those born in 1968 or later. According to Forbes, the changes will also alter the benefit formula:
‘In such a way that benefits are progressively and gradually reduced for roughly the top half of retirees.’
The plan changes also include deleting any cost of living (COLA) increases for retirees with higher incomes: singles over $85,000 and couples making over $170,000. It would also reduce the benefits for spouses of higher-income retirees.
Although this sounds much fairer on the surface, the Republican bill places funding for social security on the middle class and working poor. According to the Los Angeles Times, Johnson’s plan reduces funding coming into the social security program through the elimination of taxes on benefits for high-income retirees that would normally be paid back into the social security system to support it.
Johnson is also proposing cutting the benefits for the spouses and children of retired and disabled workers. Rather than providing dependent benefits based on the actual wages earned by the disabled worker, dependent benefits would be based on “average wages.”
Johnson’s bill contrasts sharply with a plan proposed by the Bipartisan Policy Center (BPC) in June that would add revenue to the program. The BPC program would raise benefits for low-income workers, and widows/widowers, while reducing benefits for wealthier retirees. The BPC program would also increase benefits for older Americans who choose to continue working past retirement age. With increasingly more sedentary occupations and longer, healthier lifespans, those who choose to work past the 35 years estimated would be rewarded with higher benefits after working 40 years. The plan also increases funding into the struggling retirement program by raising social security tax from the 2016 wage cap of $118,500 to $195,000 by 2020.
Nancy Pelosi, house democratic leader, released a statement regarding Johnson’s plan to severely chop benefits for retirees.
‘Apparently, nothing upsets house republicans like the idea of hard-working people getting to enjoy a secure and dignified retirement. While Speaker Ryan sharpens his knives for Medicare, chairman Johnson’s bill is an alarming sign that Republicans are greedily eyeing devastating cuts to Americans’ Social Security benefits as well.
‘The top Republican on the Social Security subcommittee is rolling out legislation that cuts benefits by more than a third, raises the retirement age from 67 to 69, cuts seniors’ cost of living adjustments, and targets benefits for the families of disabled and retired workers.’
Reducing benefits, raising the age of retirement, and cutting funding to social security is only the first step in gutting our national pension fund. Republicans have had it in for Social Security since it was introduced in 1935, calling it “socialism” and an “entitlement,” seemingly unaware that American workers pay a percentage of their gross income into the program every working day of their lives.
Readers who wish to do so can find and contact their House representative and express their opinion regarding the new bill at the House.gov website.
Social Security Targeted on Day One of New Congress
Members of the new 114th Congress had barely taken their oaths of office today when they passed a proposal threatening millions of Americanswho receive Social Security benefits. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities describes the plan:
“Buried in the new rules that the House Republican majority {adopted} for the 114thCongress is a provision that could threaten Disability Insurance (DI) beneficiaries — a group of severely impaired and vulnerable Americans — with a sudden, one-fifth cut in their benefits by late 2016. The provision bars the House from replenishing the DI trust fund simply by shifting some payroll tax revenues from Social Security’s retirement trust fund.”
As NCPSSM’s Max Richtman explains, this move was pure politics:
“Today’s unprecedented House vote preventing a routine rebalancing of the Social Security Disability Trust Funds puts politics ahead of policy and partisanship ahead of people. This House Rules change would allow a 20% benefit cut for millions of disabled Americans unless there are broader Social Security benefit cuts or tax increases improving the solvency of the combined trust funds. It is difficult to believe that there is any purpose to this unprecedented change to House Rules other than to cut benefits for Americans who have worked hard all their lives, paid into Social Security, and rely on their Social Security benefits, including Disability, in order to survive.
A modest and temporary reallocation of part of the 6.2 percent Social Security tax rate to the DI Trust Fund would put the entire Social Security program on an equal footing, with all benefits payable at least until 2033. Democrats and Republicans have authorized this same strategy eleven times without controversy (including four times during the Reagan administration); however, this new House majority would rather play politics with the livelihoods of millions of Americans than solve this important funding issue. This sends a clear message to middle-class families about the House majority’s priorities -- targeting Social Security for cuts clearly ranks high on their list.”
We’ve written before about the GOP strategy to force broad Social Security benefit cuts while simultaneously demonizing America’s disabled. Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH) raised the alarm about attempts to politicize what has always been a routine and non-partisan legislative solution to balance the Social Security Trust Funds:
“Reallocation has never been controversial, but detractors working to privatize Social Security will do anything to manufacture a crisis out of a routine administrative function. Modest reallocation of payroll taxes would ensure solvency of both trust funds until 2033. But if House Republicans block reallocation, insurance for disabled Americans, veterans, and children could face severe cuts once the trust fund is exhausted in 2016.”
