No Spring Break Ceasefire in the War on the Working Class
Congress may be home for Easter break and President Trump is busy dropping bombs in Syria and Afghanistan, but the War on the Working Class continues unabated. In fact, it was quite a busy week for floating dangerous ideas about our nation’s healthcare and retirement security.
First, the Associated Press ran a story based on information from an unnamed “GOP lobbyist” saying that Republicans are considering repealing the Social Security payroll tax. Under this alleged plan, Social Security would be funded from general revenue and therefore subject to competition with other domestic programs — and the whims of Congressional budget cutters. Never mind that the payroll tax is what makes Social Security an earned benefit. President Franklin D. Roosevelt set it up that way on purpose to “give the contributors a legal, moral and political right to collect” their Social Security checks. Plus, the current payroll tax deduction has been working pretty well for the past 80 years.
Since enough members of Congress realize this is an awful proposal that would never pass the House and Senate, clearly someone is out there floating crazy ideas in the press. (In addition, the A.P. story itself lacked any real sense of balance or context.) While the source for the A.P. story was unnamed, a top Trump administration official very publicly floated notions that seem to undermine President Trump’s promise not to touch Social Security and Medicare. In an interview with CNBC’s John Harwood on Tuesday, Budget Director Mick Mulvaney just couldn’t say whether President Trump would veto legislation to privatize Medicare. “Let [Congress] pass that and let’s talk about it,” he demurred.
When Harwood asked if Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) was on the list of potential programs to be cut, Mulvaney offered this non-reassuring response:
“I continue to look forward to talking to the president about ways to fix that program. Because that is one of the fastest growing programs that we have. It’s become effectively a long-term unemployment, permanent unemployment program.” – Mick Mulvaney
Of course, that response is riddled with inaccuracies. SSDI is not growing, it’s leveling off at a lower rate that is likely to plateau for the next 20 years. It most definitely is not an unemployment program of any kind – permanent or otherwise. SSDI is one of the strictest federal disability programs in the world in terms of qualifying for benefits. Only those who are able to demonstrate that they are unable to work for medical reasons qualify. Among all the people who apply, only 40% are accepted. If accepted, the average beneficiary receives only $1,170 per month, less than one could earn in a full time job at the federal minimum wage.
That didn’t stop the Washington Post from echoing some of the same right-wing myths about SSDI in a recent feature story and an editorial entitled, “The Social Security Disability Program Needs Reform.” The story wrongly intimates that rural, working-class Americans are using SSDI as a unemployment program. On Monday, Media Matters for America attempted to correct the record:
“The Post’s mischaracterization of SSDI follows a long history of misinformation from mainstream outlets, which often publish error-riddled stories filled with anecdotal evidence portraying disability recipients as undeserving. These pieces sound as if they come from right-wing media, which have spent years attacking the program and its recipients.” – Media Matters, 4/10/17
While the press was replete with nutty notions about Social Security and Medicare, the President and Congressional Republicans were reviving the specter of the moribund GOP healthcare bill. Just when you thought it was dead, Freedom Caucus members say they are close to a deal with the White House and Speaker Ryan to repeal and replace Obamacare within three weeks. Meanwhile, Politico reports that President Trump is threatening to cut off cost-sharing subsidies that help pay for low income earners’ health coverage in order to force Democrats to the negotiating table on the GOP health plan.
Fortunately, protesters are out in full force this week at town halls pushing back against supporters of the Republican bill, including one of the National Committee’s own grassroots volunteers who organized a rally outside a Florida congressman’s office. This proves that Spring break is a good time for grassroots action. Just because it’s holiday time doesn’t mean those waging war against the working class won’t put some rotten eggs in our Easter baskets.
Republicans are Considering Eliminating the Social Security Payroll Tax as Part of a Grand Tax Reform Scheme
“One [proposal] circulating this past week would… eliminate much of the [Social Security] payroll tax…”
Sources:
Associated Press Article
Congressional Correspondent:
Josh Boak and Stephen Ohlemacher
Correction:
Associated Press correspondents Josh Boak and Stephen Ohlemacher report this week that Republicans are considering eliminating the Social Security payroll tax as part of a grand tax reform scheme. Their reporting is based on an unnamed “GOP lobbyist.” Eliminating the payroll tax may be the lobbyist’s pet cause — or it could be a trial balloon from the Trump administration. Either way, the AP story seriously lacks context or balance. The piece touts the $3,700 extra that a worker making $60,000 per year would gain in take home pay, making the payroll tax rollback seem like a gift to working people. In reality, eliminating the payroll tax could rob Americans of their retirement security — including that worker making $60K.
