Melissa Harris Perry Just Said: "It's Reasonable To Raise the Retirement Age"

[ProSense]

39. This is nonsense

The media and "fact checkers" seem to have missed it, but President Obama implicitly called for cutting Social Security by 3 percent and phasing in an increase in the normal retirement age to 69 when he again endorsed the deficit reduction plan put forward by Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson, the co-chairs of his deficit commission.

President Obama didn't endorse Bowles-Simpson. The proposal was policy soup. There are things in it, like increasing the cap, that appeal to some, but the overall proposal was voted down because there was a lot wrong in it.

Here is the President's actual position:

President Obama: ‘Medicare and Social Security Are Not Handouts’

Speaking by sattelite at the AARP's annual conference on Friday, President Obama took a subtle jab at Mitt Romney's claim that 47 percent of Americans were "victims" who saw themselves as "entitled" to food, housing, and health care, among other things.

"There's been a lot of talk about Medicare and Social Security in this campaign, as there should be," Obama said. "And these are bedrock commitments that Americas makes to its seniors, and I consider those commitments unshakable. But, given the conversations that have been out there in the political arena lately, I want to emphasize, Medicare and Social Security are not handouts. You've paid into these programs your whole lives. You've earned them."

Obama suggested that Social Security's finances could be "put on more stable footing" in part by raising the cap on taxable income. He dismissed as flatly "not true attacks from Romney on $716 billion in Medicare savings included in the Affordable Care Act (and Paul Ryan's budgets), saying that it "strengthened" the program.

http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entry/president-obama-medicare-social-security-are-not-handouts

From the President's DNC speech:

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Now, I’m still eager to reach an agreement based on the principles of my bipartisan debt commission. No party has a monopoly on wisdom. No democracy works without compromise. I want to get this done, and we can get it done. But when Governor Romney and his friends in Congress tell us we can somehow lower our deficits by spending trillions more on new tax breaks for the wealthy, well, what did Bill Clinton call it -- you do the arithmetic. (Applause.) You do the math. (Applause.)

I refuse to go along with that and as long as I’m President, I never will. (Applause.) I refuse to ask middle-class families to give up their deductions for owning a home or raising their kids just to pay for another millionaire’s tax cut. (Applause.)

I refuse to ask students to pay more for college, or kick children out of Head Start programs, or eliminate health insurance for millions of Americans who are poor and elderly or disabled -- all so those with the most can pay less. I’m not going along with that. (Applause.)

And I will never -- I will never -- turn Medicare into a voucher. (Applause.) No American should ever have to spend their golden years at the mercy of insurance companies. They should retire with the care and the dignity that they have earned. Yes, we will reform and strengthen Medicare for the long haul, but we’ll do it by reducing the cost of health care -- not by asking seniors to pay thousands of dollars more. (Applause.)

And we will keep the promise of Social Security by taking the responsible steps to strengthen it, not by turning it over to Wall Street. (Applause.)

http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2012/09/07/remarks-president-democratic-national-convention

How President Obama and Mitt Romney compare on preserving Social Security for America’s seniors

October 5, 2012

In the first debate, Mitt Romney sacrificed the facts in order to mislead and confuse voters about where he stands on important issues to the middle class. On one issue—Social Security—it’s worth clarifying where President Obama and Governor Romney agree and where they disagree. Both President Obama and Mitt Romney know that the program is solvent for more than two decades and that there’s a need for gradual reforms to the benefits that millions of seniors have worked for, paid for, and earned. But that’s where their agreement ends.

While President Obama is committed to keeping the promise of guaranteed Social Security benefits for current and future generations, Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan have supported plans to privatize the program, and have put forward a plan that would slash benefits for current workers. Here are the key differences between the President’s and Romney-Ryan’s approach to Social Security:

Obama-Biden

The President knows that guaranteed Social Security benefits are not handouts, but a bedrock of the commitment to retirement security America makes to our seniors. He believes that no current beneficiaries should see their basic benefits reduced, and he will not accept any approach that slashes benefits for future generations. President Obama stands firmly opposed to privatizing Social Security—the future security of hard-working Americans should not be dependent on the fluctuations of the stock market. That is why the President has called on Congress to develop a bipartisan plan that follows these principles:

• Any reform should strengthen Social Security for future generations and restore long-term solvency.
  
  
• The administration will oppose any measures that privatize or weaken the Social Security system.
  
  
• While all measures to strengthen solvency should be on the table, the administration will not accept an approach that slashes benefits for future generations.
  
  
• No current beneficiaries should see their basic benefits reduced.
  
  
• Reforms should strengthen retirement security for the most vulnerable, including low-income seniors.
  
  
• Reform should maintain robust disability and survivors’ benefits.

Romney-Ryan

Mitt Romney is taking a starkly different approach to Social Security—he refuses to ask the wealthy to pay their fair share, and is proposing to close Social Security shortfalls through benefit cuts alone. As Nobel Prize-winning economist Peter Diamond and former OMB director Peter Orszag noted, his plan insists that any reform prohibit additional revenue, and thus relies on “excessive benefit cuts that would undermine financial security for future retirees.” Analysis of a similar plan showed that typical workers in their forties would lose $2,400 a year, and workers in their twenties would lose $4,700 a year in future benefits. Romney’s running mate Paul Ryan was even the architect of a privatization plan that would have left seniors’ benefits devastated by the 2008 financial crisis.

The choice is clear: President Obama will never privatize Social Security or undermine retirement security for middle-class Americans. The same cannot be said for Romney.

http://www.barackobama.com/truth-team/entry/how-president-obama-and-mitt-romney-compare-on-preserving-social-security-f