Social Security

This year’s Presidential elections will decide whether Social Security is attacked or strengthened. Every Republican Presidential candidate wants to weaken this successful government program. President Barack Obama would veto any of those efforts.

Butler’s own Rick Santorum (Santorum attended Butler high school and played shortstop for Bill Smith’s little league team) has authored the worst plan. Rick would lower selective Social Security benefits immediately, raise age requirements, reduce inflation increases and give young people the ability to opt out of Social Security. Rick Santorum’s plan would kill Social Security the most swiftly. Romney’s approach is the least noxious and would protect benefits for people over the age of 55 but, for those who are younger and may be counting on Social Security they would face higher retirement ages and reduced benefits. That is the most current Romney plan and it will probably change several times before November. Romney’s plan as presented is slow death for Social Security.

Democratic President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, a Democratic Congress and a Democratic Senate introduced and passed the original Social Security Act 77 years ago. Democrats have been protecting Social Security for all of those years.

The Social Security Administration is solvent and is currently providing benefits to 10’s of millions of Americans. Over the course of the next two decades it will need to be tweaked to ensure perpetuity. Those adjustments if they come from the Democrats will strengthen Social Security instead of destroying it as all of the Republican plans would eventually do.

A more progressive plan would be to lower the retirement age to 63 and eliminate the income cap on payroll deductions. Both of these elements were part of a plan presented to the Butler County Democratic Party over a year ago.

Why should most Americans pay FICA taxes on every dollar they ever earn while those earning the most only pay on the first $106,800 of income? Obama suggested eliminating the cap during his primary campaign and at that time it would have raised $130 Billion per year (FactCheck.org, Barack Obama on Social Security, November 15, 2007) $130 Billion is more than enough to offset any costs associated with lowering the retirement age. These new benefits would go into the pockets of consumers who are likely to spend those dollars and revitalize the economy.

Several Republicans would like to see higher retirement ages. As the Social Security age requirements are increased so are the number of people who qualify for disability before reaching the higher age threshold. Social Security will actually pay more to those individuals as disability benefits tend to be higher than retirement benefits. Social Security is for all Americans and as the age requirements are raised benefits may be out of reach to the majority of some racial or ethnic groups.

If the country adopted this progressive, Democratic plan people who are presently in limbo would be able to take control of their situations. Many people would retire opening their jobs to someone looking for employment and those qualifying for benefits early would be more secure. Life would be more enjoyable and the quality of life would improve. That was and is the purpose of the Social Security; to offer security to people as they grow older.