Posted on 06/29/2010 8:23:18 AM PDT by Sub-Driver
Top Republican: Raise Social Security's retirement age to 70 By Michael O'Brien - 06/29/10 10:50 AM ET
A Republican-held Congress might look to raise the retirement age to 70, House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) suggested Monday.
Boehner, the top Republican lawmaker in the House, said that raising the retirement age by five year, indexing benefits to the rate of inflation and means-testing benefits would make the massive entitlement program more solvent.
"We're all living a lot longer than anyone ever expected," Boehner said in a meeting with the editors of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. "And I think that raising the retirement age -- going out 20 years, so you're not affecting anyone close to retirement -- and eventually getting the retirement age to 70 is a step that needs to be taken."
The GOP leader said that Social Security was the most important entitlement to reform, though he also pledged that Republicans would bring legislation to the floor to repeal and replace the healthcare reforms passed earlier this year if the GOP wins back control of the House this fall.
But Boehner also floated several other reforms to Social Security, paired with raising the retirement age, to make it more solvent. Boehner said that benefits should be tied to increases in the Consumer Price Index (CPI) instead of wage inflation, and he suggested reducing or eliminating benefits to Americans with a "substantial non-Social Security income" while retired.
"We just need to be honest with people," he said. "I'm not suggesting it's going to be easy, but I think if we did those three things, you'd pretty well solve the problem."
Republican have made cutting spending and reforming entitlement programs a key part of their 2010 campaign message.
Watch the entirety of Boehner's explanation below:
Whether or not it affects me is not the point.
Working papers can be isssued at age 14, unless things have changed, to my knowledge. So just how considerate of him to tell people that they can work for 56 years now.
I don’t need a gov’t that steals money from me and then thinks it has the right to tell me when it’s ok to give it back.
I say end it now, give what ever is left in it to those who have paid into it, and let S.S. die.
They looted the fund friend...You don't think these crooks are looking for a way out?
Both plus post #112.
Great idea! I do not think it is a coincidence that welfare stated in 1965 at the same time that the SS fund stared being put into the general fund. If they did start putting ss fund into a trust like it should be then they would have to cut off the moochers.
Wouldn’t it be even nicer if you didn’t have to pay into Social Security at all? Then you could save your money and retire at whatever age you choose.
But even if the age limit is raised to 70, it wouldn’t go into affect for 20 years or so, so how would that be a problem for you? That still wouldn’t affect your retirement age, unless you only counted on SS for your retirement needs (which would be foolish).
Right?
BINGO!
I agree with you! Boehner's comment will be used to scare voters who have paid into social security for decades whose jobs are dicey or who have already been laid off or terminated (most without pensions and who have very limited savings to fall back upon).
The reality is that democrats are the ones who have all along blown social security funds to smithereens but will use Boehner's words to blame republicans for the suggestion to take their desperately needed (and long paid into) social security income away from them.
The times we're in (it's way past time Obama got the blame for spending money on porkulus- killing the economy - and jobs that never materialized) and Boehner's "timing" are both bad.
I actually hope these corrupt AHs try this.....
Bring it on.
Oh, really?
Are you saying that the first dollar I made in 1964 is worth the same as a dollar today?
A dollar today is hardly worth the paper it’s printed on.
None of them do....They're collecting their lottery style government retirement benefits...
Truth is, they don't give a damn about you, or this country.
The liberals will say: "Raise taxes on employees and employers. Problem solved."
This loses the Elderly and babyboom vote
Any elder, or boomer, who doesn’t get the fact that SS cannot continue as advertised, is part of the problem and is on course to destroy the nation, Therefor the sooner the reeducation process begins, the easier the pill is going to be to swallow, and swallow we must. The alternative is not pretty.
After 60? I have so many friends in their 50’s who have been laid off. A year and a half later, they still have no jobs. They are not hiring people in their 50’s either. So I guess you just go on welfare for 15 years and then collect, that is if you are still alive at 70.
Well said.
I don’t want to wait until I’m wearing diapers to retire.
We may be living longer, but not necessarily healthier. There are more senior drug addicts hooked on prescription drugs than any one else.
There is no enumerated power in Article 1 Section 8 that grants Congress the authority to regulate wages. Social Security needs to be abolished on the federal level and implemented on the state level per the 10th Amendment.
And yeah, the Democrats screwed it up.
And yeah, Congressmen get a nice retirement plan.
None of those things change in the least the fact that the system is running out of money.
We either cut the benefits, raise the taxes, or run the train till the wheels come off.
And by the way, I am well over 50.
You have got to be kidding. Means testing? So, a person pays into SS for their entire career and then get little because they managed to save a lot of money on their own? Karl Marx, here we come.
Ay-men to that. Medicare too. The Medicare program of 2030 will be unrecognizable compared to what we have today. This will happen regardless of whether liberals or conservatives are at the wheel.
Isn’t SSI (which is Supplemental Security Income, not Social Security) a different, entirely seperate program from Social Security?
I know Social Security (and SS Disability, which is early retirement due to medical issues) is for people who have worked and paid into the system.
I also know (or think I know) that SSI is for those who have NOT worked or paid into Social Security (not long enough anyway), so I thought they were entirely seperate programs.
And if that’s the case, then the two - SS & SSI - are not related.
So does that mean you can’t answer my question?
Exactly how would means-testing work?
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