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Blog2023-02-16T14:29:22-04:00
803, 2024

Biden: The Wealthy Will Pay Their Fair Share into Social Security

By |March 8th, 2024|Congress, Medicare, Prescription Drug Prices, President Biden|

In Thursday night’s State of the Union address, President Biden put himself unequivocally on the side of American seniors and the programs they rely on. He redoubled his commitment to protecting Social Security after confronting congressional Republicans in last year’s speech.  The president went beyond taking seniors’ earned benefits “off the table” for cuts as he did last year — by declaring, “I will protect and strengthen Social Security and make the wealthy pay their fair share.”

Referring to the payroll wage cap – currently set at $168,600 – the President said that “working people who built this country pay more into Social Security than millionaires and billionaires do. It’s not fair.”  We applaud his call for Congress to “stand up for seniors” — and defend Social Security against proposed GOP cuts, warning “If anyone tries to cut Social Security or raise the retirement age. I will stop you!”

The House Republican Study Committee called for raising the Social Security retirement age in its 2024 budget blueprint.  Former presidential candidate Nikki Haley campaigned on raising the age, even though it would represent a massive benefit cut — if not for today’s seniors, then for future generations.

The President also affirmed his leadership role in lowering prescription drug prices, another issue of supreme importance to American seniors.  Millions of seniors have been forced by Big Pharma price gouging to ration crucial medications — or to choose between filling prescriptions and paying for other essentials.

The President wants to supercharge Medicare’s new power to negotiate drug prices (via the Inflation Reduction Act) by increasing the number of medications subject to negotiations — from 10 this first year to 50 per year — or 500 medications over a decade.  (The current law allows for 20 drugs to be negotiated next year).   The President said that it’s vital that Medicare be able to negotiate prices for “the major drugs that seniors rely on, like those used for treating heart disease, cancer, and diabetes.”

“This State of the Union speech reminds us that the two parties’ positions on the federal government’s role in seniors’ financial and health security could not be more different. The President reinforced tonight that while the other side does the bidding of Big Pharma and their wealthy donors, he will continue to fight for seniors and their families.” – Max Richtman, President & CEO, National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare

The President echoed the administration’s proposed new rule that would establish minimum levels for staffing of nursing homes to “make sure your loved ones get the care they deserve and that they expect.” We strongly support the rule and object to Republican attempts to block it. The President also called for extending the Inflation Reduction Act’s $2,000 out of pocket cap on Medicare drug costs to all  Americans covered by private insurance.

Tonight’s speech reinforced the stark contrast between the President’s approach to seniors’ programs and the Republican approach — which emphasizes benefit cuts and privatization. The House Republican Study Committee recommended raising the retirement age, means testing, and a more miserly COLA formula for Social Security.  House Republicans have been pushing the creation of a fiscal commission that could fast-track cuts to seniors’ earned benefits. Meanwhile, not a single Republican member of Congress supported the President’s Inflation Reduction Act, which is already providing seniors with relief from soaring drug costs — and having a positive effect on the consumer market as a whole.

Seniors’ advocates joined NCPSSM in applauding the President’s speech. Yael Lehmann, interim executive director of Families USA, praised Biden’s “stalwart defense of programs like… Social Security, Medicaid, and Medicare.”  Rich Fiesta, Executive Director of the Alliance for Retired Americans, gave kudos to the President for stating “his firm opposition to any legislation that will cut the benefits Americans earn over a lifetime of work, including a so-called ‘fiscal commission’ to meet behind closed doors and do Congress’ dirty work.”  Nancy Altman, President of Social Security Works, concluded that “Biden and Democrats are fighting to protect and expand Social Security and Medicare, while Donald Trump and Republicans are scheming to gut them behind closed doors.”


103, 2024

Millionaires Are Done Paying Into Social Security for 2024

By |March 1st, 2024|Payroll Tax Cap, Rep. John Larson, Social Security|

Millionaires stop paying into Social Security for the year on March 1st — and billionaires already stopped contributing wages to the program in January.  The rest of us continue paying into the system for the entire year.  Is it fair that Elon Musk, Rupert Murdoch, Charles Koch, and Tim Cook of Apple don’t have to contribute to Social Security for the rest of the year while most Americans do?  We don’t think so. Our Social Security expert, Maria Freese, explains why we need to scrap — or adjust — the payroll wage cap. 

Q: For those who don’t know, what is the Social Security “payroll wage cap?”

FREESE:  Most people have no idea that there’s a limit on how much of your wages are subject to Social Security payroll taxes because they don’t make enough money to ever reach the cap. This year the cap is $168,600. Once you reach that amount in wages, you stop paying into Social Security for the rest of the year.