The story doesn’t mention that the payroll tax has been a pillar of Social Security for more than 80 years. Workers pay into the system knowing they will receive Social Security benefits upon retirement, disability or death. According to the AP article, Republicans would change Social Security’s financing by substituting the traditional payroll contribution with a value-added tax (VAT). This would convert Social Security from an earned benefit to ‘just another’ government social program subject to the whims of fiscal hawks. The financial security of America’s seniors would suddenly have to compete with the budget demands of other government programs, potentially pitting seniors against other vital domestic interests. But the AP story excludes these negative consequences. The article notes that the proposal would likely run into opposition from Democrats “who are loathe to be seen as undermining Social Security,” implying that any objection to the proposal would be for the sake of appearances. No, Democrats would fight the elimination of the payroll tax to protect a worker-funded program that has the overwhelming approval among the majority of Americans. They know what the AP story doesn’t say: that Social Security has provided basic retirement security since 1935 — and kept multiple generations of seniors out of poverty.
New Bill in U.S. House Boosts Social Security Benefits, Keeps System Solvent for Decades
Legislation just introduced in the U.S. House would put extra money in Social Security beneficiaries’ pockets while keeping the system solvent through the rest of this century. Rep. John Larson’s Social Security 2100 Act does all of that and something more: It gives lie to the myth that Social Security is going bankrupt and the only way to fix it is by cutting benefits.
Larson’s solution is simple… and fair. It asks the wealthy to pay their fair share of Social Security payroll taxes. In exchange, the legislation ensures Social Security stays solvent through the year 2100 – with no benefit cuts and no turning over the program to Wall Street, which budget hawks have long dreamed of doing.
The Act provides much needed relief to seniors who are having a difficult time paying for basic expenses like healthcare, housing, and utilities. The bill includes a modest 2% benefit increase for all beneficiaries, higher cost of living adjustments (COLAs), and a tax break for 11 million seniors. Since 2014, the National Committee’s Boost Social Security Now campaign has lobbied Congress to pass expansion legislation on behalf of its millions of members and supporters.
In a Facebook Live interview with the National Committee, Congressman Larson says he hopes his bill will ride the wave of grassroots energy that defeated the GOP healthcare plan last month. “What we saw was people saying, ‘Wait a minute, keep your hands off my healthcare.’ It’s the same with Social Security. We want to continue to build a groundswell in this country.” Larson says the bill has already attracted more than 150 cosponsors in the House. The Congressman calls on President Trump to support it, based on his campaign promises to “protect” Social Security.
In order to keep the system solvent through the year 2100, the Larson bill would apply the Social Security payroll tax to wages above $400,000, which only would affect the top 0.4% of wage earners. (Currently, earnings above $127,200 are exempt from the payroll taxes.) Eventually, the cap would be phased out completely. In addition, the legislation would gradually raise the overall payroll tax rate by 1% over 25 years – an increase of only 50 cents per week for a worker making $50,000 per year (or, as Larson himself is fond of pointing out, the price of one Starbucks coffee drink every nine weeks). These financing changes would not only keep Social Security flush, they would allow for a modest 2% benefit increase for all beneficiaries — and a tax break for 11 million seniors earning under $50,000 a year (or $100,000 for older married couples).
The Larson bill not only provides an increase in benefits, it would help retirees better keep up with inflation by linking cost of living adjustments (COLAs) to an index called the CPI-E (Consumer Price Index for the Elderly). The CPI-E takes into consideration what seniors really spend for crucial goods and services, including housing and medical costs.
The National Committee has enthusiastically endorsed the Social Security 2100 Act. As President and CEO Max Richtman explains, “This bill is a win-win for beneficiaries and the entire country, because it protects the commitment to hard working Americans who pay into the system and enhances benefits.”
**************************************************************
Watch Congressman Larson’s full Facebook Live interview here.
Watch the Social Security 2100 Act event on Capitol Hill Facebook Live here.
