How Donald Trump Fumbled Social Security Like No Republican Before Him

Clinton Plan Popular

     From Public Policy Polling:

Do you support or oppose increasing – not

cutting – Social Security benefits by asking

millionaires and billionaires to pay more into

the system?

72%

Support increasing – not cutting - Social

Security benefits by asking millionaires and

billionaires to pay more into the system

16%

Oppose increasing – not cutting - Social

Security benefits by asking millionaires and

billionaires to pay more into the system

12% 

     Even 51% of Republicans support increasing Social Security benefits while asking the wealthy to pay more.

How Long Have You Been Suffering From This Delusion?

     Erik Sherman at Forbes Magazine believes that Hillary Clinton may be moving towards privatizing Social Security.

If You Just Can't Stomach Clinton Or Trump

     If you can't stomach either Clinton or Trump you might consider voting for the Libertarian Party candidate, Gary Johnson. However, before you do, you might take a look at some of his positions. For one, he's in favor of abolishing Social Security. Not modifying Social Security. Abolishing it.

Let Me Tell You A Story

     Let me tell you about a client. I'll change a few minor details to protect her identity but nothing that affects the account in a material way. We'll call my client Greta. Greta's mother was a German national. Her father was a U.S soldier stationed in Germany. Greta's mother didn't marry Greta's natural father. However, Greta's mother later married another U.S. soldier and moved to the United States with Greta when Greta was four. Greta hasn't been back to Germany since. She doesn't remember being there. She wonders whether a trip back to Germany would rekindle some memories. She speaks no German. She went to school in the United States. She got a Social Security card. She worked in the United States. She married and had children in the United States. She never tried to register to vote because she just wasn't interested. She never tried to get a passport because she didn't have the money to travel outside the country. There was never a problem until Greta applied for Social Security retirement benefits. At that point, it was discovered that Greta wasn't a citizen. What's more, she didn't have a green card. Although Greta came to the United States legally, she had become an illegal immigrant because the proper steps hadn't been taken to regularize her immigration status. This amazed Greta. She knew she was born in Germany but thought she had become an American citizen when she was a child. That's what should have happened. It would have been easy but her parents never did what they needed to do. While Greta has enough quarters of coverage to get Social Security retirement benefits, she can't be paid until Greta sorts out her immigration status with the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS). This will be done. INS isn't being difficult. They're sympathetic. They agree that she deserves a green card. She may even be entitled to citizenship without the normal formalities because she was brought to the United States as a child by her U.S. citizen stepfather. However, the INS is slow. Sorting this out will take well over a year.

     Donald Trump wants to throw all illegal immigrants out of the country. At the moment Greta is an illegal immigrant. Do you want to round up Greta, put her in detention and then deport her to Germany? Do you want to punish her for the negligence of her parents more than 50 years ago? Greta wasn't born in Mexico but what if she had been and had been brought to the U.S. by a stepfather who was a U.S. citizen? Would that affect how you feel about the situation?

To No One's Surprise Trump Lies About Social Security

     From the Washington Post:

The Donald Trump campaign released its first political ad of the general election, focused on immigration. It begins with a hypothetical situation of what immigration would look like under Democrat Hillary Clinton’s America. 

The narrator says: “In Hillary Clinton’s America, the system stays rigged against Americans. Syrian refugees flood in. Illegal immigrants convicted of committing crimes get to stay. Collecting Social Security benefits, skipping the line. Our border open. It’s more of the same, but worse.”  

Is the claim about undocumented immigrants collecting Social Security benefits accurate? ...

Unauthorized immigrants, who are not granted any deferred-action status, are not eligible to receive Social Security benefits or any other federal means-tested benefits. But they pay taxes and pay into the Social Security system. 

Even though the majority of unauthorized immigrants can’t collect the benefits, they paid about $12 billion into the cash flow of the Social Security program in 2010, according to the Social Security actuary. (Some undocumented immigrants could theoretically collect benefits — illegally — if they’ve overstayed their visas or falsely obtained a Social Security number.) That means the U.S. government gets far more than it pays out when it comes to unauthorized immigrants. ...