Q:  So the slogan is: “Scrap the Cap” and we support adjusting the payroll wage cap. Why? Why do we support that?

FREESE: High-income earners pay a significantly smaller percentage of their wages into Social Security than the rest of us. That’s not only patently unfair; it deprives Social Security of much-needed revenue, and we believe that the best way to infuse new revenue into Social Security is to ask the wealthiest among us to pay their fair share.

Q: In years past, 90% of wages in this country fell below the cap, so that income was captured. Today, only about 83% of those earnings are subject to the Social Security payroll tax. That’s because of widening wealth inequality, correct?

FREESE: While middle-income workers’ wages have been stagnating for the last couple of decades, the earnings of the highest paid workers in the country have continued to grow disproportionately. This imbalance means that more and more of the income earned by the wealthy is exempt from paying into Social Security, while workers who are already suffering because their wages haven’t kept up with the cost of living over the past decades they continue contributing on every dollar they earn.

Q:  Senator Bernie Sanders and Representative John Larson have offered legislation that would adjust the payroll wage cap, which would go a long way toward keeping the Social Security trust fund solvent beyond its projected depletion date in 2034. Tell us more about how these bills would do that.

FREESE: Both bills ask the wealthiest among us to pay their fair share. They just start at different thresholds. The bill by Senator Sanders reinstates Social Security payroll taxes for wages over $250,000 a year. The bill by Congressman Larson, on the other hand, begins the Social Security payroll taxes again for those earning over $400,000 a year. They did that intentionally, so that it would line up with President Biden’s commitment not to raise taxes on anyone earning under $400,000.

In addition to raising the wage cap, they also both impose a tax on investment income for the wealthiest, who, more and more, are living on the income produced by stocks and bonds rather than wages.

Q: In return for the wealthy contributing more, which they would under this legislation, they would get a higher benefit? Is that right?

FREESE:  We believe they should, and in Congressman Larson’s bill, they do. Social security is an earned benefit. The taxes we contribute have a direct relationship to the amount of benefits we earn. For those who earn the least over their lifetimes, Social Security provides a higher proportionate benefit either in retirement or in case of disability — as a percentage of what they earned while they were working.

Q: We’re calling on President Biden to include in his next fiscal year budget a proposal for Social Security that would have people earning more than $400,000 per year contribute to the program and not hit a cap. And that would be in keeping with his pledge that you mentioned earlier, not to raise taxes on anyone making less than that, right?

FREESE:  That’s exactly right. And in fact, as I mentioned earlier, the bill by Congressman Larson does exactly that. It does not affect taxes paid by anyone earning under $400,000 a year. And that was done intentionally to align the proposal with the president’s commitment not to raise taxes for anyone earning under that amount.

Q: If the Republicans oppose bringing in new revenue to Social Security by having the wealthy contribute a little more, what do the Republicans propose instead?

FREESE:  That’s actually a very good question. Republicans have generally been unwilling to put any of their proposals on paper for obvious reasons. Cutting Social Security is extremely unpopular, and they don’t want voters to see how they would cut benefits. So instead, they’ve resorted to calling for a so-called fiscal commission that would design a reform proposal that would then be fast-tracked through Congress before the public could even find out what was in it. That way, they hope to avoid political accountability for cutting the country’s most successful and popular program.

So we don’t really know what they would propose. They hope that they can sneak through significant benefit cuts and probably not do a whole lot of revenue raising — if they use this configuration of a fiscal commission to do their dirty work for them, basically.

Q:  A recent survey that we did of our members and supporters indicates 96% support for raising the payroll wage cap. So I ask you again, if this is so popular, why hasn’t it been done?

FREESE:  Republicans don’t support and have not supported in the past any proposals to raise taxes on their wealthy contributors or on corporations. So you can’t get any Republican support. You couldn’t get a bill through the Senate. It would be hard enough to get it through the House, but you certainly couldn’t get it through the Senate.

Q: We have been beating this drum for many years now about adjusting the payroll wage cap. What do you think the likelihood is of this happening anytime soon?

FREESE: It’s really hard to get members of Congress to agree on anything unless they’re faced with a deadline or a crisis. And even then, it’s not easy to find consensus these days. Social Security doesn’t face that deadline until the trust funds become insolvent, which currently, as you mentioned, is projected to happen in the mid 2030s. It would be better for everyone if they were able to do it sooner rather than later, but Congress just doesn’t tend to work that way.


