I do not understand! I thought the only way to fix Social Security was to slash it to ribbons and make old people live in cardboard boxes and eat cat food? I am very confused, thanks to commie instigators Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders! Why, even Rick Scott is backing off on his five-year plan! You don't suppose they were lying all along? Via Talking Points Memo:
Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Bernie Sanders (I-VT) introduced their bill this week to extend the program’s solvency “effectively until the end of this century,” as Warren put it to TPM.
The bill would expand benefits by $2,400 a year, and would be offset by raising the payroll tax cap. Currently, only income up to $160,000 is taxed; the senators’ bill would tax income over $250,000.
They introduced similar legislation last summer, and are now angling to bring tax increases to the forefront of the conversation while the White House wallops Republicans for their plans to cut the programs.
“When you have a situation where somebody who makes $100 million a year contributes the same amount into the Social Security trust as somebody making $160,000, obviously, an essential part of the solution is to lift that cap,” Sanders told TPM. “No one thinks that that’s fair.”
Turns out it was always expected that Congress would have to tweak the popular social program:
“When the Social Security system was established back in the 1930s, we understood as a nation that we would need to make adjustments all along. People would live longer, women would work, different occupations would be covered,” she told TPM. “Between the 1930s and the late 1980s, there were adjustments made dozens of times — small adjustments, no big cliffs, but it kept the program solvent and serving the people who needed it.”
“Then, in the late ‘80s, the Republicans put a stop to that. And so the system began to get a little more economically unstable and a little more economically unstable and a little more economically unstable,” she added. “Now we’re at a place where we need to make a significant change in the revenues, as well as the payouts.”
I can't imagine why Republicans were convinced this crusade to slash the safety net was a winner, but I'd say no matter what they say now, they're pretty firmly linked to the eventual destruction of Social Security.
