President Obama said Social Security is not in crisis and only modest changes are needed to keep it solvent.
The president acknowledged at a small town hall gathering in Columbus, Ohio, Wednesday that the pension fund "has to be tweaked because the population is getting older" but said Republicans' plans to drastically overhaul the program are wrong. ...
"I have been adamant that Social Security should not be privatized, and it will not be privatized as long as I am president," he added.
The President's assurance that raising the SS retirement age is just a little "tweak" fails to persuade me that he knows anything much about the program. Mr. Bernanke has said that "Social Security is where the money is." Not reassuring. At all. I think in this one, this administration is no friend of the Social Insurance system in this country. Nancy Ortiz
ReplyDeleteClearly, Mr. Hall is showing his colors by saying that Obama would only raise the age limit to 69, while the Republicans would push for 70. Tut, tut, tut.
ReplyDeleteSorry I couldn't help myself :D
He didn't suggest moving the FRA to 69, at least not in the the linked Hill article. So where'd you come up with that, Charlie? Shame.
ReplyDeleteUnder current law, it will not be until 2022 before the first people with a retirement age of 67, under current law, will reach age 62.
ReplyDeleteAn increase of that retirement age by one month per year, for the following 36 years, to age 70, or some other phase in period, as was done with the rise to 67,is what I believe is being proposed. This would mean that the first person that has to be 70 to collect full retirement benefits was born in 1996 and would turn 70 in 2066.
This would not be all that onerous, particularly when you remember that disability benefits would still be available and it would not be all that hard to establish disability for anyone doing significant physical labor who is over age 67.
We don't need a tweek.
ReplyDeleteA#2, are you suggesting we don't need to worry about those people getting ripped off in 2066? I am more concerned with the cumulative lost retirement income to a large portion of the population. This is will directly affect the amount of money circulating in local economies across the country. Not good. The "austerians" are apparently happily planning to impoverish the general population while maintaining their own lifestyles as they are. There's a great deal more to this than those who think "greedy geezers" are getting off easy on SS retirement benefits. We don't need to fix something that ain't broke as A#3 said. Let's stick with that. Nancy Ortiz
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