FFS... the PURPOSE of ENTITLEMENT REFORM is to REDUCE benefits

[Jim Lane]

93. Social Security and Medicare are politically stronger because they benefit everyone.

Take a look at your list of means-tested programs. Do you notice something else they have in common? They were all subject to Republican attack within the past year.

By contrast, the Republicans have been very cautious about trying to cut Social Security and Medicare. They want the cuts, of course, but they want the cuts to be blamed on the Democrats. Note that, during the 2012 campaign, the Republicans even devoted a lot of emphasis to the phony charge that the ACA was cutting Medicare.

I personally favor a kind of backdoor means testing. For example: Abolish the FICA cap; provide Social Security benefits to high-income earners on a basis comparable to that now used, whereby people who pay in more get back more; re-institute a steeply progressive personal income tax and abolish or curtail the exemption for Social Security benefits. The result would be that some retired CEO's would be getting monthly Social Security checks in the five figures, which taken in isolation could be seen as a waste of money, but it would be recaptured through their taxes. Meanwhile, Social Security would continue to avoid the stigma of being a "welfare" program that only benefits poor people.

There are scores of millions of middle-class people who sat idly by when the Republicans attacked SNAP but who would take to the streets if the Republicans tried anything similar with regard to Social Security. The difference is means testing.