Note to Paul Ryan: Let Sleeping Healthcare Bills Lie
Speaker Paul Ryan made some extraordinary statements on today’s CBS This Morning – even for him. First, he chastised President Trump for offering to work with Democrats on health care reform, saying it was “hardly a conservative thing” to do. The reason: “Democrats are not for repealing Obamacare. We are.” Clinging to ideology over reality, Ryan declared, “I don’t want government running healthcare.” Oh really? Has he heard of a program called Medicare? Oh, that’s right – he wants to privatize it. Ryan hasn’t gotten around to turning Medicare into a voucher program just yet, but at least seniors can rest easier knowing that the GOP health plan went down in flames.
Less than a week later, a rift seems to be opening between the President and the Speaker on this issue. President Trump may have finally realized that the only way to get a real healthcare fix through Congress is to work with Democrats and stop coddling right-wingers in the House. He even fired off a tweet this morning aimed squarely at the ultraconservative House Freedom Caucus, which helped defeat the Republican plan:
“The Freedom Caucus will hurt the entire Republican agenda if they don’t get on the team, & fast. We must fight them… in 2018!” – Trump Tweet, 3/30/17
Of course, Democrats won’t work with Trump unless he gives up on repealing Obamacare and pivots toward fixing its flaws. That’s something Ryan and the House Republicans have refused to do during the entire seven years that Obamacare has been “the law of the land.” In fact, Republicans have taken measures both on the Hill (and in the new Trump White House) to actively undermine the law. Trump’s offers to work with Democrats won’t mean much unless his HHS Secretary and his administration refrain from manipulating regulations to stifle Obamacare.
This afternoon, Congressman Luis Gutierrez (D-IL) told CNN, “[Obamacare] needs to be modified to give more people coverage. If Trump wants to do that, I’m all for working with him.”
It’s hard to believe, but in this case Trump – not Ryan – may be taking the more politically savvy approach. Here’s why: the American people by and large loathe the defeated GOP healthcare bill. A new Associated Press poll indicates 62% of Americans dislike the dead GOP legislation. Here’s an even more eye-opening number: 8 in 10 Republicans oppose the provision that would have allowed insurers to charge seniors 5 times as much as younger people. President Trump’s spider sense has told him to move toward the middle on health care. Meanwhile, Paul Ryan threatens to bring the moribund GOP healthcare bill back to life. He would be wise to study those poll numbers and let sleeping bills lie.
***********************************************
If you missed our Facebook Live discussion with Social Security champion, Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL), you can watch it here.
Will Seniors Reject Republicans in 2018?
Older voters have been gravitating to the Republican party for the better part of the past two decades. Forty-eight percent of seniors identify or lean Republican compared to 45% for Democrats — and Donald Trump won 53% of the senior vote last Fall. But are we about to witness a “grey” re-alignment? According to an article in today’s The Hill newspaper, Democrats say maybe so. Democratic strategists are hoping that Republicans are starting to repel seniors by striving to repeal Obamacare, gut Medicaid, privatize Medicare and cut Social Security. It doesn’t help that President Trump’s proposed budget slashes federal block grants that help pay for Meals on Wheels and other programs that stabilize and support seniors.
In a Facebook Live broadcast with National Committee President Max Richtman today, Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky (D-IL) agreed that seniors may swing back to the Democratic party in the next election cycle. “Republicans like to imply that seniors are greedy geezers,” Schakowsky said, “But their Obamacare replacement would have allowed seniors to be charged up to 500% more than younger Americans for private health insurance.”
There are myriad reasons for older voters’ preference for the GOP in recent years. The majority of white voters identify as Republicans — and some 85% of today’s seniors are white. Many of today’s older voters came of age during the prosperous post-war America of the 1950s – and may feel alienated by cultural changes associated with the Democrats. In fact, candidate Trump skillfully played on seniors’ nostalgia for a bygone (and in many ways, imaginary) America.
Another factor may be that seniors have felt supremely confident – some would say overly confident – about the sanctity of the two federal programs that benefit them the most, Social Security and Medicare. The Democrats may have done such a good job protecting these programs that seniors simply take them for granted. In fact, the last time that the majority of seniors voted Democratic was in the 2006 congressional elections, after President George W. Bush tried to privatize Social Security. Democrats and seniors’ advocates like the National Committee stopped him. On the other hand, President Trump won the senior vote not only by thrumming the strings of nostalgia, but by promising not to touch Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid (promises he is already breaking).