902, 2024

Special Counsel in Biden Classified Documents Case Plays Amateur Gerontologist

By |February 9th, 2024|ageism, Election 2024, President Biden, President Trump|

By declining to charge President Biden with mishandling classified documents, but gratuitously impugning the president’s cognitive abilities, special counsel Robert Hur overstepped his bounds and fed into a blatantly ageist political narrative. Hur pulled a “James Comey” yesterday in announcing that the president would not be charged with a crime but criticizing Biden, anyway, just as Comey did with Hillary Clinton in 2016. (And we know how that turned out.)  But, unlike Comey, Hur felt the need to disparage the President’s age and his memory, referring to Biden as “a well-meaning, elderly man.”

President Biden rightly defended himself during a press conference Thursday night. “I’m well-meaning, and I’m an elderly man — and I know what the hell I’m doing,” he declared from the Diplomatic Reception Room at the White House, as the Washington Post reported.

Former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder posted on X (formerly Twitter):

“Special Counsel Hur’s report… contains way too many gratuitous remarks and is flatly inconsistent with longstanding Department of Justice (DOJ) traditions. Had this report been subject to normal DOJ review, these remarks undoubtedly would have been excised.” – Eric Holder

Columnist Robert Kuttner assailed Hur in today’s American Prospect, accusing him of “going out of his way to offer politically damaging and snarky assertions, and quotable one-liners.”

It’s interesting that Hur (a former Trump appointee) felt the need to play amateur gerontologist, which is not traditionally the job of a federal investigator. A lot of people are assuming that ‘gerontologist’ role these days without any qualifications whatsoever — from social media users to rival political figures — especially when it comes to President Biden. The worst offender has been Nikki Haley, who shamelessly said in a tv ad“I’ll just say it: Biden’s too old.” She added for good measure, “And Congress is the most exclusive nursing home in America.”

Special prosecutor and armchair gerontologist Robert Hur

“You have to realize that most people that are out there commenting on this haven’t really looked at (Biden’s) medical records,” demographer S. Jay Olshanksy told us on our podcast in January.  “My colleagues and I, including board certified geriatricians, have looked at the medical records in detail that are publicly available. We have come to the conclusion that there are no significant issues with President Biden’s cognitive abilities.”

Several national figures rushed to Biden’s defense on social media after Hur’s report was released. MSNBC host and former Republican Joe Scarborough posted:

“Hur, a lifelong Republican and creature of Washington, didn’t have a case against Biden, but knew how his swipes could hurt Biden politically.” – Joe Scarborough

Former United States Attorney for the Northern District of Alabama, Joyce Vance, commented on X:

“Robert Hur was no friend to Joe Biden. He conceded there wasn’t evidence that would prove (the president) committed a crime. That’s all. It’s over right there. It’s not like a friendly prosecutor gave Biden a pass.” – Joyce Vance 

Meanwhile, President Trump largely seems to get a pass on his mental acuity by many in the mainstream media — and in the public at large— despite recent speeches replete with delusions, fantasies, paranoia, and outright falsehoods.

Olshansky says that commentators who question Biden’s mental agility are engaging in “classic ageism — where people draw false conclusions about older individuals based on the number of trips around the sun.”

As we wrote in this space last year, ageism is one of the only socially acceptable -isms these days — and runs rampant in our culture.  “Ageism is everywhere – in the workplace, in media, in Hollywood, in schools and in health care, and it is something that most everyone will experience at some point in their lives,” writes Michele Dinman of the Harvey A. Friedman Center for Aging at Washington University in St. Louis.

Ageism is not a benign phenomenon. According to Dinman, older adults experience discrimination in employment, housing, health care, and in their daily lives.  In a 2019 survey, 82% of older adults said that they “regularly experienced at least one form of everyday ageism.”

Olshanksy argues that President Biden should be judged by his achievements in office and his policy decisions, not by an ageist standard.

“I would think that the vast majority of the population would be incapable of holding the schedule that President Biden holds on a daily basis and under a spotlight added to that. So I would challenge anyone who makes this claim that there’s any sort of cognitive issue associated with President Biden to follow his schedule for a day and see how long they last. I don’t think they would last a single day.” – S. Jay Olshansky, Demographer, University of Illinois at Chicago

Ageism not only has no legitimate place in our political discourse, it has no place in our society at large. The last thing we need at a cultural moment like this is prosecutors playing armchair experts on the mental health of the president — or any other citizen of the United States of America.


3101, 2024

84 Years Ago Today the First Social Security Beneficiary Got Her Check

By |January 31st, 2024|Social Security, Social Security Administration (SSA)|

Ida Mae Fuller in 1940

The following article is reprinted from the Social Security Administration (SSA) website www.ssa.gov

The First Social Security Beneficiary

Ida May Fuller was the first beneficiary of recurring monthly Social Security payments. Miss Fuller (known as Aunt Ida to her friends and family) was born on September 6, 1874 on a farm outside of Ludlow, Vermont. She attended school in Rutland, Vermont where one of her classmates was Calvin Coolidge. In 1905, after working as a school teacher, she became a legal secretary. One of the partners in the firm, John G. Sargent, would later become Attorney General in the Coolidge Administration.

