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News Release Archive | social security | Accuracy.Org

Sen. Conrad Proposal “Would Dismantle Social Security”

April 18, 2012

NANCY ALTMAN, ERIC KINGSON, via Sarah Shive sshive at socialsecurity-works.org
Altman and Kingson are co-chairs of the Strengthen Social Security Campaign. The group released a statement today, which said that Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent “Conrad’s budget mark, the Fiscal Commission Budget Plan, incorporates the Social Security cuts contained in the Bowles-Simpson proposal. Unfortunately, some seem to have forgotten what the Bowles-Simpson proposal would entail for Social Security. The proposal would cut the benefits of all current beneficiaries, drastically cut the benefits of future generations, and worse, effectively end Social Security as we know it.

“Senator Kent Conrad’s Fiscal Commission Budget Plan incorporates the Social Security proposals of the Bowles-Simpson plan. Members should know that this plan would cut benefits for today’s and tomorrow’s beneficiaries. Of even greater concern, it would dismantle Social Security. Specifically, the Conrad/Bowles-Simpson plan would:

* Drastically cut the benefits of middle-class families: The Bowles-Simpson proposal cuts Social Security’s retirement, survivors, and disability benefits by between 19 percent and 42 percent for young people entering the workforce today.

* Reduce the annual Cost of Living Adjustment for current and future Social Security beneficiaries: The Bowles-Simpson proposal would cut the COLA for current and future Social Security beneficiaries, reducing benefits more with every passing year. This would prevent benefits from keeping up with increases in the cost of living over time. Under these plans, retirees claiming benefits at 65 would see their benefits decline by 3.7 percent at age 75, by 6.5 percent at age 85, and 9.2 percent at age 95.2.

* Raise the full retirement age to 69, and the earliest eligibility age to 64: Because of the way that Social Security benefits are calculated, raising the retirement age, as the Bowles-Simpson proposal recommends, is indistinguishable from an across-the-board benefit cut, no matter how long workers continue to work — even when they work to age 70 and beyond. Raising the full retirement age by two full years amounts to a 13 percent benefit cut, on top of the 13 percent cut already made when the retirement age was increased from 65 to 67.3. The cuts are hardest for workers in physically demanding jobs, poor health, or otherwise unable to continue to work.

* Radically restructure the program: The Bowles-Simpson proposal would destroy Social Security by stealth. It would eliminate a fundamental and carefully-crafted feature that has been part of the program since the beginning. As figure 1 shows, over time, everyone would receive nearly the same subsistence level benefit unrelated to wages.

* Cut benefits for the most vulnerable: More than half of all workers with an annual income of about $11,000 would see their benefits cut by about 16 percent under the Bowles-Simpson proposal.”

Filed Under: Tagged With: budget, Eric Kingson, Kent Conrad, Nancy Altman, social security,

Ryan Budget: Increases Pentagon, “Out of Touch”

March 20, 2012

House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) unveiled a 2013 budget plan today.

WILLIAM HARTUNG, hartung at newamerica.net
Hartung is a senior research fellow in the New America Foundation’s American Strategy Program and author of the book Prophets of War: Lockheed Martin and the Making of the Military-Industrial Complex, which is just being released in paperback. He said today: “While pretending to make the ‘tough choices,’ Rep. Paul Ryan’s budget cutting plan gives a free ride to the largest single item in the discretionary budget: Pentagon spending. In fact, Ryan would spend $400 billion MORE over the next decade than current Pentagon plans. That will result in harsh cuts to virtually every other domestic program. By contrast, the budget developed by the Sustainable Defense Task Force, a plan endorsed by Representatives Barney Frank (D-Mass.) and Ron Paul (R-Texas), would reduce military expenditures by $1 trillion over the next ten years. This can be done without undermining our security, by taking measures such as eliminating outmoded and unnecessary conventional weapons, cutting the Army and Marines back to pre-2001 levels, and eliminating plans for new nuclear bombers, submarines and weapons factories.

“Even as Ryan goes easy on the Pentagon, Republican frontrunner Mitt Romney offers the arms industry an unprecedented bonanza. His plan, which would keep Pentagon spending at 4 percent of Gross Domestic Product, would result in $8 trillion more in Pentagon spending over the next decade, roughly 25 percent more than even Ryan’s generous plan. If Romney endorses the Ryan plan, it is fair to ask whether he is going to eliminate his prior commitment to massive Pentagon budgets or simply pretend the differences between the two approaches don’t exist. That would be a huge deception, if he’s allowed to get away with it.”

ROBERT KRAIG, robert.kraig at citizenactionwi.org
Kraig is executive director of Citizen Action of Wisconsin. He said today: “It is shameful that Paul Ryan and the House Republicans are proposing massive cuts that will further threaten economic and health security for 99% of Americans to fund billions of dollars in irresponsible new tax giveaways for the wealthy.”

KAREN DOLAN, via Lacy MacAuley, lacy at ips-dc.org
Dolan, fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies and director of IPS’s Cities for Progress project, said today: “Ryan unveiled a 2013 budget plan that would impose unnecessary hardship on already hurting Americans. Before the economy has had a chance to bounce back, the GOP budget would slash critical safety net programs to rates below what both parties had agreed to in last summer’s Budget Control Act. At the same time, the Ryan budget would give tax breaks to the wealthy and to corporations. I think this shows not only that the GOP is wildly out of touch with average Americans, but that they lack the ability to lead us anywhere but off a cliff. We need revenues, investments, jobs and a strong safety net for the millions of Americans who continue to suffer from the 2008 recession. Tax breaks for the rich and less for everyone else is an idea which has already failed the vast majority of Americans.”

