The Debt Commission, led by Republican Alan Simpson, is making recommendations to CUT & DELAY Social Security and Medicare, leaving our Seniors to EAT CAT FOOD!The formation of the Debt Commission (some media outlets are calling it "President Obama's Debt Commission" or "The White House Debt Commission") was originally a Congressionally proposed recommendation for a Commission to be formed to create bipartisan legislation requiring a Congressional vote on its recommendations as presented, without any amendments. In January of 2010, that bill failed in the Senate by a vote of 53-46, when six Republicans who had co-sponsored it nevertheless voted against it. Thereafter, President Obama established the Commission by executive order 13531. Republican Senator Alan Simpson was appointed as co-chair of this bi-partisan Commission.
Republican Simpson, initially supported by both Republican and Democrats as co-chair, has created a number of media frenzies with his blatant and radical outbursts. Back in August, Simpson sent an email to the executive director of the National Older Women’s League in which he described Social Security as being an entitlement program “like a cow with 310 million tits." (WOW!)
Now, Simpson, as co-chair of the Debt Commission, has foregone the support of the members on his committee and has blatantly come out and presented his so-called "committee recommendations" even though the members of the committee DO NOT AGREE WITH IT!
And now Simpson has sparked a political firestorm Wednesday with the early release of his recommendations...a report proposing sweeping changes to Social Security, Medicare and the tax code. Simpson’s plan would increase the Social Security retirement age and limit yearly cost-of-living increases to the rate of inflation rather than of wage growth. The cut in annual increases would affect current retirees! This was supposed to be off the table for the Commission. This means Seniors benefits would go down by about 3 percent after they’ve been retired for 10 years, and about 6 percent after they’ve been retired for 20 years. (Unbelievable!!)
And the retirement age increase is just a particularly cruel way of cutting benefits. The age at which the elderly can retire on full Social Security benefits is already increasing to 67 by 2027. Simpson’s plan would “index” the retirement age to increase in longevity, meaning it would hit 68 in about 2050 and 69 in about 2075.
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) had this to say about it: “It is reprehensible to ask working people, including many who do physically-demanding labor, to work until they are 69 years of age. It also is totally impractical. As they compete for jobs with 25-year-olds, many older workers will go unemployed and have virtually no income. Frankly, there will not be too much demand within the construction industry for 69-year-old bricklayers.”
New York Times opinion columnist Paul Krugman also pointed out that “the people who really depend on Social Security, those in the bottom half of the distribution, aren’t living much longer. So you’re going to tell janitors to work until they’re 70 because lawyers are living longer than ever.”
At the end of the day, only Republicans/Tea Partiers will support these recommendations. After all, anyone who supports irrational tax cuts for the rich will have no qualms about asking the Elderly in our country to be forced to eat CAT FOOD!
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