To win back seniors in 2018 and beyond, Democrats must remind them that Republicans are an existential threat to our cherished retirement and health security programs. In other words, thanks to the GOP, the time for overconfidence in the inevitability of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid is over. President Trump is already shattering his sacred promises to older voters. He fought for the GOP’s American Health Care Act which would have cut nearly $1 trillion from Medicaid (on which poorer seniors depend for long-term care) and reduced the solvency of Medicare by three years. House Speaker Paul Ryan still dreams of turning Medicare into a voucher program. Congressman Sam Johnson (R-TX) is pushing a bill to cut cost of living adjustments (COLAs) for Social Security and raise the retirement age to 69. And despite his campaign vows, the president has surrounded himself with budget hawks who are sharpening their knives for seniors’ earned benefits programs. (Earlier this month, Budget Director Mick Mulvaney questioned whether disability benefits should even be a part of Social Security.)
Democrats must also bust the oft-repeated myths that Republicans use to justify benefit cuts — that Social Security and Medicare are going “bankrupt” and need to be “modernized” (translation: privatized and cut). If Congress does nothing, Medicare still will be able to pay 87% of benefits beyond its 2028 “insolvency” date and Social Security 79% of benefits beyond 2034. To win the senior vote, Democrats must push the kind of modest and manageable solutions proposed by Senator Bernie Sanders, Congressman John Larson (D-CT), and others to keep these programs solvent for the long haul – with no benefit cuts.
Recent polling suggests that the party who sides with seniors on these crucial issues will reap political gains. The National Committee’s own poll of likely voters showed overwhelming support for traditional Social Security and Medicare. Even more encouraging, strong majorities opposed benefit cuts and higher eligibility ages — and favored boosting benefits by scrapping the payroll tax cap so that the wealthy pay their fair share. As long as Democrats back up their rhetoric with action and vigorously oppose harmful changes to Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and Obamacare, they have a decent shot at winning back those coveted seniors at the ballot box.
No Spring Break Ceasefire in the War on the Working Class
Congress may be home for Easter break and President Trump is busy dropping bombs in Syria and Afghanistan, but the War on the Working Class continues unabated. In fact, it was quite a busy week for floating dangerous ideas about our nation’s healthcare and retirement security.
First, the Associated Press ran a story based on information from an unnamed “GOP lobbyist” saying that Republicans are considering repealing the Social Security payroll tax. Under this alleged plan, Social Security would be funded from general revenue and therefore subject to competition with other domestic programs — and the whims of Congressional budget cutters. Never mind that the payroll tax is what makes Social Security an earned benefit. President Franklin D. Roosevelt set it up that way on purpose to “give the contributors a legal, moral and political right to collect” their Social Security checks. Plus, the current payroll tax deduction has been working pretty well for the past 80 years.
Since enough members of Congress realize this is an awful proposal that would never pass the House and Senate, clearly someone is out there floating crazy ideas in the press. (In addition, the A.P. story itself lacked any real sense of balance or context.) While the source for the A.P. story was unnamed, a top Trump administration official very publicly floated notions that seem to undermine President Trump’s promise not to touch Social Security and Medicare. In an interview with CNBC’s John Harwood on Tuesday, Budget Director Mick Mulvaney just couldn’t say whether President Trump would veto legislation to privatize Medicare. “Let [Congress] pass that and let’s talk about it,” he demurred.
When Harwood asked if Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) was on the list of potential programs to be cut, Mulvaney offered this non-reassuring response:
“I continue to look forward to talking to the president about ways to fix that program. Because that is one of the fastest growing programs that we have. It’s become effectively a long-term unemployment, permanent unemployment program.” – Mick Mulvaney
Of course, that response is riddled with inaccuracies. SSDI is not growing, it’s leveling off at a lower rate that is likely to plateau for the next 20 years. It most definitely is not an unemployment program of any kind – permanent or otherwise. SSDI is one of the strictest federal disability programs in the world in terms of qualifying for benefits. Only those who are able to demonstrate that they are unable to work for medical reasons qualify. Among all the people who apply, only 40% are accepted. If accepted, the average beneficiary receives only $1,170 per month, less than one could earn in a full time job at the federal minimum wage.
