A top adviser to President Barack Obama on Friday slammed a House Republican maneuver aimed at forcing a showdown on Social Security as early as next year, signaling that it won’t fly with the White House.
via Talking Points Memo.
Cutting Social Security Disability Threatens Millions of American Families.
Americans Push Back as Threat to Social Security & Medicare Grows.
The Democrats’ legislation, introduced this week by Rep. John Larson (D-Conn.), would expand benefits by giving retirees and disabled workers larger annual cost-of-living increases, and would improve the program’s finances through higher taxes.
Seniors need to pay careful attention to this next fact: if the GOP isn’t stopped from repealing healthcare reform, Medicare beneficiaries would immediately lose billions in prescription drug savings, wellness visits and preventative services with no out-of-pocket costs, and years of solvency will be lost to the Medicare program.
via NCPSSM.
The House GOP’s budget is another attempt to pay down the deficit while targeting seniors, the disabled, & middle-class families during which billionaires and corporations enjoy their tax breaks & loopholes.
One of the first things this new Congress did when it opened for business last month was to attack Social Security Disability. I’m going to talk about why, and about why the program is stressed, further down. For now, it’s really important to keep one fact in mind: The vast majority of people who receive disability payments are people like my dad.
via the Daily Beast.
Social Security Targeted on Day One of New Congress.
NCPSSM Testifies at Hearing on Social Security Disability Program.
Now is not the time to weaken the Disability Insurance program, but rather we should be strengthening it.
Again, Americans pay taxes to one Social Security system with the understanding their money provides disability, retirement and survivor benefits – all of them – so changing that allocation formula temporarily avoids any shortfall.
The average annual benefit of $13,980 for a disabled worker is just $2,000 above the federal poverty line.
Don’t let Congress cut Social Security benefits for millions of people with disabilities by pitting retirees against the disabled.
Conservatives don’t want average Americans to see the truth – our economic policies have shifted the nation’s wealth to the wealthy and away from everyone else.
via Entitled to Know.
ICYMI:
The White House has weighed in publicly for the first time on a House Republican move that could precipitate a fight over Social Security in the next two years.
The House voted last week to block a routine transfer of tax revenue between Social Security’s retirement and disability funds; the latter is projected to start being unable to pay full benefits in late 2016, sparking a crisis that advocates warn the GOP could use as leverage to push changes to the program. The rule says a transfer, which had been done 11 times previously under Democratic and Republican administrations, can be done only if there are cost-saving measures attached to it.
via Talking Points Memo.
Related Reading:
White House Rejects Social Security Shenanigans in the GOP-led House
We’ve written before about the GOP strategy to force broad Social Security benefit cuts while simultaneously demonizing America’s disabled. Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH) raised the alarm about attempts to politicize what has always been a routine and non-partisan legislative solution to balance the Social Security Trust Funds:
“Reallocation has never been controversial, but detractors working to privatize Social Security will do anything to manufacture a crisis out of a routine administrative function. Modest reallocation of payroll taxes would ensure solvency of both trust funds until 2033. But if House Republicans block reallocation, insurance for disabled Americans, veterans, and children could face severe cuts once the trust fund is exhausted in 2016.”
