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:
I don’t see how retirement can be considered a luxury. I think it will be boring and expensive.
If I win a big lotto, I’ll retract this statement as soon as the first check clears.
I’m 53 and I agree.
What might be easier is to make it health dependent.
Some 70 year olds are great and can work forever.
Some are feeling like poop.
Depends on lifestyle but more so genetics.
You get lucky and get good dna and live long and feel fine till you die at 90
most of us schlubs aren’t so lucky
(I will never retire till my kids push me out)
Funny how no one ever mentions economic policy that promotes maximum growth and full employment. It won’t fix the ponzi scheme, but it will make the solutions so much easier and less painful.
It should take at least 20 years to raise it that much but since folks are living so much longer I agree
and I am not young
And the response is:
"To support Liberal entitlements, and prevent the collapse of the economy, all working, taxpaying citizens will need to increase productivity by %15 for the beneficiaries of the entitlements. Higher taxation to support entitlements means less money in your pocket, so you'll need to increase your productivity! America, do you want to be enslaved to the entitled?"
You are correct. My mistake. But all the same, it’s taxpayer money being scammed by mooches. Not everyone is a mooch, but there are too many mooches living off that free income.
#89: Please tell us how you REALLY feel!
Absolutely!
Unfortunately, that will be pretty soon for me.
All you youngsters out there in Freepland better keep working hard and paying those taxes so old Lancey can relax and do some gambling.
I just double checked and I was correct. SSI is funded by general taxes, NOT Social Security taxes, so it’s an entirely seperate program.
The names of the program are so similar though, and so confusing. SSI is Supplemental Security Income. SS and SSD is Social Security retirement (either old age or medically retired/disabled) and ONLY for those who worked and paid into the system.
I know the rules for SS/SSD were extremely strict when I applied 13 years ago, and I’ve heard those rules are still very tight even now, but I have also heard that SSI is like food stamps; ask and ye shall receive.
not this one
+1
not this one
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.
Most of these fixit plans have phase-ins. Even now, the full retirement age is 65 for some folks and 66 for others, depending on when they were born.
It probably would have been better had SS not been developed in the first place. But, since it has, as you say, many have not only been drained to support it, but have been deprived of the means of saving for themselves because of their SS payments. So, any actuarially solvent change has to be phased in. I can't imagine a plan which would up the retirement age suddently, unretiring people who had already retired and become disconnected from their work.
It's like addiction to a drug... seems good at first, but then it's hard to break, especially cold turkey.
You’re an a$$.
Untrue. Life expectancy for a black male is 14 years less than a white male; attributable to not only infancy mortality but also poor health habits, genetic susceptablity to heart and other diseases, higher accident rates , victims of violence and so on. Lots of it their "own fault", etc, but a fact nonetheless.
Denial is not just a river in Egypt. Oh, and I dont give a fig if this doesent jibe with your personal reality template.
I'm sure this will get me booted from FR, but the truth is you feel this way because you're a clueless asshole from the "me generation". Practicaly nobody alive 'voted for' social security, it was simply taken from their paychecks all their lives with the promise they'll get it back at retirement. And if you had a freakin brain in your head you'd realize that granny and grandpa have helped, and often continue to help, their children and grandchildren, financially and otherwise. In fact they toiled, shed their blood and died so a-holes like you could have a better life, you f---ing nitwit.
As it prophesies in scripture: "But know this, that in the last days grievous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, haughty, railers, disobedient to parents, unthankful to parents, unholy, without natural affection, implacable, slanderers, without self-control, fierce, no lovers of good, traitors, headstrong, puffed up, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God;--" (2 Timothy).
Pretty well sums up this lost generation of selfish little twits. Welcome to those times you greedy old folks who slaved all your long lives for your children and their children. This is the return on your hard work, economic downturn and young people turning on you like cannibals to ensure they have enough for themselves. They will abandon you in the hopes they can continue on in their narcissistic little world of filthy attire, text messaging, blue tooth, HDTV and XBoxes.
Let me see if I follow - someone makes quite a bit of money, has wise investments, etc. and work for many years and they pay into SS but when they retire they will not get the money they paid into SS because they are already rich enough without it?
Huh?
The average lifespan back in the days of implementing Social Security was 62.
People are definately living longer than that nowadays.
You are correct. The "average life expectancy" cited is from birth, which has changed dramatically, but only because of changes in infant and child mortality. Life expectancy at age 40 has changed very little in the past two hundred years.
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