That didn’t stop the Washington Post from echoing some of the same right-wing myths about SSDI in a recent feature story and an editorial entitled, “The Social Security Disability Program Needs Reform.” The story wrongly intimates that rural, working-class Americans are using SSDI as a unemployment program. On Monday, Media Matters for America attempted to correct the record:
“The Post’s mischaracterization of SSDI follows a long history of misinformation from mainstream outlets, which often publish error-riddled stories filled with anecdotal evidence portraying disability recipients as undeserving. These pieces sound as if they come from right-wing media, which have spent years attacking the program and its recipients.” – Media Matters, 4/10/17
While the press was replete with nutty notions about Social Security and Medicare, the President and Congressional Republicans were reviving the specter of the moribund GOP healthcare bill. Just when you thought it was dead, Freedom Caucus members say they are close to a deal with the White House and Speaker Ryan to repeal and replace Obamacare within three weeks. Meanwhile, Politico reports that President Trump is threatening to cut off cost-sharing subsidies that help pay for low income earners’ health coverage in order to force Democrats to the negotiating table on the GOP health plan.
Fortunately, protesters are out in full force this week at town halls pushing back against supporters of the Republican bill, including one of the National Committee’s own grassroots volunteers who organized a rally outside a Florida congressman’s office. This proves that Spring break is a good time for grassroots action. Just because it’s holiday time doesn’t mean those waging war against the working class won’t put some rotten eggs in our Easter baskets.
Republicans are Considering Eliminating the Social Security Payroll Tax as Part of a Grand Tax Reform Scheme
“One [proposal] circulating this past week would… eliminate much of the [Social Security] payroll tax…”
Sources:
Associated Press Article
Congressional Correspondent:
Josh Boak and Stephen Ohlemacher
Correction:
Associated Press correspondents Josh Boak and Stephen Ohlemacher report this week that Republicans are considering eliminating the Social Security payroll tax as part of a grand tax reform scheme. Their reporting is based on an unnamed “GOP lobbyist.” Eliminating the payroll tax may be the lobbyist’s pet cause — or it could be a trial balloon from the Trump administration. Either way, the AP story seriously lacks context or balance. The piece touts the $3,700 extra that a worker making $60,000 per year would gain in take home pay, making the payroll tax rollback seem like a gift to working people. In reality, eliminating the payroll tax could rob Americans of their retirement security — including that worker making $60K.
The story doesn’t mention that the payroll tax has been a pillar of Social Security for more than 80 years. Workers pay into the system knowing they will receive Social Security benefits upon retirement, disability or death. According to the AP article, Republicans would change Social Security’s financing by substituting the traditional payroll contribution with a value-added tax (VAT). This would convert Social Security from an earned benefit to ‘just another’ government social program subject to the whims of fiscal hawks. The financial security of America’s seniors would suddenly have to compete with the budget demands of other government programs, potentially pitting seniors against other vital domestic interests. But the AP story excludes these negative consequences. The article notes that the proposal would likely run into opposition from Democrats “who are loathe to be seen as undermining Social Security,” implying that any objection to the proposal would be for the sake of appearances. No, Democrats would fight the elimination of the payroll tax to protect a worker-funded program that has the overwhelming approval among the majority of Americans. They know what the AP story doesn’t say: that Social Security has provided basic retirement security since 1935 — and kept multiple generations of seniors out of poverty.
New Bill in U.S. House Boosts Social Security Benefits, Keeps System Solvent for Decades
Legislation just introduced in the U.S. House would put extra money in Social Security beneficiaries’ pockets while keeping the system solvent through the rest of this century. Rep. John Larson’s Social Security 2100 Act does all of that and something more: It gives lie to the myth that Social Security is going bankrupt and the only way to fix it is by cutting benefits.
Larson’s solution is simple… and fair. It asks the wealthy to pay their fair share of Social Security payroll taxes. In exchange, the legislation ensures Social Security stays solvent through the year 2100 – with no benefit cuts and no turning over the program to Wall Street, which budget hawks have long dreamed of doing.
