America’s Seniors Can Count on Hillary Clinton

[BootinUp]

Last edited Sun May 29, 2016, 01:10 PM - Edit history (1)

Doris Matsui
U.S. Representative, California’s 6th Congressional District


In May, we celebrate Older Americans Month and the fundamental commitment our country makes to its seniors. In November, we will determine whether we honor that commitment.

Every day, thousands of American seniors reach retirement age after a lifetime of working hard to support their families. Because of Social Security and Medicare, older Americans can mark these milestones with the peace of mind that their retirement future is secure. We created these lifelines so that hard working seniors never have to worry about putting food on the table, or landing in debt after their next trip to the pharmacy.

Yet, Donald Trump seems willing to put these programs at risk, and take a gamble on our seniors’ future. He has called Social Security a Ponzi scheme, claiming privatizing the program would be “good for all of us.” He has repeatedly flip-flopped on his position on Medicare, first claiming he would avoid cuts, then having his senior advisor place those cuts back on the table. He won’t even agree to AARP’s call to put out a Social Security plan.

Donald Trump’s radical and unpredictable policies undermine the promises we’ve made to America’s seniors—promises that Hillary Clinton has fought for her entire life, and will honor as president.


Full Op-Ed at Huffington Post

Edit:
Appreciate all the kicks form the Bernie Sanders dead enders, BoBs, and other miscellanious Clinton haters. Thanks!

[virtualobserver]

1. count on her to privatize social security?

[hollysmom]

2. wall street really salivates over the fees! wonderful wonder ful fees

and when they overturn that new law that they have to give good advice and not just advice they can profit from - well all bets are off.
Her son-in-law could profit nicely from that.

[lmbradford]

25. +1000

[Fawke Em]

32. Yep.

She won't do it at once. She'll means-test it which will make it a "poor person's" program. Once it's that, it will be lobbied against by both Republicans and Third Way Dems and the Pragmatic Ones will determine the only way to save it is to turn it over to the Complicated Designers of Wall Street.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

3. Count on her to send their grandkids to another PR inspired war?

[99Forever]

4. More lying bullshit.

Trash thread.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

5. ...to turn Social Security over to Wall Street.

[yourout]

26. Amen....If SS gets gutted it will have a Dem signature.

[QC]

60. Only Nixon could go to China. n/t

[Hoyt]

6. Clinton is not going to privatize Social Security -- what total Berner BS.

[NorthCarolina]

15. How about

chained CPI, or raising the retirement age, or means testing? Is Clinton firmly against all of those scenarios as well?

[EndElectoral]

18. Evolving on the issue.

[Hoyt]

19. She is. But, I will say this -- unless something is done, I see the day where politicians are going

Last edited Sun May 29, 2016, 01:25 PM - Edit history (1)

to have to consider some unthinkable adjustments to SS or there will be automatic cuts -- already in the law -- should the trust fund fall into a deficit position. Any politician that denies that -- for sound bytes to simpletons -- is lying to us. That why she says she will "consider" anything. Most of the awful stuff, she would consider and immediately reject.

Unfortunately, merely increasing the cap does not solve the entire problem. Wish it weren't that way, if for no other reason that as soon as I stop working, I'll be living almost entirely off Social Security. Fact is, they can cut my Social Security significantly if they figure out a way to house, feed and provide coverage for almost all medical conditions for me and others.

[NorthCarolina]

22. I think the working class has gotten the shaft enough.

Those "unthinkable adjustments" can remain just that, unthinkable. I trust Bernie's position on this, as backed up by Robert Reich and many, many others that properly adjusting the cap is all that is needed while maintaining a donut hole between $110k and $250k/yr.

[Hoyt]

24. It's just not that simple when you get into it. Wish it were.

Sorry, but you are wrong that adjusting the cap is all that is needed. I wish it were that simple because I'm fine with it -- won't affect me. Heck they could slash the cap and I wouldn't hit the threshold.

You can read SS Administration reports looking at the impact, and the assumptions are hard to imagine applying for 50 years.

https://www.ssa.gov/oact/solvency/provisions/charts/chart_run132.html

https://www.ssa.gov/oact/solvency/provisions/payrolltax.html#E2


Even further, the 12.4 percentage point "tax increase" we are talking about by increasing/removing the cap is money we are planning to spend in other ways -- education, jobs, healthcare, welfare, etc.

[jeff47]

54. Nope, she isn't. She proposes a means-tested "bonus" for low-income people.

Meaning those who meet the means test get more money.

...Which makes it very easy to declare Social Security a "welfare" program, and then we can "innovate", just like with welfare!!

unless something is done, I see the day where politicians are going to have to consider some unthinkable adjustments to SS or there will be automatic cuts -- already in the law -- should the trust fund fall into a deficit position.

The error in your analysis is the large size of the trust fund has always been a temporary measure to handle the retirement of the Boomers.

