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GOP Senator Urges Social Security Cuts ‘Behind Closed Doors’

GOP Senator Urges Social Security Cuts ‘Behind Closed Doors’

Reprinted with permission from Alternet

Senator Joni Ernst (R-IA) just said out loud what Republican politicians usually only talk about in secret meetings with their billionaire donors: The GOP wants to cut our earned Social Security benefits—and they want to do it behind closed doors so that they don’t have to pay the political price.

At a recent town hall, Ernst stated that Congress needs to “sit down behind closed doors” to “address Social Security.” She vaguely asserted, “A lot of changes need to be made in this system going forward.” But, she complained, if these changes were proposed in public, she would be accused of pushing “granny over a cliff.” It is not hard to figure out what “changes” she has in mind.

There are many “changes” that should be made to strengthen Social Security and make it even better than it already is. But none of those have to be done secretly.

Congress should address our nation’s looming retirement income crisis by increasing Social Security’s modest benefits. Congress should combat rising income and wealth inequality, by requiring the wealthiest Americans to contribute to Social Security at the same rate as the rest of us.

Congress should enact caregiver credits for those who perform essential but unpaid labor caring for their children, aged parents, and other family members. Those crucial caregivers should receive credit toward future Social Security benefits so they don’t retire into poverty.

In addition, Congress should update the way that Social Security’s benefits are adjusted so that they reflect the high health care and prescription drug costs that beneficiaries experience. The annual cost of living adjustment is intended to keep benefits from eroding, to allow beneficiaries to tread water. But without updating the measure of inflation, those benefits are losing value each year.

Those are just some of the improvements that Congress should make. But those are not the “changes” Ernst has in mind, because none of those changes need to be done behind closed doors. Numerous pieces of legislation proposing those changes have been introduced in Congress—though none by Senator Ernst or her Republican colleagues.

Indeed, 210 House Democrats have co-sponsored the Social Security 2100 Act, which expands Social Security’s modest benefits, while ensuring that all benefits can be paid in full and on time through the year 2100 and beyond. Every Democratic presidential candidate opposes cutting Social Security benefits, and nearly all support expanding them. Meanwhile, neither Donald Trump nor a single Republican member of Congress is sponsoring or cosponsoring any legislation that increases benefits or even ensures that they can be paid in full and on time beyond 2035.

No action is the same as supporting cuts. As Representative John Larson (D-CT), chairman of the House’s Social Security Subcommittee and the author of the Social Security 2100 Act, has explained, “The hard truth of the matter is that Republicans want to cut Social Security, and doing nothing achieves their goal.”

Larson and his Democratic colleagues are calling Republicans’ bluff. Under Democratic control, Congress has held numerous hearings on Social Security and the importance of protecting and expanding it. Larson and his Democratic colleagues are planning to have a recorded, public vote on the Social Security 2100 Act this fall.

The legislation has enough votes to pass the House of Representatives. But don’t expect Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) to bring it to a vote in the Senate. And don’t expect Senator Ernst or her other Republican colleagues to urge him to do so.

With respect to Social Security, just as with the issue of legislating background checks and other overwhelmingly popular commonsense legislation to reduce the epidemic of gun violence, Republican politicians will not say what they are for. In the case of gun legislation, they block action. In the case of Social Security, they block action unless Democrats agree to go behind closed doors so the public doesn’t know who pushed the cuts.

We should not let Republican politicians get by with platitudes about “saving” and “fixing” Social Security. And we certainly shouldn’t let them hide behind closed doors and undermine our Social Security.

As polarized as the American people are over many issues, we are not polarized about Social Security. Republicans, Democrats and Independents, of all ages, races and genders, overwhelmingly agree. We understand that Social Security is more important than ever. We overwhelmingly reject any cuts to its modest benefits.

The only group that disagrees is Republican Party donors. As an ideological matter, they hate Social Security because it puts the lie to their assertions that government can’t work. They do not want to pay their fair share. Indeed, they would love to get their hands on the money now flowing to Social Security.

When President George W. Bush proposed destroying Social Security by privatizing it, the American people overwhelmingly rejected his plan. But Republican politicians learned the wrong lesson. As unpopular as Bush’s proposal was, he was at least willing to advocate for it publicly. Rather than recognize the proposal was the problem, Ernst and her fellow Republicans think the problem was being honest with the American people.

Like Bush, they want to enact a Social Security proposal that is deeply unpopular. But unlike Bush, they want to enact it in the dark of night. Fortunately, their Democratic colleagues won’t let them get away with that undemocratic act. Nor should the American people.