Not only does this proposal threaten benefit cuts to people with disabilities but it also creates a false either-or scenario that pits retirees and disabled beneficiaries against each other. That’s a particularly absurd notion since the majority of disability recipients are also older, as CBPP explains:
“A reallocation would have only a tiny effect on the retirement program’s solvency. Reallocating taxes to put the two trust funds on an even footing would prolong the DI trust fund by 17 years (from 2016 to 2033), while advancing the OASI fund’s depletion by just one year (from 2034 to 2033). The reason is simple: OASI is much bigger than DI, so a modest reallocation barely dents OASI. And before then, policymakers will almost surely address Social Security solvency in a comprehensive fashion.
Most DI recipients are older people, so helping DI helps seniors. The risk of disability rises with age, and most DI beneficiaries are older. Seventy percent of disabled workers are age 50 or older, 30 percent are 60 or older, and 20 percent are 62 or older and would actually qualify as early retirees under Social Security.”
Changing the rules of the game to target Social Security in the very first hours of a new Congress sends a clear message to seniors, people with disabilities, survivors and their families – a message that certainly wasn’t shared with voters before Election Day – American families who count on Social Security in any way should beware.
After Darkness Fell, Republicans Unveiled Their Sinister Plan To Dismantle Social Security
House Ways and Means Social Security subcommittee chair Rep. Sam Johnson (R-TX) introduced a bill that was disguised as reform but is actually the first step in a sinister Republican plan to dismantle Social Security.
House Ways and Means Social Security subcommittee chair Rep. Sam Johnson (R-TX) introduced a bill that was disguised as reform but is actually the first step in a sinister Republican plan to dismantle Social Security.
The full text of the legislation can be read here, but what Republicans are calling “reform” is actually a planned attack on the foundation of the beloved program.
The Washington Examiner summed up what the bill would do, “The bill put forward by Texas’ Sam Johnson, the chairman of the subcommittee on Social Security, would reduce costs by changing the benefits formula to reduce payments progressively for high earners. It would also gradually raise the full retirement age from 67 to 69 for people who are today 49 or younger. Lastly, it would change the inflation metric used to calculate benefits to one that shows lower inflation, essentially slowing the growth in benefits, and eliminate cost of living adjustments for high earners.”
In other words, the legislation does exactly what Trump and the Republicans promised not to do. It cuts Social Security. However, the bill is even more sinister than a plan cut, because it attacks the fundamental basis of the entire program. The raising of the retirement age and the cutting of benefits opens the door to Social Security being reshaped from a retirement program for all to a program for older Americans while everyone else has their retirement privatized.
House Democratic Leader Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) said that Johnson’s bill cuts Social Security benefits by more than one-third, “Cutting Social Security would have devastating consequences for Americans’ retirement security. At a time when Americans are more anxious about their retirement than ever, the top Republican on the Social Security Subcommittee is rolling out legislation that cuts benefits by more than a third, raises the retirement age from 67 to 69, cuts seniors’ cost of living adjustments, and targets benefits for the families of disabled and retired workers.”
There is a reason why this bill was put forward on Thursday night, instead of in the light of day. Republicans are trying to stealthily gut Social Security. They are hoping that the American people won’t notice that the program has been hollowed out until it is too late.
The Republican course of action is both sinister and dishonest. If Trump and the Republican Congressional majority want to cut Social Security, they should look the American people in the eyes and own it.
Republicans in Congress are setting themselves up to dismantle Social Security, and they are hoping that the American people will be too distracted by Trump’s Twitter account to catch on. Social Security will only be saved if the public is informed and ready to fight.
Bombshell Report Shows FBI Knew About Russia’s DNC Hacking Since 2015
"The low-key approach of the F.B.I. meant that Russian hackers could roam freely through the committee’s network for nearly seven months before top D.N.C. officials were alerted to the attack..."
A new bombshell report from the New York Times shows that the FBI was aware of the Russian cyber attack of the DNC in September of 2015, more than a year before the election.
More from the Times:
When Special Agent Adrian Hawkins of the Federal Bureau of Investigation called the Democratic National Committee in September 2015 to pass along some troubling news about its computer network, he was transferred, naturally, to the help desk.
His message was brief, if alarming. At least one computer system belonging to the D.N.C. had been compromised by hackers federal investigators had named “the Dukes,” a cyberespionage team linked to the Russian government.
