Miner Queries: Would you like Social Security expanded?

 Back in January I wrote about Congressional Republicans’ inaugural 2015 legislation:  cuts to the Social Security disability fund. As I noted then, this was another budget red herring designed to create a crisis that could only be solved by cuts to a solvent and effective program.

Now that we’re in the run-up to the 2016 presidential campaign, we are hearing more policy ideas to jump start our sluggish economy. Of course, from the Republican field, 19 and counting, we get the usual tired smaller-government-and-tax-cuts mantra that hasn’t worked for at least the last 40 years. By now I hope voters have figured out this prescription means fewer government services for the 99 percent and tax cuts for the 1 percent, including multinational corporations. 

But on the other side of the political aisle, I’m hearing completely different ideas. Since I’m a bit of an economic junkie, I read work by a number of economists and policy wonks, including former Clinton administration Labor Secretary Robert Reich. Now a teacher at UC Berkeley, Reich has a genius for communicating policy in everyday terms. 

His latest short video series is called, “Ten Ideas to Save the Economy,” and No. 3 on the list is “Expand Social Security.”

Reich calls the ideas that private companies can’t afford retirement benefits and that Social Security won’t be there for future retirees “baloney.” 

He explains companies no longer pay into pensions for their employees, instead only offering programs that hinge upon the employee making contributions. But unfortunately, many employees don’t make enough money to participate.

Likewise, Social Security is based upon your wages. So if you work in a low-wage job, your Social Security retirement income may not cover your living expenses.

But as Reich points out, there’s a simple solution to this problem. “Unlike the Medicare payroll tax that everyone pays as a small portion of their total incomes, the Social Security payroll tax is capped. Any income over $118,500 this year is exempt from it. Which means a billionaire pays the same Social Security payroll tax as someone earning $118,500.”

Reich urges us to “scrap the cap” so all seniors can have a secure retirement. That’s why Social Security was created.

And the need has become more urgent as private pension plans and, more recently, public employee pension plans have been eliminated, altered or attacked.

For example, Edwin Lyngar wrote in Salon Magazine last week about efforts to dismantle the Nevada public employee retirement system. Formerly regarded as one of the best run public pensions in the country, right wing politicos in the Nevada statehouse are using the same tired “we can’t afford it” attacks as those used on Social Security. 

Lyngar writes: “But the very question of affordability is moot, because the attack on retirement has nothing at all to do with money. The real goal of conservatives is to break government, so that Wall Street and the well-connected can feast upon the carcass, gorging themselves on ill-conceived privatization schemes.”

He concludes, “They will destroy and dismantle, vilify and divide, because it’s easier to make people resent one another than to make society better.”

As you look to 2016, examine who wants to expand Social Security and who tries to sell it as insolvent. That should tell you who’s looking out for your interests.

Cherie Miner is a local parent, community volunteer, freelance writer and artist. In a former life, she was a corporate writer and public relations professional. Contact her at news@redoakexpress.com or on Facebook.