Keep Your Hands Off Social Security!
July 29, 2010
Years after George W. Bush’s failed attempts to privatize Social Security, his cohorts are renewing calls for privatization. This time they’re using deficit reduction as an excuse. Recently, House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) proposed raising the retirement age to 70.
Is this for real?
Equally disturbing is the focus of a new fiscal commission that’s supposed to recommend ways to bring down the deficit by looking at all areas of the federal budget, including taxes and military and education spending. Unfortunately, the commission seems to be concentrating more on benefit programs, like Social Security and Medicare.
No surprise there since many of the commission’s members are conservatives and deficit hawks. While these folks oppose tax increases – even for the wealthiest Americans – they apparently believe it’s fine to balance the budget on the backs of vulnerable Americans. Along with privatization, they’re looking at cutting Social Security by changing the way benefits are calculated, raising the retirement age, and reducing annual cost-of-living-adjustments.
The truth is that Social Security has a surplus of $2.6 trillion, and doesn’t add a penny to the deficit. So the program shouldn’t even be part of the debate.
The real issue is all the spending over the last decade on tax cuts for the rich, two wars, and the bank bailouts. None of it paid for. All the money borrowed. Much of it from Social Security. Now that money needs to be paid back, so workers and retirees receive the full benefits they’ve earned.
The American people want to keep Social Security strong. Polls show that eight in ten reject cutting benefits to reduce the deficit.
AFSCME agrees and we have a simple message for the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform: Don’t turn Social Security into the scapegoat for the deficit. Keep your hands off!
For more, see AFSCME Pres. Gerald W. McEntee's remarks from Thursday's news conference to launch Strengthen Social Security, a coalition of 60 groups dedicated to fighting cuts to Social Security:
