Trump Supports Cutting Social Security From A ‘Moral Standpoint:’ Report

[riversedge]

Source: huff post




Trump Supports Cutting Social Security From A ‘Moral Standpoint:’ Report
The presumptive GOP presidential nominee has been saying the opposite on the campaign trail.


05/28/2016 02:59 pm ET


Daniel Marans


Donald Trump supposedly told House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) he supports cutting Social Security but will not admit it publicly because it would hurt his election chances, according to a report in Bloomberg BusinessWeek.

The presumptive Republican presidential nominee reportedly made the comments during a May 12 meeting with Ryan aimed at mending ties between the two top Republican leaders, Bloomberg reported, citing an unnamed source who was in the room. (Ryan has yet to endorse Trump.)

“From a moral standpoint, I believe in it,” Trump said of cutting Social Security. “But you also have to get elected. And there’s no way a Republican is going to beat a Democrat when the Republican is saying, ‘We’re going to cut your Social Security’ and the Democrat is saying, ‘We’re going to keep it and give you more.’?”

He openly says he will lie to the people about it because he knows that the people are against it. Alex Lawson, Social Security Works

Read more: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/donald-trump-supports-cutting-social-security-report-says_us_5749db63e4b0dacf7ad515e4

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It is up to all of us to get the word out about this important issue.

[Midnight Writer]

1. WHAT!! A Republican Billionaire wanting to cut Social Security?? No way!!

[AntiBank]

31. unfortunately that was a misquote, the entire article has been changed to say he opposes cuts

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/donald-trump-supports-cutting-social-security-report-says_us_5749db63e4b0dacf7ad515e4

Trump Opposes Cutting Social Security From A ‘Moral Standpoint’: Report (CORRECTED)
The presumptive Republican nominee stuck to his public position during a private meeting with Paul Ryan

[hollowdweller]

36. So if Trump really is against SS cuts then we have truly made a big gain as democrats

That means that SS has become so accepted that even the GOP has to vow to protect it.

I mean not long ago Obama was nearly conned into cutting it some.

Bottom line is we need a "Social Security PLUS" where people can pay more into it and get a higher payout or take it way earlier if needed.

[Midnight Writer]

2. Honestly, the ONLY thing Trump has said that I liked was NO CUTS TO SOCIAL SECURITY OR MEDICARE.

Now I can dislike his lying, bullying, rich kid, entitled, racist, sexist, cowardly, ignorant hypocritical ass for every single thing.

[spiderpig]

3. If eligible US voters allow this conman to get within shouting distance

of stealing the election, the country will get what it deserves.

And we know who will pay the price.

[DonCoquixote]

4. Hillary needs to get this on the megaphone

And to hell with her friends if they get mad at her and say "Hillary, we were kinda hoping you would cut social security when you got in." If Pete Peterson and Erskine Bowles whine, run them down with a steamroller!

[Baobab]

6. GATS and TiSA likely will privatize it too.

sorry.

[ReRe]

14. Hear! Hear!

And I volunteer to drive the steamroller.

[SheilaT]

5. Oh, jeez.

I'm actually the sort of person who is the model SS recipient, in that Social Security is one third of my income. Way back when we first got SS, it was intended to be one leg of a three-legged stool. The other two were to be a pension and personal savings.

But for some large percentage of retirees, SS is at least half and in many cases all of their income. No point in judging those for not saving or not taking a job with a good pension. The reality is that SS is crucial to the vast number of older people.

Were SS to be taken away from me, I wouldn't exactly be in poverty, but I'd probably need to go back to work to make up the shortfall. And again, I'm a lot better off than many.

[cstanleytech]

7. Your very lucky then alot of people though over the years have watched as companies literally cut

those other two legs out from under them with things like lower wages making it impossible to save anything and then the favorite one of screwing them on their pensions.

[SheilaT]

10. Oh, don't I know it. My pension, from a job I worked at from 1969 through 1979, has been cut

by two thirds. I'm lucky in that I always assumed that pension would be quite trivial. But not so long ago I took a look at mailings from the pension plan administrators, before my benefit was cut, and I was astonished at how much it should have been. Which would still be noticeably less than that one third of the three legged stool. At least I did not ever expect that the pension from that company. would be significant income in my retirement. But others with that company, those who worked there for thirty or forty years, who'd come to expect their pension would be one of those third legs of retirement, boy were they disabused. This was a major airline which got to declare bankruptcy (more than once I think) and so bail out from the pension plan. It seems that over the years they somehow didn't bother to put in the moneys they should have. Thank whatever you might believe in for the Pension Benefit Guarantee Corporation, or I and my former co-workers wouldn't even be getting that one third.

I recall reading back in the 1970's that various local governments weren't properly funding their pension plans. And wouldn't you know, there's a lot of noise these days about various local, municipal, or state government pensions. Seems those employees are expecting entirely too much, and we need to cut those pensions drastically. The fact that they weren't funded properly in the first place somehow never comes up.

Perhaps more to the point, to get back to my specific situation: I worked at one company for just over ten years. Then I got married and stayed home for twenty five years raising two children. Since then (and during a tiny bit in those child-raising years) I've worked at several different jobs. None of which offered anything in the way of a pension. After a divorce and a relocation to another part of the country, I wound up working for the local hospital and participating in the 403b (the non-profit version of a 401k) for several years.

My essential point is this: People change jobs. People leave the work force. The ideal of working 30 or more years for the same company and retiring with a lovely pension has NEVER applied to more than a relatively small percentage of people. I recall, back in the 60s and 70s reading genuine horror stories of men who were with a union, who worked faithfully for many years, and then six months or so before retirement, being switched to a different local, which essentially cancelled their union pension.

Don't get me wrong. I think strong unions are the bedrock of the working class, and should be encouraged. I'm also aware of some of the terrible flaws in them.

A secure retirement has almost always been ephemeral. I know that Social Security really did keep many older folks from starvation. My own grandparents are a good example. They were all born in the latter part of the 19th century, and all immigrated to this country from Ireland. I'll spare you all the details, but just say that in old age they all wound up living with their own grown children towards. I also know that Social Security provided a very small amount of money, but it was very helpful to them.

I'm fortunate enough to have other financial resources so that I, at age 67, can live without paid employment, and live reasonably well. Everyone should be at my standard, if not above this.

[wolfie001]

18. Great read SheilaT!!!

I'm so glad things worked out well for you. These pension horror stories keep repeating with every generation. Yet, I'm still reading posts here on DU about some Doubting Thomas in regards to Labor Rights. Pensions are a basic anchor of any Labor policy. Cheers!!!

[colorado_ufo]

32. At age 69, I agree that this is correct.

And I know plenty of people who get "fired" or laid off from their jobs right about the time they become eligible for benefits of any kind.

Ah, corporate America.

[snappyturtle]

8. Just my thinking but Democrats need better articles than this

one. When I see words like "supposedly" and "unnamed source" I also see repubs easily rebuking such suppositions that Trump is for cutting Social Security. We need a video!!

[ailsagirl]

11. Where there's smoke, there's fire

I have absolutely no doubt he's against Social Security-- it would be out of character for him not
to be. In fact, I'd be flabbergasted if he weren't!!

The fact that he insists he's not is just another big fat LIE. From the mouth of a man who never
tells the truth.

[Jopin Klobe]

9. "Trump" ... "Moral Standpoint" ...

... gettin' pretty God damned funny all up in here ...

... and very, very surreal ...

[ailsagirl]

12. "A Trump presidency would threaten programs like Social Security. Here's how we know..."

http://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-hiltzik-trump-social-security-20160516-snap-story.html

[Jnclr89]

13. This artical could have been written 3 months ago

Trump lies this same crap all the time. By the time the media gets it, it's 3 months old!!! Get with it media, he lies!! Call him out the same day he says it!!

[ReRe]

15. Never trust a flimflam man...

... like Donald Trump. He flips so often that you would think he was a pancake at IHop on a Sunday morning. The Donald is a flip-flop extraordinaire. No one can take a thing he says as serious. And no one really knows what's going on in his mind. I think the man belongs in a mental institution.

[happyslug]

16. You are assuming Trump was NOT lying to Ryan.

Trump thinks nothing of saying what he believes the person or group he is talking to wants to hear. Most politicians do this to a degree, Trump just takes it another degree. If Trump is elected, he then has to think of re-election, does he want to killbthat chance by actually cutting Social Security? Will Congress agree with him? The Democratic members of Congress will say no, as while as a handful of GOP Congressmen and women, least they lose their reelection.

It is GOP dogma that Social Security has to go, thus Trump may be saying to Ryan, what Ryan wants to hear, just like what Trump saying on the campaign trail what he thinks voters want to hear.

My point is, as to Social Security, I do not see anyone cutting it, thus Trump can say he will protect it to the public, and to Ryan, that he will cut Social Security. That issue will NOT come up in the next four to eight years, so what Trump says is unimportant.

The issue is what will Trump do, when it becomes time for Congress to pay back the Social Security money collected since Reagan that was spent of Defense? Will Trump ask Congress to do one of four things:

1. cut Social Security to prevent such a payback, or
2. ask Congress to raise Income Taxes to pay it back or
3. avoid the whole issue by just increasing the deficit or
4. cut defense severely, the last option being rejected by Congress for those lobbyists help pay re-election Campaigns?

I suspect #3, avoid the whole issue and increase the deficit, for that is what the GOP has done since Nixon, when given that Choice (Reagan INCREASED Social Security Taxes to avoid the issue while he was President, Reagan had the help of a Democratic Congress). Clinton almost balanced the Budget do to savings from the end of the Cold War and for that readon the argument about Social Security died out in the 1990s. When Bush II became President he cut taxes for the rich and we have had deficits ever since. Since 1968, the GOP has refused to raise taxes, except on the working class, and today they are facing having to raise income taxes to pay back Social Security taxes, something the GOP opposes.

[bucolic_frolic]

19. Trump's Labeled Everyone Else - Time to Label Him

Lying Trump

[jpak]

20. Third Rail douchebag - You're Fired

yup

[cstanleytech]

21. Its not just Trump that needs to be fired if people want to stop this its the Republicans in

control of Congress and also in control of the varies state level offices.

[dobleremolque]

22. Wait, we know that Trump's a lying liar, so...

what if his remarks to Ryan were lies? How can Trump both lie to us and lie to Ryan? Hmmm? Oh wait. Never mind.

[daleo]

23. So he says, from a moral standpoint

Old and sick people should starve, if they can't find employers willing to keep them in the saddle until they are 70+ years old.

[YOHABLO]

24. Well, it's out there.

[milestogo]

25. Listening to Trump is such a total mindfuck

that I think its just better to tune him out completely.

[LuckyLib]

38. That's my strategy. I can't listen much less read

anything he says. Pure craziness!

[Thinkingabout]

26. Together we will beat Trump.

[Judi Lynn]

27. He wouldn't know a "moral standpoint" if it kicked him in his roomy backside. n/t

[Kingofalldems]

28. Trump reminds me of Judge Smails:

[olddad56]

29. you can sum up Donald Drumpf in one word, that word being Atrocious

[AntiBank]

30. the article has been changed completely on HuffPo to the opposite, he OPPOSES cuts

the article has been changed completely on HuffPo to the opposite, look at the headline now Trump Opposes Cutting Social Security From A ‘Moral Standpoint’: Report (CORRECTED) its says he OPPOSES cuts

[Quantess]

33. K & R

[closeupready]

34. "Unnamed source" + an internet tabloid = today's nothing burger.

[chapdrum]

37. It's always about morality with

the Republicans, seeing as they are such paragons.

The ultimate Repug knows it deep in his corroded soul.

[sofa king]

39. It is the moral standpoint of an amoral villain.