Thanks, Trump

     The Social Security field office in downtown Cleveland will be closed this week because of the Republican national convention.

Why Wouldn't Democratic Platform Endorse Expanding Social Security?

     From the Washington Post:

The Democratic National Committee added a call for a $15 minimum wage to its 2016 platform, a victory for progressives produced by a deal between supporters of Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders. Just an hour later, however, Clinton-loyal members of the platform committee defeated two amendments that would have committed the party to expanding Social Security — a moment marked by cries of "Shame!" and "Are you Democrats?" from Sanders supporters sitting in the observation area of the Hilton hotel where the party was meeting.

About Time For Democrats To Start Acting Like Democrats

     Robert Pear at the New York Times reports on how the President and Hillary Clinton came to endorse increasing Social Security benefits. Give Bernie Sanders a lot of credit.

Big GOP Donors Expect No Less

     House Republicans are already lining up in opposition to increasing Social Security benefits.

Time To Give Paul Ryan Heartburn

     President Obama says it's time in increase Social Security. Hillary Clinton has said the same. What will Donald Trump say? What will other Republicans running for office say?

Which Candidate Is More Interested In Protecting Social Security?

     From a New York Times  comparison of the effects of the Social Security plans of two Presidential candidates:

     Elements of the two plans:

• Christie would raise early retirement age from 62 to 64 and full retirement age from 67 to 69. Sanders wouldn't change either date.
• Christie would eliminate the FICA tax for those 62 and older. Sanders would apply the FICA tax to those with incomes over $250,000, in addition to the current FICA tax structure that applies FICA to incomes up to $118,500.
• Christie would reduce Social Security benefits to those with an income over $80,000 and eliminate all benefits for those with an income over $200,000. Sanders would increase benefits for all recipients, with the amount of the increase being between 2% and 9% depending upon work history. He would also add a special minimum benefit.
• Christie would reduce the Cost of Living Adjustment (COLA). Sanders would increase COLA.

Andrew Biggs Is Still Annoying -- And Wrong

     When George W. Bush campaigned for the partial privatization of Social Security, Andrew Biggs, a Social Security employee, was at his side. That rankled me. I felt it was deeply inappropriate for a Social Security employee to take on such a politicized role. Bush later nominated Biggs to become Deputy Commissioner of Social Security. Senate Democrats blocked that nomination, suggesting that I wasn't the only one rankled by what Biggs did.
     After his stint at Social Security, Biggs landed a job at the American Enterprise Institute, a Koch brothers front organization.
     Biggs has a blog at the Forbes website on which he's posted a response to the Social Security discussion at the Democratic Presidential debate Tuesday night. The ideas of expanding Social Security and lifting the cap on wages covered by FICA both came up in the debate. Biggs makes the point that lifting the FICA cap wouldn't generate enough revenues to fund an increase in Social Security benefits. This is accurate but it's also rich coming from someone who campaigned for completely undermining Social Security's finances. President Bush never released a plan for partially privatizing Social Security but he was promising to keep paying benefits to everyone already drawing benefits or near retirement age, to not increase the FICA tax and yet to divert much of the FICA tax receipts to private accounts. Put all of that together and it would cost trillions of dollars. Did Biggs and Bush ever put forward a plan for paying for this? Of course not. Republicans never have to pay for their Social Security plans. Only Democrats have to pay for their plans.

     Biggs points out that raising the FICA cap wouldn't be enough to assure that no further change would have to be made anytime in the next 75 years to protect Social Security's funding. He seems to believe that means there's no point in raising the FICA cap. Right. Lifting the FICA cap would only assure program funding until 2080 so obviously that idea is worthless. In fact, if you remove the FICA cap, you could do some modest benefit increases and still assure the future of the Trust Fund well into the future. That was what the Democratic Presidential candidates were talking about.
     I think that Biggs will have to come up with some better arguments to convince the American people that it's a bad idea to raise taxes on the wealthy in order to give higher Social Security benefits to many.

