Biden's Advocacy for Social Security Cuts Has Had Real Consequences

[Hassin Bin Sober]

This is from The American Prospect. Rated left bias but highly factual.

Biden’s Advocacy for Social Security Cuts Has Had Real Consequences

The proposal for ‘chained CPI,’ a cut to future benefits, during the Obama administration led to its widespread use in other areas of the government.

https://prospect.org/politics/biden-advocacy-for-social-security-trims-has-had-real-cons/


That record includes a lunge at reducing future Social Security benefits while Biden served as vice president. While thankfully unsuccessful, this mistake continues to have damaging effects to this day. Republicans capitalized on the opening of this Pandora’s box to increase taxes on lower-class Americans and reduce assistance to the poor. And it set the stage for lower Social Security benefits as well. The story of chained CPI may be the most damning part of Biden’s record on Social Security.


Going back to 1984, Biden has expressed interest in deals that would cut Social Security. He proposed freezing Social Security spending and periodically highlighted that desire; he voted for a balanced-budget amendment even after failing to shield Social Security from it; and he demanded that Social Security be “put on the table” during his last presidential run. He associates himself with a crowd known for foregrounding deficit concerns and fully willing to make “tough choices” on earned benefits like Social Security. Bruce Reed, Biden’s vice presidential chief of staff from 2011 to 2013 and a top campaign aide, was executive director of the Bowles-Simpson commission, which pursued deficit reduction and proposed increases in the retirement age.


As a coup de grace, in 2012 and 2013 then-Vice President Biden helped lead a publicly advocated scheme to reduce future Social Security benefits as part of a “grand bargain” with Republicans. This cut did not reflect any of President Obama’s campaign promises, but it became part of a negotiation while in office—precisely the fear that liberals have with Biden, that he will revert back to dealmaking with Republicans that sells out core Democratic principles.

[Gothmog]

1. Why did sanders call for cuts to social security?

Link to tweet

Link to tweet

[Hassin Bin Sober]

2. Because he didn't?

[George II]

7. Yes he did, it's been documented several times.

[Kurt V.]

26. since I'm from Missouri, show me.

[boomer_wv]

28. It's right there.

If you're willing to look.

[Kurt V.]

30. i read the whole link from gothmogs other post. it says no such thing.

[boomer_wv]

31. Then

you're in denial. It's in black and white.

[Gothmog]

8. I trust Bloomberg and the facts reported in the real world

Link to tweet

[Cha]

10. Yes, BS did...

Link to tweet

[Hassin Bin Sober]

13. Nope

[George II]

15. Yep.....

Link to tweet

[boomer_wv]

29. This is just

Bernie fans with their fingers in the ears, their eyes closed, and sing LALALALALALA.

[Demsrule86]

17. But he did...must have forgotten I guess.

[Gothmog]

19. This makes me smile

Link to tweet

[bluedye33139]

3. Chained CPI was used by Republicans in 2017 in their tax cuts

That is the real world effect of his activity? Republicans rewrote the tax code specifically because they had heard Joe Biden say something about cost containment measures in the 1980s?

Really?

That doesn't make sense.

"Republicans and the Trump administration included it in the 2017 tax cuts. Tax brackets, the standard deduction, and the Earned Income Tax Credit all now are indexed using chained CPI, and it amounts to a regressive tax increase."

This is the consequence that the article discusses.

[Hoyt]

4. The so-called "cat food" commission actually proposed significant increases in SS benefits

for those on the low end of payment scale. That would have helped those beneficiaries a lot.

While not supporting chained-CPI, for several years after that “proposal” the annual increase would have been greater than the CPI measure currently used.

If trump, or another GOPer wins in 2020, we are going to wish some of the discussion points — they really weren’t proposals — had been pursued by Obama. People were too damn busy screaming and hollering, without knowing what they were talking about, to look at the big picture.

[George II]

5. That's not going to change the fact that Sanders was calling for the same type of "adjustment".

?itemid=11870308

[EveHammond13]

6. don't care

[PatrickforO]

23. You don't care about what? That both Bernie and Biden and many,

many others have said we need to cut Social Security?

Because I've earned my benefits, paycheck by paycheck over a work life that is approaching fifty years. So don't tell me you don't care.

[EveHammond13]

24. I don't care about gotcha politics and eating our own.

[BannonsLiver]

9. LOL

Have you not been online today? Bernie said the same thing.

[Gothmog]

11. Meanwhile in the real world

Link to tweet

[revmclaren]

12. Oops... seems you forgot there's an internet

and Sanders is now beginning to truly be vetted. Especially when he, his campaign, or even his fans push false stories.



ONLY!!! 2020 and beyond.

[Thekaspervote]

14. Ha!! Indeed as aoc said this morning "some campaign as if there weren't an Internet."

Hey aoc thx for reminding us of that. And Bernie, did you really think this wouldn’t come out?!

[Demsrule86]

16. Bernie said the same thing it seems...

[Hassin Bin Sober]

18. Nope

Link to tweet

[Gothmog]

21. And here is Joe

Link to tweet

[Demsrule86]

40. That was a couple of years after he said it...in the paper. Just before a very successful midterm

for us.

[Gothmog]

20. Why did sanders call for cuts to social security?

Link to tweet

[JoeOtterbein]

22. Why do we keep bothering people with...

...pesky facts?

[zentrum]

25. Thanks for this.

[Hassin Bin Sober]

34. You are welcome!

[Kurt V.]

27. there is nuance here in bidens call to cut ss. but he absolutely did. Sanders has not.

[Demsrule86]

39. He did exactly the same thing...in fact he pretty much used the same words...neither of course cut

Social Security or intended too...the idea was to look reasonable like they might. I suggest you look at Gothmogs OP. There is a newspaper from the Bloomberg article that is contemporaneous and has the Sanders quote.

[The Valley Below]

32. If Bernie does it, it doesn't count!

[NCProgressive]

35. Oh this fake news again. #Debunked #Snoped #fact-checked-as-false #SirotaLies #Dirty_Smear

[Autumn]

36. Excellent read! Thanks for posting it.

[Hassin Bin Sober]

38. You are more than welcome!

[Autumn]

41. This part sadly shows how putting CPI out there has been so detrimental.

Bob Woodward’s book The Price of Politics notes that Biden favored chained CPI as part of a grand bargain, and was at the center of negotiations on it with Republicans. We have the Tea Party to thank for it not happening; hard-right Republicans balked at the tax increases embedded in the deal. Eventually Obama came around to favoring expansion of Social Security, and Biden’s plan today reflects that.

But chained CPI didn’t go away.

Republicans and the Trump administration included it in the 2017 tax cuts. Tax brackets, the standard deduction, and the Earned Income Tax Credit all now are indexed using chained CPI, and it amounts to a regressive tax increase. If the inflation calculation rises more slowly, more salary gets pushed into a higher tax bracket, and deductions and tax credits erode as well. This will increase taxes by $128 billion over the first ten years, and $500 billion in the next ten. Since the wealthy are already in the highest tax bracket and don’t typically use the standard deduction, they’re unaffected.

With chained CPI in place for taxes, it led to an inevitable argument: If we have this “more accurate” inflation measure, which even a Democratic president supported, why not use it for everything? Indeed, the Trump administration next proposed to use chained CPI to calculate the federal poverty line last May. The poverty line sets eligibility for a host of programs, from Medicaid to food stamps to low-income heating assistance. And using chained CPI gradually reduces eligibility.

Like a weed, chained CPI is infiltrating the federal government, acting as a stealth cut to public-assistance programs and a stealth increase to middle-class taxes. Worst of all, it creates a presumption that there’s a more accurate inflation measure, one that could be harmonized across the government. As Nancy Altman told the Prospect last year, the switch to chained CPI is “a step toward getting at the largest program that’s indexed [by inflation], and that’s Social Security.”

[Demsrule86]

37. Now you are going after Pres. Obama...enough...they used this tactic to take chained CPI off

the table by combining it with a tax increase...and it worked. Seriously? And Sander said we need to adjust benefits...look at Gothmog's article. And the Paul Ryan video was doctored...big fat lie courtesy of Sirota...and the buck stops at with Sanders.

[Hassin Bin Sober]

42. Nothing was doctored.

[Blue_true]

43. The thing that I admire about Senator Sanders supporters is that they go

to the mat for their candidate. You keep trying to slip a knife into Biden, even after documented evidence that your fav candidate used similar wording in a similar analysis. The knife is a dull spoon.

[Hassin Bin Sober]

44. Appreciate the compliment!

[Blue_true]

45. Cherish it. I don't dole out compliments freely, something about my irritable personality

at birth (actually before, if my mom could tell it).