Strengthen Social Security

Here's something else for the President to consider while he's drafting the Social Security portion of his State of the Union message: Yet another poll demonstrates the public's strong support for Social Security, and its strong opposition to benefit cuts. But this one has a new twist: It shows that, by overwhelming margins, Americans would rather cut military spending than reduce Social Security benefits.

That's true of Republicans and independents as well as Democrats, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News poll. According to the poll's summary statistics, when asked whether they would rather cut Social Security, Medicare, or military spending, 55% chose the military. Only 13% chose Social Security, and Medicare, and 21% chose Medicare. Military cuts were preferred by a clear majority of independents and overall voters (55%), and by a plurality of Republicans (42%). more »

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Social Security Works has assembled a set of slides that illustrate the Democratic Party's striking decline in voter opinion on the issue of Social Security. They're all worth seeing, but one of them especially demands attention:

When asked whether they trust the President or his opponents in Congress more on the issue of Social Security, people have less trust in Barack Obama than they did in George W. Bush when he had Obama's job. And the question was asked about Bush in 2005, at a time when his unpopular campaign to privatize Social Security was reaching its crescendo. more »

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The latest Democracy Corps/Campaign For America's Future poll on jobs and the economy has a clear message for the President and his party: Stand up for jobs, and protect Social Security and Medicare. The results couldn't be clearer. Yet it's still rumored that the President's State of the Union will emphasize deficit reduction over job creation, and the White House has refused to assure worried Democrats that the President won't also propose cuts to Social Security.

How many polls will it take to convince the White House that this is political suicide? How many expert analyses will it take to persuade them that its premature to make deficits the priority when the country desperately needs jobs and economic growth?

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In an open letter to the President this week, Sen. Bernie Sanders mentioned "worriesome reports" that the President is planning to cut Social Security. These reports don't come out of the blue. They're the culmination of a months-long campaign. The White House has been privately signalling for months that it was leaning in that direction, and now the sky over Washington is darkening with trial balloons floating up from Pennsylvania Avenue.

Before you make such a disastrous and unwarranted move, Mr. President, there's someone I think you should meet. Actually, you may have run into him before: He's a skinny guy with an keen analytical mind and a gift for brilliant oratory. Sound familiar? He ran for President last time around, and he had some very sensible things to say about Social Security: more »

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Mr. President, you moved a nation today with your words in Tucson. "Rather than pointing fingers or assigning blame," you said, "let us use this occasion to expand our moral imaginations, to listen to each other more carefully, to sharpen our instincts for empathy, and remind ourselves of all the ways our hopes and dreams are bound together."

You also said this: "It's important for us to pause for a moment and make sure that we are talking with each other in a way that heals, not a way that wounds."

Two weeks from now the State of the Union address will be an opportunity to bring Americans together - Americans who have been bitterly divided by party loyalty and ideology, but who stand united in their support for the social programs that have improved our lives for the past seventy-five years. On that night, will they know that somebody has heard them? Will they feel that someone is talking to them? Will they feel they have a voice inside the Capitol rotunda, in a city where they sometimes seem to have been forgotten? more »

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I appeared last week on the Bill Meyer Show, a talk radio program in Medford, OR.  It was a very useful debate, since Bill (and one or two callers) used all the standard talking points for cutting Social Security:  it's bankrupt, it's only IOUs, there are too many baby boomers, the worker-to-retiree ratio is disastrous, it's a Ponzi scheme, etc. etc.

That was opportunity to rebut all of these points, so it went really well.  It got a little heated, too, which makes for better listening. (But it was always civil and respectful!)  So if you have a few minutes and want to prepare for your next holiday argument with your right-wing uncle, have a listen:

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As I have previously warned--and I hope I'm wrong--President Obama seems on the verge of needlessly cutting America's most valued social program and the one that best differentiates Republicans from Democrats. more »

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[Note: The following column was rejected by The Washington Post after two of its regular columnists had done similar op-eds calling for President Obama to cut Social Security and Medicare. There was a time when op-ed pages were used by newspapers (at least those committed to democratic debate) to get some diversity of opinion into their pages. more »

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Polls consistently find that the vast majority of Americans oppose cutting Social Security, whether they're progressives or Tea Partiers or anything in between. And most real experts agree it's not necessary. We're supposed to have a government "of the people, by the people, and for the people." So why does something most of us oppose look more likely with every passing day?

Republicans have been threatening to shut down the government unless the program is slashed, and the Administration's been sending out benefit reduction trial balloons ever since the Deficit Commission came to its ignominious end. Since Tea Partiers and progressives both oppose cutting Social Security, why shouldn't they work together to make sure it doesn't happen? Left and right joined forces to audit the Federal Reserve. Why can't they unite to protect America's retirement security? That's why I've written this letter. more »

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Historians of the future will look back on this year as a turning point in the drive to dismantle a popular, self-funded program by convincing people that it's a "big government" initiative that "costs too much." Ours will be remembered as a time when superstition ruled the land, just as it did in ancient Europe - except that today we make sacrifices on the altar of tax magic, not black magic.

Whenever that day arrives, Robert J. Samuelson's latest Washington Post editorial will be a useful artifact for students of this demon-haunted time. more »

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