Hillary Favors MeansTesting Social Security (So, Too, Does Paul Ryan)

[amborin]

Hillary Clinton on Social Security Expansion: Words are Wind. A Cold Wind.

October 21, 2015 by Lambert Strether

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Here’s the baseline for the left on Social Security. From The Nation:

With boomers retiring without pensions or adequate savings, progressives have proposed expanding Social Security benefits ….......... Clinton, like all Democratic candidates, will promise to protect Social Security, but will she support expanding it?



Let’s start with the caveat that with Hillary Clinton, as with Bill Clinton, you’ve always got to parse the words......

snip

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton said that when it comes to fixing Social Security, “putting everything on the table is not an answer. Raising the retirement age is not an answer. Cutting benefits is not an answer.” This article incorrectly summarizes her as saying cutting benefits or raising the eligibility age were “off the table.”

(You have to read that passage a few times to see that although cutting benefits and raising the retirement age each by themselves might not be “an” answer, taken together they might be “the” answer. See how easy?)

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With that caveat, this post will focus on Clinton’s views of what Wilhelm I’s “well-grounded claim to care from the state” by elders might mean to Clinton in practice, if it does not mean Social Security expansion.

First, I’ll present Clinton’s views from her campaign site, the campaign trail, and the Democratic debate; then I’ll contrast those views to other political figures (Warren and Sanders); and finally I’ll drive some trucks through the loopholes in Clinton’s words.

Clinton’s Views on Social Security Expansion

From the Clinton campaign site:

As president, Hillary will defend against the efforts to privatize Medicare and Social Security, and will work to enhance both programs for our most vulnerable seniors.

At a New Hampshire roundtable discussion (April 20, 2015):

“Let’s just take a deep breath here as a country and say, ‘OK, we are going to have a retirement issue and people who worked hard deserve to have enough security when they retire so they can have a good quality of life.’ So I’m 100 percent committed to that,” Mrs. Clinton said.

What do words like “enough security” and “good quality of life” mean operationally? What exactly is Clinton “100 percent committed” to? If not expansion, what?

From a campaign spokesperson clarifying Clinton’s views after that roundtable (April 20, 2015):

had previously asked the Democratic presidential candidate’s campaign about her position on Social Security —whether she supported expanding it as liberal Democrats have been arguing recently or what she thought of proposals like some of the likely Republican 2016 field.

Spokesman Jesse Ferguson responded, “Hillary has a record of fighting against privatizing Social Security and opposing cuts to seniors benefits and, as she said yesterday, dealing with challenges facing older Americans is a top priority for her.”



“Opposing cuts” doesn’t mean expansion. And what on earth does “dealing with challenges facing older Americans,” a “top priority,” mean?

And from the first Democratic debate (October 13, 2015):

CLINTON: Well, I fully support Social Security. And the most important fight we’re going to have is defending it against continuing Republican efforts to privatize it.

BASH: Do you want to expand it?

CLINTON: I want to enhance the benefits for the poorest recipients of Social Security. We have a lot of women on Social Security, particularly widowed and single women who didn’t make a lot of money during their careers, and they are impoverished, and they need more help from the Social Security system.



And I will focus — I will focus on helping those people who need it the most. And of course I’m going to defend Social Security. I’m going to look for ways to try to make sure it’s solvent into the future.


Other Views on Social Security Expansion


Elizabeth Warren (2013):

Seniors have worked their entire lives and have paid into the system, but right now, more people than ever are on the edge of financial disaster once they retire — and the numbers continue to get worse.

That is why we should be talking about expanding Social Security benefits — not cutting them. Senator Harkin from Iowa, Senator Begich from Alaska, Senator Sanders from Vermont, and others have been pushing hard in that direction. Social Security is incredibly effective, it is incredibly popular, and the calls for strengthening it are growing louder every day.



Indeed. Senator Sanders from the Democratic debates (October 13, 2015):

My view is that when you have millions of seniors in this country trying to get by — and I don’t know how they do on $11,000, $12,000, $13,000 a year — you don’t cut Social Security, you expand it. And the way you expand it is by lifting the cap on taxable incomes so that you do away with the absurdity of a millionaire paying the same amount into the system as somebody making $118,000. You do that, Social Security is solvent until 2061 and you can expand benefits.



And Sanders shows what an effective defense of Social Security looks like (October 12, 2015):

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So Warren and Sanders are quite clear on expansion; Clinton, to be charitable, is not. In fact, her words are a cold wind, as we shall now see.

Issues with Clinton’s Views on Social Security

To begin, remember the words I asked you to mentally mark down? (To review: “especially for women,” “our most vulnerable”, “the poorest recipients,” “they need more help” and “those people who need it the most.”)

Think about it: They all imply that Clinton wishes to introduce Social Security benefits that are defined using eligibility requirements (“especially,” “most vulnerable,” “poorest”, “need”).

