Free Republic

After years of Republican-led debate over how to pare back Social Security’s rising costs, Democrats are flipping the script with an ambitious plan to expand the New Deal-era social insurance program while making gradual changes to keep it solvent for the rest of the century. The Social Security 2100 Act, which was introduced this past week in the House and the Senate, represents a sea change after decades dominated by concern that aging baby boomers would bankrupt the government as they begin drawing benefits from Social Security and other entitlement programs. It would be the first major expansion of Social...

House speaker John Boehner is set to sign an offer from Obama to accelerate negotiations. Republicans in the House of Representatives have capitulated in the showdown over the payroll tax, handing Barack Obama an important victory going into election year. Under pressure from other senior Republicans for blocking a bill that would extend tax cuts to millions of Americans, the House speaker, John Boehner, is backing away from his insistence that any deal must cover a full year. A deal agreed by Republicans and Democrats in the Senate on Saturday covers two months, to allow further negotiations in January. It...

BOSTON–Chanting “hands off” and “no cuts,” hundreds of seniors rallied here to warn Congress’s deficit-cutting supercommittee to stay away from Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. “When you get older, you need help, not cuts,” said Steve Ciardi, a former pipe fitter who has multiple sclerosis and was in a wheelchair being pushed by his wife, Patty. “That is what the country is about – helping people,” she said. AARP Massachusetts, the SEIU and AFL-CIO labor unions, and several senior activist groups are organizing the event, which kicked off this morning with a rally at the historic Wang Theatre in downtown...

WASHINGTON — Three senators, including Utah Republican Mike Lee, say they can fix Social Security without raising taxes — and keep the entitlement financially stable for future generations to come. Lee unveiled the proposal Wednesday — the same day President Barack Obama revealed his deficit-reduction plan to Congress — along with Sens. Rand Paul, R-Ky., and Lindsey Graham, R-S.C. (snip) The plan would not affect benefits of those people already retired and those people over the age of 56. Their proposal would gradually raise the retirement age from 67 to 70 by 2032. (snip) The plan also calls for a...

CHARLESTON, S.C. (WCIV) -- Senator graham wants to raise the age to receive social security benefits from 65 to 70 by the year 2032 in hopes it will save the country trillions of dollars. With the nation in a financial crisis, several conservative republican senators have a plan that would keep working American working longer. "There is no way in God's green earth to save America from bankruptcy until you deal with entitlements, social security, Medicare and Medicaid, combined in the next 20 years is going to absorb every dollar of revenue coming to this place. There won't be any...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - While Congress brawls over how to shrink a $1.6 trillion budget deficit this year, an even tougher battle has begun over cutting popular Social Security retirement benefits to achieve long-term savings. It's unclear whether Congress will be able to agree on how to reform the massive government pension program, which has provided a social safety net for the elderly since 1935. That in part will depend on whether President Barack Obama throws his weight behind a reform effort that politicians of all stripes fear could be full of political risks. While the president has invited a conversation...

Prepared to spend the next many months reading about reforming Social Security? Of course not. And you don't have to. Just read the next 975 words of this column and you will know all you need to know. In fact, you will be able to fix Social Security yourself in the time it takes to recite this sentence: "Drop the wage indexing formula." As anybody who has been breathing during the last decade knows, Social Security is heading for disaster. Boomers are going to start retiring, and paying for their benefits will slurp up all the payroll taxes coming into...