Deficit Commission's Rumored Deal Would Pit Middle-Class Seniors Against the PoorRichard (RJ) Eskow - Huffington Post
Consultant, Writer, Senior Fellow with The Campaign for America's Future
Posted: September 9, 2010 12:07 PM
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If back-channel sources are correct, the Deficit Commission is finalizing a deal that would increase Social Security benefits slightly for low-income recipients while cutting them for everyone else. The Commissioners apparently believe that putting this "progressive" gloss on a package of unneeded cuts would allow them to move forward with their predetermined anti-Social Security agenda.
The new proposal would pit middle-class seniors against the elderly poor, forcing them to compete for a stripped-down pool of dollars. The end result would be the one that many Commission members have pursued for years: to cut the most stable and successful program in the Federal government's history.
Accounts of this pending deal come from the top-secret, behind-a-firewall, inside-the-Cone-of-Silence proceedings of the Commission itself, which is why they can't be officially confirmed. (Remind me again: Why are such critical issues being debated in secret, only to be presented to Congress for ratification after the November elections?) But if these reports are correct -- and there is good reason to believe they are -- some members of the Commission presumably believe this strategy would confuse and divide the many Americans who oppose Social Security cuts, while defusing the growing resistance to their actions among progressive members of Congress.
The Commissioners have clearly been stung by the nickname bloggers have given them: the "Catfood Commission." This recommendation would take the edge off that name, since they could now claim they've made sure nobody will be eating Purina Old Folks' Chow as a result of their actions. It would also give them chance to bait their opponents: Don't you care about poor people? But there are a number of problems with their proposal, and there are fairer and more cost-effective ways to help impoverished seniors. Here's what this new proposal gets wrong.
They're misreading the public: First, progressives aren't the only ones opposed to cutting Social Security. Recent polling by the Celinda Lake organization showed that seven out of ten voters opposed cutting benefits for people earning over $30,000 in order to reduce the deficit. 76% of independents oppose cutting Social Security to reduce the deficit, as do 77% of Republicans -- and 76% of Tea Party supporters! Putting an antipoverty gloss on overall cuts won't impress these voters. Nuanced arguments -- "we're cutting the program to save it" or "we're not reducing the deficit, we're stabilizing the program" -- will be lost on angry voters with finely-tune BS detectors who have contributed to the program for years.
It's a broken promise: This policy would violate a compact the United States government made to generations of its citizens: Pay into the system and you'll receive what's been promised in the end. Social Security is a self-funded system that provides some income security during old age or disability. Using employee and employer contributions to reduce poverty would be a redirection of the money that working Americans and their employers paid to help them when they're disabled or retired. If the Commissioners have a new antipoverty mission, there are better ways to pay for that.
There aren't enough "rich" beneficiaries: The Commissioners will no doubt make the argument that Warren Buffett and others in his income shouldn't receive the same benefit income as somebody who's struggling to make ends meet. But there aren't enough Warren Buffetts in the system to make a difference. Since Social Security benefits are capped at a relatively low level, Warren Buffett isn't likely to receive any more in benefits than someone who earned less than $100,000 per year.
If benefits are going to be tied to overall income and wealth in the future, cuts will have to reach deep into the middle-class in order to make any real difference -- especially if there's a slight benefit increase at the low end. The number of Social Security recipients who are still impoverished (from 2000-2002 data) is 1. million, or 8.7% of the elderly. Since Social Security currently keeps 13 million seniors out of poverty, that leaves a lot of stable or increased benefits that would have to be offset by by reducing benefits for middle-class recipients in order to cut overall costs.
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