All of us who have a stake in Social Security—which is every one of us—should insist that those seeking our vote tell us if they support expanding or cutting Social Security. If they refuse to tell us, if they ramble on about their desire to “save” or “fix” or “strengthen” Social Security in secret, we should draw the obvious inference: They want to cut Social Security. We should use the election to ensure they do not have the power to do that—and certainly not behind closed doors.

Nancy J. Altman is a writing fellow for Economy for All, a project of the Independent Media Institute. She has a 40-year background in the areas of Social Security and private pensions. She is president of Social Security Works and chair of the Strengthen Social Security coalition. Her latest book is The Truth About Social Security. She is also the author of The Battle for Social Security and co-author of Social Security Works!

This article was produced by Economy for All, a project of the Independent Media Institute.

The ‘Temporary’ Social Security Benefit That is Still Around 76 Years Later

Q: My friends and I have a Social Security round-table discussion once a month at a local coffee shop. At our last get-together, the subject of the Social Security $255 death benefit came up. I was surprised to learn that it is only paid when the deceased was married.

So, why does Social Security discriminate against single people? Don’t they realize that we have also burial costs after we die?

A: The so-called “death benefit” has an interesting history. It didn’t start out as a death benefit, per se — at least not in the context it is thought of today. It certainly was never meant to be a “burial benefit” as many people call it.

As part of the thinking that went into the original Social Security Act passed in 1935, Congress realized that many of the new Social Security taxpayers would die before they ever had a chance to collect benefits. Or they would die without having earned enough “quarters of coverage” to be insured for survivor benefits for any dependents.

Therefore, they decided to compensate the families of the deceased with some form of reimbursement for the Social Security taxes that they had paid into the system. They set up a one-time benefit they called the “lump sum death payment,” and it was originally intended to reimburse the family with an amount equal to 3.5 percent of the money the deceased had paid into the system.

It was supposed to be a temporary benefit, because Congress knew that as time passed, most workers would be paying a sufficient amount of money into Social Security and they would be insured for survivor benefits. In other words, when a taxpayer died, the widow or widower (and any minor children) would get monthly benefits — so this lump sum payout would no longer be needed.

But as often happens with government programs, once you start paying a benefit, it’s hard to take it away. Over the years, there have been any number of proposals to eliminate the lump sum death payment. But as miserly as the benefit is, it’s a popular feature of the Social Security program. And politicians soon learned that to tamper with it meant an automatic loss in the next election. So the “temporary benefit” never went away.

But over the years, there have been some relatively minor adjustments to the original law. In 1954, they capped the benefit at $255 — and it’s remained at that level ever since. And in 1983, when Congress was looking for ways to save money in the Social Security system, they restricted the payment of the one-time death payment only to a “spouse who was living with the deceased at the time of death.”

And that’s where we are today. We have an essentially meaningless “death benefit” paid only to a widow or widower. Perhaps 50 years ago, $255 paid the cost of a funeral. Of course today, it barely covers the price of the flowers. Personally, I think the benefit should simply be eliminated. But your own email suggests why it’s so hard to get rid of a Social Security benefit. In fact, you call for an expansion of the benefit. You feel it is “discriminatory” and should be paid in all cases.

But maybe after reading my little history lesson, you and your round-table pals will have a different view? Let me know.

Q: My mom died several years ago at the age or 75, and my dad never received any widower’s benefits on her record, although he got the little pittance of a death benefit. Now my 82-year-old dad has died, and we were shocked to learn that no one is due any kind of Social Security benefit on his record. If Social Security were run like a real insurance program, my dad would have been able to name his children as beneficiaries, and we all would have benefited from his many years of forced tax payments.

Is it any wonder that so many people think of Social Security and the rest of government as nothing but a big rip-off?

A: Social Security was never meant to be, and never will be, “run like a real insurance program.” As its name implies, Social Security is a social insurance program. It was set up 75 years ago to make sure that workers had a basic income they could rely on in retirement. And Social Security also makes sure that “dependent” spouses and “minor” children would have some income in the event of the worker’s death.

The answer to the first question in this column explains why you or your siblings are not eligible for the one-time death benefit. And I can’t really imagine that you and your brothers and sisters (you all must be in your 50s and 60s, I presume) were expecting to get monthly benefits on your dad’s Social Security record.

People have always been able to buy “real insurance.” And if your dad had wanted to provide some form of income for his grown (and if you ask me, greedy) children after he died, he would have purchased life insurance and named you and your siblings as beneficiaries.

Your use of the terms “forced tax payments” and “big rip-off” when referring to Social Security makes me think you are part of the anti-government crowd. And assuming you do want smaller government, I find it puzzling that you seem to be demanding nothing but more and greater benefits from a system you want to see shrunk in size.

If you have a Social Security question, Tom Margenau has the answer. Contact him at thomas.margenau@comcast.net. To find out more about Tom Margenau and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

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