That is, Clinton proposes to convert Social Security from a universal program of social insurance to a welfare program. This is a poisoned chalice that will destroy Social Security as we know it. Social Security should not be means-tested:

Medicare and Social Security are not handouts to the needy.

They are not even intended to be a safety net. In their design, they promote the fundamental notion that dignity and good health in old age are not special privileges that can be bestowed or taken away. They are fundamental rights that every working American who has contributed productively to the economy can expect to enjoy. As James K. Galbraith told me in an email, “It’s insurance, not charity.”

Make no mistake: If means-testing on the wealthy is allowed, conservatives will keep pushing until that same means-testing is applied to the middle class, who increasingly must rely on Social Security and Medicare in times of economic uncertainty and job insecurity.

Even the Democratic think tank Campaign for America’s Future calls Social Security means-testing a Trojan Horse:

What alarmed Social Security activists is that underneath Clinton’s positive language – “fully support,” “enhance” – appears to lie support for policies, including from leading conservatives like Pete Peterson – that would actually undermine Social Security.

Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), the House Ways and Means Committee chairman who is being wooed to take over as House speaker, was broadly attacked for proposing a plan that singled out Social Security’s “poorest recipients” for protection.

Ryan proposed “progressive price indexing” that would reduce benefits for the top 70 percent of wage earners while maintaining benefits for the bottom 30 percent. When Ryan first proposed this in 2010, coupling this with a plan to divert Social Security funds into stock market accounts, the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities concluded that ‘the result would be a system in which Social Security is very unattractive to affluent people … These changes would risk undermining the broad-based support that Social Security now enjoys'”

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http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2015/10/hillary-clinton-on-social-security-expansion-words-are-wind-a-cold-wind.html

[pinebox]

1. Disgusting

[Yurovsky]

3. But certainly true to form...

I'm sure Hillary's Wall Street benefactors are of the same mind as Romney with his 47% rhetoric. She will do the bidding of the powerful. Bernie has always done the bidding of the people. She went into politics to get rich, and so she has. Bernie went into politics to serve the people, and will continue to do so. America would best be served if he were residing at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue for the next 8 years.

[senseandsensibility]

7. I was going to post that single word too

until I saw your response. So I will substitute immoral.

[nc4bo]

2. Dear citizen, just trust me. *winky-wink-wink* nt

[Hoyt]

4. Considering to expand SS for those at upper end or with significant wealth is moronic until those

on lower end are taken care of. Clinton is right in that respect. She's also right about looking at all aspects of how best to provide for the elderly and disable. When I finally stop working, SS will be most of my support -- and I'm fine with it being cut drastically as long as the figure out some way to provide housing, food, and medical/dental care.

[Faux pas]

5. Haven't these people

taken enough from the rest of us??? Yeah, let's throw everyone's SS into wall street and let them have it ALL. OMFG!!!!!!!

[silvershadow]

6. I think we should means test politicians as a way of detaining whether or not they

get paid. (by us, anyway)

[Doctor_J]

8. Four years of her and Ryan working together will wipe out what's left of the democratic

achievements of the 20th century. Remember Bill told Ryan that he would help Ryan get Medicare cuts.

[liberal_at_heart]

9. +1.

[seabeyond]

10. My Mother in Law uses her SS, for a couple years in the work force, trips to Turks and Caicos,

San Francisco, Cape Cod and many other trips for family gatherings. She saves it in a special account and then pays for all of us to hang with her awhile. Flight, food, nicest hotel rooms.

When she laughs with this set up, I can't help but be rankled for all those trying to merely survive. It kinda rubs me the wrong way. I realy cannot keep my mouth shut, trying to respectful express why these millionaires should not be continuing to get so much out of SS as they live forever, well using up the amount that was put in.

And those that need it to survive.

But then, that is probably just my corporatist self talking.

[Live and Learn]

14. Means testing is just another way to make it an 'entitlement' program so they can privatize it.

I don't begrudge your mother-in-law her happiness and neither should you.

[seabeyond]

16. If you can quietly sit there knowing there are those not making it, then that is your issue.

[Live and Learn]

18. No, Hillary and her supporters are the ones that simply don't care that others aren't making it.

You can pretend otherwise but facts are facts.

[Ash_F]

15. The problem is that the means test will be controlled by the millionaires

It will target regular people that can't even pay rent, because they don't have power.

[seabeyond]

17. No more so than the 250k line.

[Live and Learn]

19. The 250k line should be eliminated. Bernie would do so. nt

[PowerToThePeople]

11. "I’m going to look for ways to try to make sure it’s solvent into the future."

http://www.cnn.com/2016/02/05/politics/hillary-clinton-bill-clinton-paid-speeches/

The two also reported at least $7.7 million for at least 39 speeches to big banks, including Goldman Sachs and UBS, with Hillary Clinton, the Democratic 2016 front-runner, collecting at least $1.8 million for at least eight speeches to big banks.

The writing is on the wall. Privatization.

[Ash_F]

12. I am sure that won't be abused.

[bigwillq]

13. I favor Hillary Clinton moving to Mars.