Dem Senator Sherrod Brown, a member of the Finance Committee, tells me that GOP Senators have requested hearings into Social Security Disability Insurance this summer. Dems expect Republicans to attack the program as wasteful and fraudulent, in part because conservative media have already done so, and in part because at least one GOP proposal in recent days took aim at the program.EXACTLY. This is adjusting to the realities of the workplace of the last 35 years, and giving people the FREEDOM to decide whether they wish to stay on the job, or leave and receive the benefits they have earned. And I dare Republicans to stand up for allowing people who earn six figures to continue to get a tax cut that the rest of us do not.
Brown says Dems should seize this occasion to get behind a proposal that would lift or change the payroll tax cap, meaning higher earners would pay more, while adopting a new measure for inflation that would increase benefits for all seniors. Instead of getting drawn into debates about “Chained CPI” and other entitlement cuts, Brown says, Dems should make the case that stagnating wages and declining pensions and savings demand an expansion of social insurance.
“We should stop playing defense on Social Security, and instead talk about why Social Security is a public pension that we should be proud of, that has lifted tens of millions of people out of poverty,” Brown tells me. “The three-legged stool — Social Security, pensions, private savings — has seen two of the legs sawed off for a large number of people. It’s time to look at expanding Social Security as an issue of retirement security.”
And please, GOP, try to cut Disability Insurance and imply that everyone on it is a lazy abuser of the system. That'll go over REALLY well with a lot of those recipients and the family members taking care of them - middle-aged white people in rural areas.
I sure wish more Dems in DC talked like Sen. Brown and Sen. Warren. Tammy Baldwin, take note.
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