The Act provides much needed relief to seniors who are having a difficult time paying for basic expenses like healthcare, housing, and utilities. The bill includes a modest 2% benefit increase for all beneficiaries, higher cost of living adjustments (COLAs), and a tax break for 11 million seniors. Since 2014, the National Committee’s Boost Social Security Now campaign has lobbied Congress to pass expansion legislation on behalf of its millions of members and supporters.
In a Facebook Live interview with the National Committee, Congressman Larson says he hopes his bill will ride the wave of grassroots energy that defeated the GOP healthcare plan last month. “What we saw was people saying, ‘Wait a minute, keep your hands off my healthcare.’ It’s the same with Social Security. We want to continue to build a groundswell in this country.” Larson says the bill has already attracted more than 150 cosponsors in the House. The Congressman calls on President Trump to support it, based on his campaign promises to “protect” Social Security.
In order to keep the system solvent through the year 2100, the Larson bill would apply the Social Security payroll tax to wages above $400,000, which only would affect the top 0.4% of wage earners. (Currently, earnings above $127,200 are exempt from the payroll taxes.) Eventually, the cap would be phased out completely. In addition, the legislation would gradually raise the overall payroll tax rate by 1% over 25 years – an increase of only 50 cents per week for a worker making $50,000 per year (or, as Larson himself is fond of pointing out, the price of one Starbucks coffee drink every nine weeks). These financing changes would not only keep Social Security flush, they would allow for a modest 2% benefit increase for all beneficiaries — and a tax break for 11 million seniors earning under $50,000 a year (or $100,000 for older married couples).
The Larson bill not only provides an increase in benefits, it would help retirees better keep up with inflation by linking cost of living adjustments (COLAs) to an index called the CPI-E (Consumer Price Index for the Elderly). The CPI-E takes into consideration what seniors really spend for crucial goods and services, including housing and medical costs.
The National Committee has enthusiastically endorsed the Social Security 2100 Act. As President and CEO Max Richtman explains, “This bill is a win-win for beneficiaries and the entire country, because it protects the commitment to hard working Americans who pay into the system and enhances benefits.”
**************************************************************
Watch Congressman Larson’s full Facebook Live interview here.
Watch the Social Security 2100 Act event on Capitol Hill Facebook Live here.
Note to Paul Ryan: Let Sleeping Healthcare Bills Lie
Speaker Paul Ryan made some extraordinary statements on today’s CBS This Morning – even for him. First, he chastised President Trump for offering to work with Democrats on health care reform, saying it was “hardly a conservative thing” to do. The reason: “Democrats are not for repealing Obamacare. We are.” Clinging to ideology over reality, Ryan declared, “I don’t want government running healthcare.” Oh really? Has he heard of a program called Medicare? Oh, that’s right – he wants to privatize it. Ryan hasn’t gotten around to turning Medicare into a voucher program just yet, but at least seniors can rest easier knowing that the GOP health plan went down in flames.
Less than a week later, a rift seems to be opening between the President and the Speaker on this issue. President Trump may have finally realized that the only way to get a real healthcare fix through Congress is to work with Democrats and stop coddling right-wingers in the House. He even fired off a tweet this morning aimed squarely at the ultraconservative House Freedom Caucus, which helped defeat the Republican plan:
“The Freedom Caucus will hurt the entire Republican agenda if they don’t get on the team, & fast. We must fight them… in 2018!” – Trump Tweet, 3/30/17
Of course, Democrats won’t work with Trump unless he gives up on repealing Obamacare and pivots toward fixing its flaws. That’s something Ryan and the House Republicans have refused to do during the entire seven years that Obamacare has been “the law of the land.” In fact, Republicans have taken measures both on the Hill (and in the new Trump White House) to actively undermine the law. Trump’s offers to work with Democrats won’t mean much unless his HHS Secretary and his administration refrain from manipulating regulations to stifle Obamacare.
This afternoon, Congressman Luis Gutierrez (D-IL) told CNN, “[Obamacare] needs to be modified to give more people coverage. If Trump wants to do that, I’m all for working with him.”
It’s hard to believe, but in this case Trump – not Ryan – may be taking the more politically savvy approach. Here’s why: the American people by and large loathe the defeated GOP healthcare bill. A new Associated Press poll indicates 62% of Americans dislike the dead GOP legislation. Here’s an even more eye-opening number: 8 in 10 Republicans oppose the provision that would have allowed insurers to charge seniors 5 times as much as younger people. President Trump’s spider sense has told him to move toward the middle on health care. Meanwhile, Paul Ryan threatens to bring the moribund GOP healthcare bill back to life. He would be wise to study those poll numbers and let sleeping bills lie.