Ida May never married and had no children. She lived alone most of her life, but spent eight years near the end of her life living with her niece, Hazel Perkins, and her family in Brattleboro, Vermont.

Miss Fuller filed her retirement claim on November 4, 1939, having worked under Social Security for a little short of three years. While running an errand she dropped by the Rutland Social Security office to ask about possible benefits. She would later observe: “It wasn’t that I expected anything, mind you, but I knew I’d been paying for something called Social Security and I wanted to ask the people in Rutland about it.”

Her claim was taken by Claims Clerk, Elizabeth Corcoran Burke, and transmitted to the Claims Division in Washington, D.C. for adjudication. The case was adjudicated and reviewed and sent to the Treasury Department for payment in January 1940. The claims were grouped in batches of 1,000 and a Certification List for each batch was sent to Treasury. Miss Fuller’s claim was the first one on the first Certification List and so the first Social Security check, check number 00-000-001, was issued to Ida May Fuller in the amount of $22.54 and dated January 31, 1940.


3101, 2024

The Spending Deal & Seniors: How Do Older Americans Fare in Agreement to Keep Gov’t Open?

By |January 31st, 2024|Budget, Congress, Medicare, Social Security|

What’s good and bad for seniors in the current spending deal on Capitol Hill? Our director of government relations and policy, Dan Adcock, tells us about how crucial programs for older Americans may fare for the rest of this fiscal year — and the latest on Republican plans for a fiscal commission that we fiercely oppose.

Q:  Tell us about the deal on Capitol Hill that may avert a government shutdown — and how it might impact seniors.

Adcock: There seems to be a deal for an appropriations bill for FY 2024, which we’re already in by the way.  It sounds like there’s finally been an agreement between key House and Senate negotiators on how much each of the appropriation committees will get to spend.  These appropriations measures will probably be brought to the floor in bundles… making progress toward meeting the March 1 deadline for nailing down spending for military and veterans affairs — and March 8 for everything else, including most of the funding affecting seniors (Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, and Older Americans Act programs).  

Q: Are we happy with this deal? 

Adcock: The deal basically means that the government likely won’t shut down, which is good news for everyone.  And even though the FY 2024 budget is going to be fairly austere, funding for the programs we care about is going to be a lot better than it could have been. Originally, Republicans wanted flat funding for everything, and wanted to put any surplus funds toward deficit reduction rather than spending it on programs that help everyday people.

Q: How does this deal compare to previous spending agreements between the GOP and Democrats?

Adcock: This new deal is fairly close to the debt limit agreement between President Biden and congressional Republicans last year. It limits non-defense spending to FY 2023 levels, but claws back some money (including surplus Covid money and funding that was supposed to go to the IRS for greater enforcement) that can be put toward domestic priorities. 

Q: We have been banging the drum that the Social Security Administration (SSA) has been grossly underfunded and needs an infusion of money for operations. What does this deal portend for SSA funding?

Adcock: Unfortunately, SSA is likely to be flat funded in FY 2024, which means the agency will continue to have to make due with insufficient resources for yet another year.  But it’s not going to be as bad as if Republicans got their wishes. Relatively flat-funding will prevent SSA from radically improving wait times for customer service and may force further cutbacks, including additional field office closures.

Q: Is there anything to be done to get SSA more funding during this fiscal year? 

Adcock: We are hoping for a separate piece of legislation like a supplemental appropriations bill that could include extra money for SSA that it won’t receive through the regular appropriations process. The President may ask for more funding for SSA in his FY 2025 budget, but he cannot submit a new budget until FY 2024 appropriations have been enacted. 

Q:  House Republicans are pushing for a fiscal commission (which we fiercely oppose) that could end up recommending cuts to Social Security and Medicare. Where does that stand right now? 

Adcock: That’s still something that could still be included in a final spending deal.  As a freestanding bill, it couldn’t get 60 votes in order to pass the Senate. But if a fiscal commission was inserted  into the final spending deal, then it could pass along with everything else. 

Q: Would Democrats vote for a spending pill that contains the ‘poison pill’ of a fiscal commission?

Adcock: They may accede to it. The thinking might go, “We’re not actually cutting anything by voting for this. So let the Republicans play their fiscal commission game and in the end it won’t matter.” But, in reality, it does matter. Because a fiscal commission’s recommendations could take on a life of their own.  We have opposed a fiscal commission from the very beginning because the process could end up in benefit cuts. It’s a Pandora’s box that’s better not to open.