Filed Under: , Tagged With: budget, economy, military spending, Robert Kraig, social security, William Hartung,

* Medicare * Real Deficit “Courage”

April 13, 2011

STEFFIE WOOLHANDLER, M.D., MARGARET FLOWERS, M.D.
Woolhandler, a professor of public health at CUNY and visiting professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, is a co-founder of Physicians for a National Health Program. She said today: “Congressman Ryan promises to save money by ending Medicare and instead giving seniors a voucher to pay for private insurance. But this scheme only saves money by leaving seniors to pay a larger and larger share of the premiums out of their own pockets — something few can afford. This unraveling of Medicare would return us to the bad old days before Medicare when most seniors couldn’t get the care they needed. And his plan for Medicaid mirrors this turn-the-clock-back approach. As in the 1950s, he’d give states limited block grants to care for the poor — grants that weren’t (and won’t be) tied to the actual cost of that care. If his plan is implemented, thousands will die; seniors unable to afford the miracles of modern medicine, and the poor denied even the most basic level of care.” Flowers is a congressional fellow at PNHP and recently wrote the piece “Ryan turns knife on Medicare, Medicaid.”

THOMAS FERGUSON
Ferguson is professor of political science at the University of Massachusetts, Boston and a senior fellow of the Roosevelt Institute. He said today: “As we await the President’s plan for the deficit and the next round of the Congressional follies on the debt ceiling, we had all better remind ourselves of a few basic facts. Firstly, in America’s polarized money-driven political system, the politicians who just voted a two year extension of the Bush tax cuts for the super rich aren’t showing ‘courage’ when they try to gut Medicare and Medicaid and deprive Americans of access to basic health care — they are just rewarding contributors. Real courage would lead Congress and the President to change the law to allow the the government to bargain with Big Pharma over drug prices and enforce anti-trust laws on hospital chains, testing laboratories, and medical practices that are forming ‘networks’ with even more market power. Secondly, no matter how many politicians and experts claim the opposite, it’s obvious from the last Trustees’ Report that Social Security is not going broke and doesn’t need fixing for decades, if ever.

“If you are seriously concerned with the deficit, it cannot make sense to repeat the errors of the Great Depression and keep chopping government expenditures at a moment when states are cutting back and banks and corporations are still trying to dig themselves out of past debts. But cheer up — there is a silver lining: With polls showing that even many Tea Party members want Social Security left alone, there is hope that lawmakers who respond to money and blankly ignore the will of the people will get exactly what they deserve in the 2012 elections.”

Recent interviews with Ferguson: huffingtonpost.com and video on The Real News

Recent papers by Ferguson: “A World Upside Down? Deficit Fantasies in the Great Recession”

“Legislators Never Bowl Alone: Big Money, Mass Media, and the Polarization of Congress” [PDF]

For more information, contact at the Institute for Public Accuracy:
Sam Husseini, (202) 347-0020; or David Zupan, (541) 484-9167

Filed Under: Tagged With: deficit, medicaid, medicare, social security,

Social Security Cuts Hurt Future Recipients

January 25, 2011

VIRGINIA RENO, also via Jill Braunstein
Vice president for income security policy for the National Academy of Social Insurance, Reno said today: “There’s much talk about cutting Social Security to reduce the deficit. Deficit commission co-chairs, Bowles and Simpson, said cuts are needed to ensure the future of our children and grandchildren. Yet, their benefit cuts fall directly on those children and grandchildren. Let’s look at some facts:

“Social Security isn’t contributing to the deficit. Since 1935 it has collected $14.6 trillion and paid out $12.0 trillion, leaving reserves of $2.6 trillion.

“Social Security benefits are modest (about $14,000 a year on average) yet are the main income of most seniors. Benefits are not keeping pace with rising out-of-pocket health costs, and other retirement resources are becoming less secure. Cutting Social Security would put many middle class Americans at risk.

“Americans want to strengthen Social Security, not cut it. Polls show that Democrats, Republicans, and independents are all willing to pay for Social Security and would rather pay more than see benefits cut. Modest revenue adjustments out in the future can keep Social Security strong for generations to come.”

Reno recently co-wrote the following pieces:

“Strengthening Social Security for the Long Run”

“Social Security Across Generations: Benefit Cuts Will Fall on Today’s Children and Grandchildren” [Read more...]

Filed Under: Tagged With: social security,

Taxes on Rich: Public vs. Government

January 5, 2011

Poll on TaxesDAVID LINDORFF
Lindorff is a Philadelphia-based journalist, author and founder of the online newspaper ThisCantBeHappening.net. He just wrote the piece “A Profound and Jarring Disconnect,” which states: “According to the latest poll conducted by CBS ’60 Minutes’ and the magazine Vanity Fair, 61 percent of Americans want to raise taxes on the wealthy as the primary way to cut the budget [deficit]. The same poll finds that the second most popular first choice for cutting the nation’s budget deficit, at 20 percent, is cutting the military budget. That is, 81 percent of us — four out of five — would cut the deficit by taxing the rich and/or slashing military spending.

“Only 4 percent of those polled favored cutting Medicare, the government-run program that provides health care for the elderly and disabled, and only 3 percent favored cutting Social Security. … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Tagged With: medicare, military spending, public opinion, social security, taxes,