***********************************************
If you missed our Facebook Live discussion with Social Security champion, Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL), you can watch it here.
Will Seniors Reject Republicans in 2018?
Older voters have been gravitating to the Republican party for the better part of the past two decades. Forty-eight percent of seniors identify or lean Republican compared to 45% for Democrats — and Donald Trump won 53% of the senior vote last Fall. But are we about to witness a “grey” re-alignment? According to an article in today’s The Hill newspaper, Democrats say maybe so. Democratic strategists are hoping that Republicans are starting to repel seniors by striving to repeal Obamacare, gut Medicaid, privatize Medicare and cut Social Security. It doesn’t help that President Trump’s proposed budget slashes federal block grants that help pay for Meals on Wheels and other programs that stabilize and support seniors.
In a Facebook Live broadcast with National Committee President Max Richtman today, Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky (D-IL) agreed that seniors may swing back to the Democratic party in the next election cycle. “Republicans like to imply that seniors are greedy geezers,” Schakowsky said, “But their Obamacare replacement would have allowed seniors to be charged up to 500% more than younger Americans for private health insurance.”
There are myriad reasons for older voters’ preference for the GOP in recent years. The majority of white voters identify as Republicans — and some 85% of today’s seniors are white. Many of today’s older voters came of age during the prosperous post-war America of the 1950s – and may feel alienated by cultural changes associated with the Democrats. In fact, candidate Trump skillfully played on seniors’ nostalgia for a bygone (and in many ways, imaginary) America.
Another factor may be that seniors have felt supremely confident – some would say overly confident – about the sanctity of the two federal programs that benefit them the most, Social Security and Medicare. The Democrats may have done such a good job protecting these programs that seniors simply take them for granted. In fact, the last time that the majority of seniors voted Democratic was in the 2006 congressional elections, after President George W. Bush tried to privatize Social Security. Democrats and seniors’ advocates like the National Committee stopped him. On the other hand, President Trump won the senior vote not only by thrumming the strings of nostalgia, but by promising not to touch Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid (promises he is already breaking).
To win back seniors in 2018 and beyond, Democrats must remind them that Republicans are an existential threat to our cherished retirement and health security programs. In other words, thanks to the GOP, the time for overconfidence in the inevitability of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid is over. President Trump is already shattering his sacred promises to older voters. He fought for the GOP’s American Health Care Act which would have cut nearly $1 trillion from Medicaid (on which poorer seniors depend for long-term care) and reduced the solvency of Medicare by three years. House Speaker Paul Ryan still dreams of turning Medicare into a voucher program. Congressman Sam Johnson (R-TX) is pushing a bill to cut cost of living adjustments (COLAs) for Social Security and raise the retirement age to 69. And despite his campaign vows, the president has surrounded himself with budget hawks who are sharpening their knives for seniors’ earned benefits programs. (Earlier this month, Budget Director Mick Mulvaney questioned whether disability benefits should even be a part of Social Security.)
Democrats must also bust the oft-repeated myths that Republicans use to justify benefit cuts — that Social Security and Medicare are going “bankrupt” and need to be “modernized” (translation: privatized and cut). If Congress does nothing, Medicare still will be able to pay 87% of benefits beyond its 2028 “insolvency” date and Social Security 79% of benefits beyond 2034. To win the senior vote, Democrats must push the kind of modest and manageable solutions proposed by Senator Bernie Sanders, Congressman John Larson (D-CT), and others to keep these programs solvent for the long haul – with no benefit cuts.
Recent polling suggests that the party who sides with seniors on these crucial issues will reap political gains. The National Committee’s own poll of likely voters showed overwhelming support for traditional Social Security and Medicare. Even more encouraging, strong majorities opposed benefit cuts and higher eligibility ages — and favored boosting benefits by scrapping the payroll tax cap so that the wealthy pay their fair share. As long as Democrats back up their rhetoric with action and vigorously oppose harmful changes to Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and Obamacare, they have a decent shot at winning back those coveted seniors at the ballot box.