The Boomers did not have enough kids, so the Greenspan commission recommended raising taxes (HORRORS!!!) and creating a large trust fund to pay for the retirement of the Boomers.

The plan has always been to spend the entire trust fund on the Boomers, because later generations had more children (so far), solving the inverted-pyramid problem.

Unfortunately, merely increasing the cap does not solve the entire problem

Actually, it does. Capture the percentage of income that Social Security taxes captured in the 1970s, and you solve the problem....and that does not even require completely eliminating the cap. Just raising it to around $250-300k.

See, the concentration of wealth over the last 40 years means much more income is being made above the cap than in previous generations.

[Hoyt]

55. You can look at he SSA trustee's report and see that eliminating the cap does not

solve the entire problem unless you don't increase benefits which according to you would make it a welfare program. Look it up.

[jeff47]

57. And I can look at their past reports that said they'd be broke by 1992.

Then several different years in the 2010s. Then in the 2020s. Now they're in the 2030s.

Somehow, I'm not supposed to notice this trend.

[Hoyt]

58. Of course they did take some steps to forestall those predictions, perhaps the wrong steps.

But, they did something.

[Baobab]

50. Bill Clinton already set the seeds in place in 1994

with the general agreement on trade in services.

[nc4bo]

7. Shurr. *winky-wink-wink*. nt

[IdaBriggs]

8. Here's a nice blog that explains how both Trump and Clinton want to privatize

Social Security, along with details about the guy who wants to be her Treasury Secretary (surprise: he is one of her Wall Street friends),

https://monetarysov.wordpress.com/2016/03/03/how-hillary-will-privatize-social-security/

[Henhouse]

9. I remember the SS surplus under WJC economic leadership... I want my Grands to experience the same..

I remember surplus as far as the eye can see....

ASK FACTCHECK
The Budget and Deficit Under Clinton

Q: During the Clinton administration was the federal budget balanced? Was the federal deficit erased?
A: Yes to both questions, whether you count Social Security or not.
FULL ANSWER
This chart, based on historical figures from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, shows the total deficit or surplus for each fiscal year from 1990 through 2006. Keep in mind that fiscal years begin Oct. 1, so the first year that can be counted as a Clinton year is fiscal 1994. The appropriations bills for fiscal years 1990 through 1993 were signed by Bill Clinton’s predecessor, George H.W. Bush. Fiscal 2002 is the first for which President George W. Bush signed the appropriations bills, and the first to show the effect of his tax cuts.

http://www.factcheck.org/2008/02/the-budget-and-deficit-under-clinton/

[Fuddnik]

10. Watch that left hand.

She might be trying to pick your pocket.

[JonathanRackham]

11. My mom is 80.

No Hillary endorsement from her. She doesn't trust anyone who has never gotten their hands dirty for a living. Dad was a steelworker, Hillary slammed the coal miners.

[BootinUp]

13. She did not slam the coal miners, those reports

completely ignored her message. Her message was that coal mines were going away already and she wants to invest 30 billion dollars to revitalize the communities there. Did she deliver a phrase clumsily that got turned around on her? Yes.

[JonathanRackham]

17. You can thank network news.

ABC, CBS, NBC. That's the first impression old blue collar retirees are going with. And you know corporate media won't fix it.

[Metric System]

16. Bernie and his supporters LOVE coal now!

[Karma13612]

59. Not true. Eom

[SMC22307]

61. Truly idiotic thing to say. We don't want poor coal workers...

getting the shaft (pardon the pun). We want them, or at least I want them, to be taken care of: Jobs, education, healthcare, decent retirement, etc. Like everyone else, really.

[Iliyah]

12. K & R

[Jester Messiah]

14. ...to fuck them over. n/t

[Autumn]

20. Should they? I can't bring myself to trust a politician to look out for my needs when they lie

and that report you all keep poo pooing exposes her lies for the last year. Lies are lies no matter who tells them and only a fool trusts or counts on a liar. That IOG report from the very department she was the head of, took over a year to complete was very clear. She lied.

https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/2842460/ESP-16-03-Final.pdf

[vintx]

21. ... to continue to cut benefits just like Repuclians do!

Because when it comes down to protecting the needy vs. protecting the incomes of the rich, the New Dems and the Republicans are on the same side!

[nc4bo]

23. New Dems like to drag it out whereas the Repubs cut all at once.

The end game will be exactly the same whether it's death by a thousand cuts or one or two big hatchet swings.

Both of these players gotta go!

[Andy823]

27. The haters are out in force today

I have seen this same kind of bullshit when pretty much the same crowd here on DU went after Obama, and made up shit so they could make him look bad. There is no way in hell anyone here can foresee what Hillary is going to do or not do. Like with President Obama though, the same bunch "assume" all kinds of shit that never happened, and instead of just waiting around to see the final results, they ran around spreading bullshit day in and day out. When their predictions did not come to be, did they apologize for their mistake? Hell no, they just went on to the next insane rant about things that had not happened, and never would.