END 


Biden: The Wealthy Will Pay Their Fair Share into Social Security

By |March 8th, 2024|Congress, Medicare, Prescription Drug Prices, President Biden|

In Thursday night’s State of the Union address, President Biden put himself unequivocally on the side of American seniors and the programs they rely on. He redoubled his commitment to protecting Social Security after confronting congressional Republicans in last year’s speech.  The president went beyond taking seniors’ earned benefits “off the table” for cuts as he did last year — by declaring, “I will protect and strengthen Social Security and make the wealthy pay their fair share.”

Referring to the payroll wage cap – currently set at $168,600 – the President said that “working people who built this country pay more into Social Security than millionaires and billionaires do. It’s not fair.”  We applaud his call for Congress to “stand up for seniors” — and defend Social Security against proposed GOP cuts, warning “If anyone tries to cut Social Security or raise the retirement age. I will stop you!”

The House Republican Study Committee called for raising the Social Security retirement age in its 2024 budget blueprint.  Former presidential candidate Nikki Haley campaigned on raising the age, even though it would represent a massive benefit cut — if not for today’s seniors, then for future generations.

The President also affirmed his leadership role in lowering prescription drug prices, another issue of supreme importance to American seniors.  Millions of seniors have been forced by Big Pharma price gouging to ration crucial medications — or to choose between filling prescriptions and paying for other essentials.

The President wants to supercharge Medicare’s new power to negotiate drug prices (via the Inflation Reduction Act) by increasing the number of medications subject to negotiations — from 10 this first year to 50 per year — or 500 medications over a decade.  (The current law allows for 20 drugs to be negotiated next year).   The President said that it’s vital that Medicare be able to negotiate prices for “the major drugs that seniors rely on, like those used for treating heart disease, cancer, and diabetes.”

“This State of the Union speech reminds us that the two parties’ positions on the federal government’s role in seniors’ financial and health security could not be more different. The President reinforced tonight that while the other side does the bidding of Big Pharma and their wealthy donors, he will continue to fight for seniors and their families.” – Max Richtman, President & CEO, National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare

The President echoed the administration’s proposed new rule that would establish minimum levels for staffing of nursing homes to “make sure your loved ones get the care they deserve and that they expect.” We strongly support the rule and object to Republican attempts to block it. The President also called for extending the Inflation Reduction Act’s $2,000 out of pocket cap on Medicare drug costs to all  Americans covered by private insurance.

Tonight’s speech reinforced the stark contrast between the President’s approach to seniors’ programs and the Republican approach — which emphasizes benefit cuts and privatization. The House Republican Study Committee recommended raising the retirement age, means testing, and a more miserly COLA formula for Social Security.  House Republicans have been pushing the creation of a fiscal commission that could fast-track cuts to seniors’ earned benefits. Meanwhile, not a single Republican member of Congress supported the President’s Inflation Reduction Act, which is already providing seniors with relief from soaring drug costs — and having a positive effect on the consumer market as a whole.

Seniors’ advocates joined NCPSSM in applauding the President’s speech. Yael Lehmann, interim executive director of Families USA, praised Biden’s “stalwart defense of programs like… Social Security, Medicaid, and Medicare.”  Rich Fiesta, Executive Director of the Alliance for Retired Americans, gave kudos to the President for stating “his firm opposition to any legislation that will cut the benefits Americans earn over a lifetime of work, including a so-called ‘fiscal commission’ to meet behind closed doors and do Congress’ dirty work.”  Nancy Altman, President of Social Security Works, concluded that “Biden and Democrats are fighting to protect and expand Social Security and Medicare, while Donald Trump and Republicans are scheming to gut them behind closed doors.”


Millionaires Are Done Paying Into Social Security for 2024

By |March 1st, 2024|Payroll Tax Cap, Rep. John Larson, Social Security|

Millionaires stop paying into Social Security for the year on March 1st — and billionaires already stopped contributing wages to the program in January.  The rest of us continue paying into the system for the entire year.  Is it fair that Elon Musk, Rupert Murdoch, Charles Koch, and Tim Cook of Apple don’t have to contribute to Social Security for the rest of the year while most Americans do?  We don’t think so. Our Social Security expert, Maria Freese, explains why we need to scrap — or adjust — the payroll wage cap. 

Q: For those who don’t know, what is the Social Security “payroll wage cap?”

FREESE:  Most people have no idea that there’s a limit on how much of your wages are subject to Social Security payroll taxes because they don’t make enough money to ever reach the cap. This year the cap is $168,600. Once you reach that amount in wages, you stop paying into Social Security for the rest of the year.

