Even though she admits that the now defunct deficit commission acknowledged that "reforming" Social Security didn't have anything to do with taking care of our country's debt, CNN's Candy Crowley does her best job of carrying water for its former commissioners Simpson and Bowles. How pitiful is it when even a deficit hawk like Kent Conrad is sounding like the rational one here?
That commission went nowhere but the media continually pretends it reached the required consensus for their recommendations to be voted on. It didn't. And of course when talking about "reforming" Social Security, you know that's code for either raising the retirement age or means testing it, which turns it into a welfare program. Americans shouldn't be expected to work until they're dead before they can go on and retire.
They need to raise the income cap or for that matter get rid of it. How early could they afford to allow Americans to retire if they lowered the percentage for everyone, and took the cap off completely? I'm tired of hearing them pretend that we can't afford to take care of our senior citizens and that they think all of us should be working until we're on the job in walkers because our politicians refuse to ask those that can afford it to pay more in taxes. People who do physical labor for a living cannot be expected work until they're 70 years old and should not be expected to just because some of those that don't are living longer.
CROWLEY: But now we find that even though the debt commission which you signed onto said, OK, and we are going to deal with Social Security and everyone says, oh, that's not part of the debt, that's not what's causing all of this. OK, that having been said, the debt commission said, deal with Social Security at the same time. Do you still believe that? Because the White House doesn't seem to believe it and you have got some fairly powerful Democrats that don't. Do you?
CONRAD: Look, I signed on to the fiscal commission report that reduced the debt $4 trillion over the next 10 years. Four trillion, trillion with a T. Not talking $100 billion, $4 trillion. That's what's needed.
But we did separate Social Security. We didn't use any of the savings from Social Security for deficit reduction.
CROWLEY: Should you reform Social Security as a part of this overall negotiation that you want to do for a 10-year plan?
CONRAD: Certainly Social Security needs to be reformed. I personally think it's best to separate the two, as we did in the commission. In the commission, we used the savings on Social Security to extend the solvency of Social Security, not for deficit reduction.