Sadly this year the same gang, and a whole bunch of Rove and Trump trolls have merged and now then have a monopoly on DU where they can post all kinds of shit they pull out of their_____________, and as long as their gang of bashers accept whatever it is, they get away with it. God I can' wait till this shit is all over and hopefully DU goes back to a site for Democrats, the trolls go back under their bridges till the next election, and the trouble makers stay get banned for good.

[Live and Learn]

28. No thanks. nt

[Vinca]

29. I don't trust Hillary for a second on Medicare and Social Security.

In fact, I would assume she would "reach across the aisle" for compromise just to get something done. We need a candidate who refuses to give an inch on either because it's too important.

[BootinUp]

30. I guess you don't know a liberal when you see one. Sucks for you. nt

[Vinca]

38. I know someone who'll bite on "chained CPI" and might agree to a GOP plan to let people opt out

for a private fund instead of SS. Bill couldn't compromise enough. Why do you think Hillary will be any different?

[BootinUp]

39. The time to argue with political fools is over. I'll do it again

next time around.

[Vinca]

40. We'll soon see who's been fooled.

For fracking, against fracking, for TPP, against TPP and on and on and on and on . . . I think she invented the phrase "go along to get along."

[SMC22307]

62. That's usually my line.

Not a fucking second.

Hillary v. Trump... two truly abysmal choices. Ugh.

[Ash_F]

31. She would not commit to raising the 250K SS cap in a debate. Sanders did.

[BootinUp]

34. Her strategy looking forward to a GE is the correct one.

If you're a serious politician. Which Bernie is demonstrating everyday, he is not. If you are running for Senator and the issue wins in a state election than use it by all means. Try to get this through your filter: Just because she didn't commit to it, doesn't mean she doesn't agree with it philosophically. And doesn't mean she won't back it if there is enough Senate and Congressional support to pass it.

[Ash_F]

36. What makes you think it isn't a winner?

I don't have poll numbers on raising the 250k cap unfortunately, but let us look at another issue that Sanders is "too far left" on

http://www.raisetheminimumwage.com/pages/polling

63 percent of Americans support an even greater federal minimum wage increase to $15.00 by 2020


That is over a 5 year period. I believe Sanders' plan is over 6 years. Sanders is actually slightly right of center on that issue.


Sanders is closer to the center on almost all issues for which there is polling data, except death penalty. And history will eventually prove him right on that one, just like it did on racial segregation and gay rights.

[BootinUp]

37. National issue polls don't equate to winning the Presidential election

if you believe it does, then you ignore the fact we have higher populations in Blue states, but that you have to win purple states in a Presidential election.

Clinton's campaign fully supports 15 dollar minimum wage fights in California and New York.

[Ash_F]

42. Maybe, but then you are assuming it is not a winner in places like Ohio, Michigan or Pennsylvannia

Seems like a big assumption without data.

[BootinUp]

43. No, it is not. nt

[Ash_F]

44. We will just have to agree to disagree then.

[BootinUp]

45. I am sure if I wanted to, I could wade through the current

state minimum wages to further make the case. A quick look at the color codes here makes the case to some degree.

[Ash_F]

46. I agree that more information is important

I was really thinking about the 250k cap, for which there is little data.

I feel that most voters would agree to raising it.

I just think it is folly to assume that an issue is not important or popular with voters, just because some millionaires would obviously not like it.

[BootinUp]

47. A President can't do it alone. nt

[XemaSab]

33. Bernie once kicked an old lady in the teeth

If you vote for Bernie, you're voting for kicking old ladies in the teeth.

Hillary 2016!

[Carolina]

35. More deception

from the Hill crowd

[janlea]

41. Seniors

HA! As a senior, what I count on from Hillary Clinton is NOTHING. In case I didn't make myself clear: NOTHING!

[Alex4Martinez]

48. Kick and Ignore Member

Fully.

[BootinUp]

49. +1 LOL

Anyone else?

[k8conant]

51. Count with the babies' toes:

This little pig went to market;
This little pig stayed at home;
This little pig had roast beef;
And this little pig had none;
This little pig said, "Wee, wee, wee!
All the way home."

[cantbeserious]

52. Fat Chance - Seniors Are Chattel - Simply Used To Secure The Nomination

eom

[elleng]

53. NOT a dead ender, BoB, or miscellanious Clinton hater, supported O'Malley,

but do recognize reality. Many of us depend on social security, and don't want our grandchildren to be continually sent to war.

Would also like to be able to rely on our investments (such as they are,) and on a future for our grandchildren's educations and employment.

I see these things in jeopardy if we continue on the 'established' path, so I do NOT support hrc.

[HooptieWagon]

56. Sounds like Propagandize The Record bullshit to me.

HillCo simply can't be trusted.