Q:  So the slogan is: “Scrap the Cap” and we support adjusting the payroll wage cap. Why? Why do we support that?

FREESE: High-income earners pay a significantly smaller percentage of their wages into Social Security than the rest of us. That’s not only patently unfair; it deprives Social Security of much-needed revenue, and we believe that the best way to infuse new revenue into Social Security is to ask the wealthiest among us to pay their fair share.

Q: In years past, 90% of wages in this country fell below the cap, so that income was captured. Today, only about 83% of those earnings are subject to the Social Security payroll tax. That’s because of widening wealth inequality, correct?

FREESE: While middle-income workers’ wages have been stagnating for the last couple of decades, the earnings of the highest paid workers in the country have continued to grow disproportionately. This imbalance means that more and more of the income earned by the wealthy is exempt from paying into Social Security, while workers who are already suffering because their wages haven’t kept up with the cost of living over the past decades they continue contributing on every dollar they earn.

Q:  Senator Bernie Sanders and Representative John Larson have offered legislation that would adjust the payroll wage cap, which would go a long way toward keeping the Social Security trust fund solvent beyond its projected depletion date in 2034. Tell us more about how these bills would do that.

FREESE: Both bills ask the wealthiest among us to pay their fair share. They just start at different thresholds. The bill by Senator Sanders reinstates Social Security payroll taxes for wages over $250,000 a year. The bill by Congressman Larson, on the other hand, begins the Social Security payroll taxes again for those earning over $400,000 a year. They did that intentionally, so that it would line up with President Biden’s commitment not to raise taxes on anyone earning under $400,000.

In addition to raising the wage cap, they also both impose a tax on investment income for the wealthiest, who, more and more, are living on the income produced by stocks and bonds rather than wages.

Q: In return for the wealthy contributing more, which they would under this legislation, they would get a higher benefit? Is that right?

FREESE:  We believe they should, and in Congressman Larson’s bill, they do. Social security is an earned benefit. The taxes we contribute have a direct relationship to the amount of benefits we earn. For those who earn the least over their lifetimes, Social Security provides a higher proportionate benefit either in retirement or in case of disability — as a percentage of what they earned while they were working.

Q: We’re calling on President Biden to include in his next fiscal year budget a proposal for Social Security that would have people earning more than $400,000 per year contribute to the program and not hit a cap. And that would be in keeping with his pledge that you mentioned earlier, not to raise taxes on anyone making less than that, right?

FREESE:  That’s exactly right. And in fact, as I mentioned earlier, the bill by Congressman Larson does exactly that. It does not affect taxes paid by anyone earning under $400,000 a year. And that was done intentionally to align the proposal with the president’s commitment not to raise taxes for anyone earning under that amount.

Q: If the Republicans oppose bringing in new revenue to Social Security by having the wealthy contribute a little more, what do the Republicans propose instead?

FREESE:  That’s actually a very good question. Republicans have generally been unwilling to put any of their proposals on paper for obvious reasons. Cutting Social Security is extremely unpopular, and they don’t want voters to see how they would cut benefits. So instead, they’ve resorted to calling for a so-called fiscal commission that would design a reform proposal that would then be fast-tracked through Congress before the public could even find out what was in it. That way, they hope to avoid political accountability for cutting the country’s most successful and popular program.

So we don’t really know what they would propose. They hope that they can sneak through significant benefit cuts and probably not do a whole lot of revenue raising — if they use this configuration of a fiscal commission to do their dirty work for them, basically.

Q:  A recent survey that we did of our members and supporters indicates 96% support for raising the payroll wage cap. So I ask you again, if this is so popular, why hasn’t it been done?

FREESE:  Republicans don’t support and have not supported in the past any proposals to raise taxes on their wealthy contributors or on corporations. So you can’t get any Republican support. You couldn’t get a bill through the Senate. It would be hard enough to get it through the House, but you certainly couldn’t get it through the Senate.

Q: We have been beating this drum for many years now about adjusting the payroll wage cap. What do you think the likelihood is of this happening anytime soon?

FREESE: It’s really hard to get members of Congress to agree on anything unless they’re faced with a deadline or a crisis. And even then, it’s not easy to find consensus these days. Social Security doesn’t face that deadline until the trust funds become insolvent, which currently, as you mentioned, is projected to happen in the mid 2030s. It would be better for everyone if they were able to do it sooner rather than later, but Congress just doesn’t tend to work that way.


