this post was submitted on 31 Jan 2024
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United States | News & Politics

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Mitch McConnell and his fellow Republicans have a problem. They hate Social Security, because it is popular, effective, and doesn’t make any money for their billionaire donors. But their voters love Social Security. Ninety-four percent of Republicans oppose benefit cuts.

McConnell understands the political dangers of being openly hostile to Social Security. So instead, he is plotting to sabotage it from within. The latest instrument of that sabotage is Andrew Biggs, a senior fellow at the billionaire-funded American Enterprise Institute. Biggs is McConnell’s pick to serve on the Social Security Advisory Board (SSAB), which “provides advice and recommendations to the President, Congress, and the Commissioner of Social Security on matters related to the Social Security and Supplemental Security Income programs and policies.”

Biggs supports raising the retirement age, and has testified before Congress that people should work longer. In his words:

Go back to 1950, when we had a highly industrialized economy. You had coal miners, and farmers, and factory workers. The average age of initial Social Security claiming then was 68. Today, when your biggest on the job risk is, you know, carpal tunnel syndrome from your mouse or something like that, it’s 63... [T]he idea that we can’t have a higher retirement age, I think it just flies in the face of the fact that people did, in fact, retire later in the past, and today’s jobs are less physically demanding than they were in the past.

Nurses, firefighters, auto workers, and so many others would be surprised to hear that their jobs aren’t physically demanding! Biggs seems to think everyone has a cushy, billionaire-funded desk job like his, and would be happy to work until they die.

Biggs also wants to turn Social Security from an earned benefit into a poverty-level flat benefit. That means huge cuts for middle class workers who’ve been paying into the program their entire lives. It would destroy Social Security’s political popularity by turning it into a welfare program—a sitting duck for Republicans to make even larger cuts.

What Biggs doesn’t want is for his billionaire donors to pay their fair share into Social Security. He doesn’t want the American people to know that if billionaires pay into Social Security all year long on all of their income, not only can we protect Social Security—we can expand benefits.

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[–] [email protected] 47 points 6 months ago (1 children)

I think we need cut billionaires, not social security. It's obvious that they are nothing but drains on everything and everyone.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 6 months ago (1 children)

cut billionaires

My friends Shanky McKnifey and Gill O'Teen agree!

[–] [email protected] 8 points 6 months ago

And what does Fez DeWall thinks about this?

[–] [email protected] 14 points 6 months ago

Bitch McConnel needs to go crawl into his shell and never come back.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 6 months ago

He won't even be alive to see the result. What the fuck is wrong with him?

[–] [email protected] 6 points 6 months ago (1 children)

I like Social Security except for my Boomer, MAGA parent. They should definitely have their payments stopped immediately.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 6 months ago

I hope my parents have to pull themselves up by the bootstraps in their old age.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 6 months ago (1 children)

According to https://www.ssab.gov/board-members/ , Biggs was nominated by Biden, whose name does not appear in the article at all.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 months ago

Good catch. Bad on Biden. Many would argue that "Mitch McConnell and his fellow Republicans" includes Biden of course.

[–] sugar_in_your_tea 1 points 6 months ago (1 children)

I'm interested in replacing Social Security with an income-based basic income that applies regardless of age and amount you've paid into it. So you'd only get because if you're below some taxable income. The cutoff should be low enough to encourage personal savings, but high enough to be an effective safety net for those who have not or could not save.

To do this, we:

  1. eliminate the income gap
  2. phase out the old system for older workers
  3. roll out the new system for younger people
  4. change tax law to consider all company offered stock options as taxable income beyond some reasonable level (say, $50k/year)

I think it's incredibly dumb how complex Social Security is.

[–] gravitas_deficiency 1 points 6 months ago (1 children)

That’s the thing: UBI must be truly universal - as in, given to everyone, regardless of income. Sure, that introduces some inefficiency, but it’s the only real way to actually “level the playing field”.

[–] Corkyskog 2 points 6 months ago (1 children)

If we are comparing it to any other social program paying to everyone is actually an efficiency, rather than staffing an entire department to manage means testing.

[–] gravitas_deficiency 1 points 6 months ago

That’s an excellent and salient point. Incidentally, switching our healthcare system to single-payor would yield very similar efficiency benefits for healthcare.