The New York Times notes that this was the first red flag that the presidential election in the United States was, for the first time ever, being influenced by a foreign government. In this case, it was Russia – a country led by a man, Vladimir Putin, that President-elect Donald Trump has nothing but praise for.
More from the report:
It was the cryptic first sign of a cyberespionage and information-warfare campaign devised to disrupt the 2016 presidential election, the first such attempt by a foreign power in American history. What started as an information-gathering operation, intelligence officials believe, ultimately morphed into an effort to harm one candidate, Hillary Clinton, and tip the election to her opponent, Donald J. Trump.
While Russia’s effort to swing the presidential election toward Trump was bad enough, the lethargic response from the FBI – and the fact that they chose to focus heavily on Hillary Clinton’s emails, instead of foreign involvement in an election – was particularly troubling.
The low-key approach of the F.B.I. meant that Russian hackers could roam freely through the committee’s network for nearly seven months before top D.N.C. officials were alerted to the attack and hired cyberexperts to protect their systems. In the meantime, the hackers moved on to targets outside the D.N.C., including Mrs. Clinton’s campaign chairman, John D. Podesta, whose private email account was hacked months later.
It is now clear that Russia did influence the presidential election in a way that was decisive given how close the final tally was between the two major candidates. In fact, stats guru Nate Silver pointed out that it likely cost Clinton key battleground states and, ultimately, the presidency:
Nate Silver ✔ @NateSilver538
Clinton lost 4 states (FL, MI, WI, PA) by ~1 point. If not for Comey/Russia, she probably wins them all by ~2 points & strategy looks great.
12:38 PM - 10 Dec 2016
While Hillary Clinton won the popular vote by nearly 3 million votes and just about matched Barack Obama’s 2012 vote total, her razor-thin losses in a handful of swing states cost her an Electoral College victory.
It is almost a certainty that the FBI’s hyping of Clinton’s emails combined with their downplaying of Russian meddling was enough to very narrowly swing the election toward Trump.
U.S. Energy Department balks at Trump request for names on climate change
The U.S. Energy Department said on Tuesday it will not comply with a request from President-elect Donald Trump's Energy Department transition team for the names of people who have worked on climate change and the professional society memberships of lab workers.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Energy Department said on Tuesday it will not comply with a request from President-elect Donald Trump’s Energy Department transition team for the names of people who have worked on climate change and the professional society memberships of lab workers.
The Energy Department’s response could signal a rocky transition for the president-elect’s energy team and potential friction between the new leadership and the staffers who remain in place.
The memo sent to the Energy Department on Tuesday and reviewed by Reuters last week contains 74 questions, including a request for a list of all department employees and contractors who attended the annual global climate talks hosted by the United Nations within the last five years.
Energy Department spokesman Eben Burnham-Snyder said Tuesday the department will not comply.
“Our career workforce, including our contractors and employees at our labs, comprise the backbone of (the Energy Department) and the important work our department does to benefit the American people,” Burnham-Snyder said.
“We are going to respect the professional and scientific integrity and independence of our employees at our labs and across our department,” he added. “We will be forthcoming with all publicly available information with the transition team. We will not be providing any individual names to the transition team.”
He added that the request “left many in our workforce unsettled.”
Andrew Rosenberg, an official at the Union of Concerned Scientists, said the Energy Department “made the right choice in refusing this absurd and dangerous request. Federal agencies need the best available science to respond to the growing risk of climate change.”
Reuters reported late Monday that former Texas Governor Rick Perry is expected to be named by Trump to run the Energy Department. The agency employs more than 90,000 people working on nuclear weapons maintenance and research labs, nuclear energy, advanced renewable energy, batteries and climate science.
The memo sought a list of all department employees or contractors who have attended any meetings on the social cost of carbon, a measurement that federal agencies use to weigh the costs and benefits of new energy and environmental regulations. It also asked for all publications written by employees at the department’s 17 national laboratories for the past three years.
Trump transition officials declined to comment on the memo.
“This feels like the first draft of an eventual political enemies list,” a Department of Energy employee, who asked not to be identified because he feared a reprisal by the Trump transition team, had told Reuters.
Josh Earnest, a White House spokesman, said in a news briefing on Tuesday that the queries “could have been an attempt to target civil servants,” including “scientists and lawyers and other experts who are critical to the success of the federal government’s ability to make policy.”
By design, their work transcends the term of any one president, Earnest said.