Special Counsel in Biden Classified Documents Case Plays Amateur Gerontologist

By |February 9th, 2024|ageism, Election 2024, President Biden, President Trump|

By declining to charge President Biden with mishandling classified documents, but gratuitously impugning the president’s cognitive abilities, special counsel Robert Hur overstepped his bounds and fed into a blatantly ageist political narrative. Hur pulled a “James Comey” yesterday in announcing that the president would not be charged with a crime but criticizing Biden, anyway, just as Comey did with Hillary Clinton in 2016. (And we know how that turned out.)  But, unlike Comey, Hur felt the need to disparage the President’s age and his memory, referring to Biden as “a well-meaning, elderly man.”

President Biden rightly defended himself during a press conference Thursday night. “I’m well-meaning, and I’m an elderly man — and I know what the hell I’m doing,” he declared from the Diplomatic Reception Room at the White House, as the Washington Post reported.

Former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder posted on X (formerly Twitter):

“Special Counsel Hur’s report… contains way too many gratuitous remarks and is flatly inconsistent with longstanding Department of Justice (DOJ) traditions. Had this report been subject to normal DOJ review, these remarks undoubtedly would have been excised.” – Eric Holder

Columnist Robert Kuttner assailed Hur in today’s American Prospect, accusing him of “going out of his way to offer politically damaging and snarky assertions, and quotable one-liners.”

It’s interesting that Hur (a former Trump appointee) felt the need to play amateur gerontologist, which is not traditionally the job of a federal investigator. A lot of people are assuming that ‘gerontologist’ role these days without any qualifications whatsoever — from social media users to rival political figures — especially when it comes to President Biden. The worst offender has been Nikki Haley, who shamelessly said in a tv ad“I’ll just say it: Biden’s too old.” She added for good measure, “And Congress is the most exclusive nursing home in America.”

Special prosecutor and armchair gerontologist Robert Hur

“You have to realize that most people that are out there commenting on this haven’t really looked at (Biden’s) medical records,” demographer S. Jay Olshanksy told us on our podcast in January.  “My colleagues and I, including board certified geriatricians, have looked at the medical records in detail that are publicly available. We have come to the conclusion that there are no significant issues with President Biden’s cognitive abilities.”

Several national figures rushed to Biden’s defense on social media after Hur’s report was released. MSNBC host and former Republican Joe Scarborough posted:

“Hur, a lifelong Republican and creature of Washington, didn’t have a case against Biden, but knew how his swipes could hurt Biden politically.” – Joe Scarborough

Former United States Attorney for the Northern District of Alabama, Joyce Vance, commented on X:

“Robert Hur was no friend to Joe Biden. He conceded there wasn’t evidence that would prove (the president) committed a crime. That’s all. It’s over right there. It’s not like a friendly prosecutor gave Biden a pass.” – Joyce Vance 

Meanwhile, President Trump largely seems to get a pass on his mental acuity by many in the mainstream media — and in the public at large— despite recent speeches replete with delusions, fantasies, paranoia, and outright falsehoods.

Olshansky says that commentators who question Biden’s mental agility are engaging in “classic ageism — where people draw false conclusions about older individuals based on the number of trips around the sun.”

As we wrote in this space last year, ageism is one of the only socially acceptable -isms these days — and runs rampant in our culture.  “Ageism is everywhere – in the workplace, in media, in Hollywood, in schools and in health care, and it is something that most everyone will experience at some point in their lives,” writes Michele Dinman of the Harvey A. Friedman Center for Aging at Washington University in St. Louis.

Ageism is not a benign phenomenon. According to Dinman, older adults experience discrimination in employment, housing, health care, and in their daily lives.  In a 2019 survey, 82% of older adults said that they “regularly experienced at least one form of everyday ageism.”

Olshanksy argues that President Biden should be judged by his achievements in office and his policy decisions, not by an ageist standard.

“I would think that the vast majority of the population would be incapable of holding the schedule that President Biden holds on a daily basis and under a spotlight added to that. So I would challenge anyone who makes this claim that there’s any sort of cognitive issue associated with President Biden to follow his schedule for a day and see how long they last. I don’t think they would last a single day.” – S. Jay Olshansky, Demographer, University of Illinois at Chicago

Ageism not only has no legitimate place in our political discourse, it has no place in our society at large. The last thing we need at a cultural moment like this is prosecutors playing armchair experts on the mental health of the president — or any other citizen of the United States of America.


84 Years Ago Today the First Social Security Beneficiary Got Her Check

By |January 31st, 2024|Social Security, Social Security Administration (SSA)|

Ida Mae Fuller in 1940

The following article is reprinted from the Social Security Administration (SSA) website www.ssa.gov

The First Social Security Beneficiary

Ida May Fuller was the first beneficiary of recurring monthly Social Security payments. Miss Fuller (known as Aunt Ida to her friends and family) was born on September 6, 1874 on a farm outside of Ludlow, Vermont. She attended school in Rutland, Vermont where one of her classmates was Calvin Coolidge. In 1905, after working as a school teacher, she became a legal secretary. One of the partners in the firm, John G. Sargent, would later become Attorney General in the Coolidge Administration.