Republican Candidates On Social Security -- I'm Noticing A Wedge Issue

     Take a look at the views of the Republican Presidential candidates on Social Security:

• Jeb Bush: Increase full retirement age, possibly to 70
• Ben Carson: Wants people who don't need the money to opt out of receiving Social Security
• Chris Christie: Increase full retirement age to 69 and means-test benefits
• Ted Cruz: Partially privatize Social Security, increase full retirement age and cut cost of living adjustment 
• Carly Fiorina: Increase full retirement age 
• Jim Gilmore:  Put a cap on benefits; praised George W. Bush for proposing partial privatization of Social Security
• Lindsey Graham: Increase full retirement age to 70 and cut benefits for some recipients
• Mike Huckabee: Does not favor Social Security changes.
• Bobby Jindal: Partially privatize Social Security
• John Kasich: Partially privatize Social Security 
• George Pataki: Increase full retirement age
• Rand Paul: Increase full retirement age to 70 and means test benefits 
• Marco Rubio: Increase full retirement age by one year; also believes that benefits should "grow more slowly" 
• Rick Santorum: Privatize Social Security, increase full retirement age, means test benefits
• Donald Trump: Does not favor Social Security changes
• Scott Walker: Increase full retirement age

     Every Republican Presidental candidate other than Carson, Huckabee and Trump supports either raising full retirement age or partially privatizing Social Security. Carson may want such changes but he hasn't yet spoken on Social Security issues in any meaningful way. Encouraging people to voluntarily forego their Social Security benefits? Few people can afford to do so and far fewer would do so. I think he'll be asked specific questions about Social Security in the near future.

     What's going to happen when the Republican race starts narrowing down? If Trump remains the front runner, we can expect to see negative ads from his opponents. How does Trump respond? Social Security seems to be a wedge issue he could use to attack almost any of his Republican opponents. Raising full retirement age and partially privatizing Social Security may be popular ideas with big Republican donors but these ideas are unpopular with rank and file Republicans. The polling we have shows 62% of Republicans in favor of increasing Social Security benefits and 74% of Republicans willing to preserve Social Security even if it means raising taxes. Only 26% of Republicans favor increasing full retirement age to 70. An intra-party debate on Social Security could be devastating for Republicans.

Why Do So Many Republican Candidates For President Favor Cuts In Social Security?

     Today's opinion pieces:

• Paul Krugman at the New York Times believes most Republican candidates for President support cuts to Social Security not because these cuts are popular with the Republican base (they aren't) but because big money donors support cuts in Social Security.
• Tim Worstall at Forbes says that you don't have to be a bloated plutocrat to favor cuts in Social Security. In fact, retirement age should be raised to 80!
• Ezra Klein at Vox believes that one of the major reasons that Donald Trump is popular with Republican voters is that Trump doesn't favor cuts in Social Security.

Every Candidate Needs To Take A Stand On Social Security

     You may not have noticed or cared but Chris Christie is running for President. As a lower tier candidate, Christie feels a need to be bold. He's decided to demonstrate his boldness by campaigning on cutting Social Security by means testing benefits, cutting the cost of living adjustment and raising the retirement age. Michael Hiltzik, at the LA Times finds Christie's plan offensive. So do I, but I'm also delighted that Christie is raising these issues. It will be good to see other candidates reacting to Christie's ideas. The Republican debates in Iowa and New Hampshire should be interesting. Any plan to cut Social Security turns off about 75% of voters. The 25% who favor Social Security cuts are pretty much the Republican base.

New Condition For Raising Debt Limit: Raise Social Security Retirement Age?

     I have a hard time believing this but BuzzFeed reports that Senator Rand Paul is saying that the retirement age for Social Security should be raised and that Republicans will make this a condition for raising the debt ceiling. Paul is thought to be a candidate for President in 2016. This sounds more like a report from The Onion.