Trump, a Republican, said during his election campaign that climate change was a hoax perpetrated by China to damage U.S. manufacturing. He said he would rip up last year’s landmark global climate deal struck in Paris that was signed by President Barack Obama.
Since winning the Nov. 8 election, however, Trump has said he will keep an “open mind” about the Paris deal. He also met with former Vice President Al Gore, a strong advocate for action on climate change.
After that meeting, he picked Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt, a climate change skeptic, to head the Environmental Protection Agency.
Why is GOP going after Social Security?
The reason why Republicans are so against Social Security is they don't want the public to know that ,
Regan spent 1.7 trillion
Bush sr. Spent 800 million
Bush Jr. Spent 1.4 trillion
They the Republican Party looted and stole the money from Social Security. Most of the tax breaks were paid for with funds from Social Security. If the fund had not been robbed by republican presidents it would have plenty of money for the next 75 years. Republicans are hoping this does not become public knowledge.
Social Security is often described as "the third rail of American politics" -- touch it and you'll get zapped.
So why do Republicans keep sidling up to it and sticking their fingers out?
There's a brewing controversy in Congress over a small part of the program, which is just the latest version of an old routine that goes like this: Republicans say Social Security is going broke, and they propose changes that would cut benefits or otherwise undermine the program. Democrats shout "Republicans are trying to cut Social Security!" Then the Republicans, scared of a backlash from older voters, back off.
And why do we keep going through this? Republicans will tell you it's because the program is in peril, and if we don't cut it back, it won't be there at all for future generations. Democrats will tell you it's because Republicans never liked the program in the first place, and would love to kill it.
That may be an exaggeration, but the fact is that Republicans hate big government, and government doesn't come any bigger than Social Security.
It's also the most successful and beloved social program in American history. Most of us are too young to remember when growing old in America almost inevitably meant a miserable descent into poverty, but until the middle of the 20th century, that's what it was.
The current controversy revolves around a rule change Republicans made as soon as the new Congress was sworn in this month. Social Security is actually two separate programs, Old Age and Survivors Insurance (OASI), and the much smaller Disability Insurance program (DI). The disability program will be facing a funding shortfall next year, and to ensure that disabled people continue to get all their benefits, Congress would have to move some money from OASI into DI. This isn't anything new -- it's been done many times in recent years.
But House Republicans adopted a parliamentary rule barring the House from allowing that transfer unless it was accompanied by benefit cuts or tax increases. If it can't get worked out, people on DI could see their benefits cut substantially.
The next generation and Social Security
So why would Republicans insist on this? My guess is that they think forcing a mini-crisis over the Disability Insurance program's finances will allow for a debate on the program that will make it easier to do what they've wanted to do for a long time: cut it back somehow, either by reducing benefits, increasing the retirement age, or even partially privatizing it. The justification is always that the program is "going broke." But that's just not true.
When people say that, what they're usually referring to is that, according to the projections in the Social Security Trustees' latest report, in 2033 the program's trust fund will be exhausted. But even if there are no changes between now and then, the program would not be "broke." That's because it would still be taking in billions of dollars in taxes every day and paying them out in benefits. Even under this scenario, the program will still pay 77% of recipient's benefits after 2033, according to the report.
Which would be awful. That would be a large reduction in income for millions of seniors. But 77% is not nothing. The people who tell you that the program will be "broke" are hoping that, faced with that (fictional) nightmare, you might be willing to accept steep benefit cuts now.
But we don't have to -- the projected shortfall can be fixed with some very modest changes, like raising the payroll tax cap (right now you only pay payroll taxes on the first $117,000 of your wages, which means that the wealthy actually pay less as a proportion of their income than the rest of us) or gradually raising the payroll tax by a point in tiny increments over an extended period.
The point is, it wouldn't be hard to come up with some combination of changes that could take care of the shortfall without cutting benefits. But for that to happen, both parties would have to agree on that goal. And there's reason to wonder whether Republicans really want a Social Security that's strong and stable.
Programs like Social Security and Medicare -- which provide vital benefits to millions of Americans and are hugely popular -- stand as a living rebuke to conservatives' small-government philosophy. When Republicans tell voters that government can't do anything right, they hope that the voters don't respond, "Well, the government is doing a good job keeping my grandma from having to eat cat food." The idea that the program is perennially in crisis, on the other hand, validates everything else that Republicans say.
Congress will probably work out the issue with Disability Insurance funding, just like they have in the past -- once the GOP starts feeling some political heat over it. But Republicans will be back for another attack on Social Security soon enough.
Oh! How the republicans complained about President Obama. What do they think of these photos?
Amherst Democratic News
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