Ida May never married and had no children. She lived alone most of her life, but spent eight years near the end of her life living with her niece, Hazel Perkins, and her family in Brattleboro, Vermont.

Miss Fuller filed her retirement claim on November 4, 1939, having worked under Social Security for a little short of three years. While running an errand she dropped by the Rutland Social Security office to ask about possible benefits. She would later observe: “It wasn’t that I expected anything, mind you, but I knew I’d been paying for something called Social Security and I wanted to ask the people in Rutland about it.”

Her claim was taken by Claims Clerk, Elizabeth Corcoran Burke, and transmitted to the Claims Division in Washington, D.C. for adjudication. The case was adjudicated and reviewed and sent to the Treasury Department for payment in January 1940. The claims were grouped in batches of 1,000 and a Certification List for each batch was sent to Treasury. Miss Fuller’s claim was the first one on the first Certification List and so the first Social Security check, check number 00-000-001, was issued to Ida May Fuller in the amount of $22.54 and dated January 31, 1940.


The Spending Deal & Seniors: How Do Older Americans Fare in Agreement to Keep Gov’t Open?

By |January 31st, 2024|Budget, Congress, Medicare, Social Security|

What’s good and bad for seniors in the current spending deal on Capitol Hill? Our director of government relations and policy, Dan Adcock, tells us about how crucial programs for older Americans may fare for the rest of this fiscal year — and the latest on Republican plans for a fiscal commission that we fiercely oppose.

Q:  Tell us about the deal on Capitol Hill that may avert a government shutdown — and how it might impact seniors.

Adcock: There seems to be a deal for an appropriations bill for FY 2024, which we’re already in by the way.  It sounds like there’s finally been an agreement between key House and Senate negotiators on how much each of the appropriation committees will get to spend.  These appropriations measures will probably be brought to the floor in bundles… making progress toward meeting the March 1 deadline for nailing down spending for military and veterans affairs — and March 8 for everything else, including most of the funding affecting seniors (Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, and Older Americans Act programs).  

Q: Are we happy with this deal? 

Adcock: The deal basically means that the government likely won’t shut down, which is good news for everyone.  And even though the FY 2024 budget is going to be fairly austere, funding for the programs we care about is going to be a lot better than it could have been. Originally, Republicans wanted flat funding for everything, and wanted to put any surplus funds toward deficit reduction rather than spending it on programs that help everyday people.

Q: How does this deal compare to previous spending agreements between the GOP and Democrats?

Adcock: This new deal is fairly close to the debt limit agreement between President Biden and congressional Republicans last year. It limits non-defense spending to FY 2023 levels, but claws back some money (including surplus Covid money and funding that was supposed to go to the IRS for greater enforcement) that can be put toward domestic priorities. 

Q: We have been banging the drum that the Social Security Administration (SSA) has been grossly underfunded and needs an infusion of money for operations. What does this deal portend for SSA funding?

Adcock: Unfortunately, SSA is likely to be flat funded in FY 2024, which means the agency will continue to have to make due with insufficient resources for yet another year.  But it’s not going to be as bad as if Republicans got their wishes. Relatively flat-funding will prevent SSA from radically improving wait times for customer service and may force further cutbacks, including additional field office closures.

Q: Is there anything to be done to get SSA more funding during this fiscal year? 

Adcock: We are hoping for a separate piece of legislation like a supplemental appropriations bill that could include extra money for SSA that it won’t receive through the regular appropriations process. The President may ask for more funding for SSA in his FY 2025 budget, but he cannot submit a new budget until FY 2024 appropriations have been enacted. 

Q:  House Republicans are pushing for a fiscal commission (which we fiercely oppose) that could end up recommending cuts to Social Security and Medicare. Where does that stand right now? 

Adcock: That’s still something that could still be included in a final spending deal.  As a freestanding bill, it couldn’t get 60 votes in order to pass the Senate. But if a fiscal commission was inserted  into the final spending deal, then it could pass along with everything else. 

Q: Would Democrats vote for a spending pill that contains the ‘poison pill’ of a fiscal commission?

Adcock: They may accede to it. The thinking might go, “We’re not actually cutting anything by voting for this. So let the Republicans play their fiscal commission game and in the end it won’t matter.” But, in reality, it does matter. Because a fiscal commission’s recommendations could take on a life of their own.  We have opposed a fiscal commission from the very beginning because the process could end up in benefit cuts. It’s a Pandora’s box that’s better not to open.

END 



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