GOP Candidates Launch A New Attack On Social Security

               The Republican candidates for president have joined in the fight against Social Security now. Of course they will tell you they are trying to "save" Social Security, but that is a lie. They know they can't do away with it in one fell swoop, so they have decided to kill it by whittling away at it until it is no longer viable, and no longer protects seniors from poverty.

The first salvo in this new attack on Social Security was fired by Chris Christie. He says the retirement age for Social Security should be raised to 70. And his fellow GOP "moderate", Jeb Bush, was quick to jump in and agree. I have no doubt that many other GOP hopefuls will soon join these two in wanting to raise the retirement age.

Now I understand why this might seem like a good idea to these two buffoons. Neither of them has ever had to do hard physical labor to feed their families, and neither have the Wall Street tycoons and corporate CEO's who contribute to their campaigns. I don't doubt it would be easy to delay retirement until the age of 70, if all you had to do is sit behind a desk and bark out orders to the people who do the real work.

But raising the retirement age to 70 is a ridiculous idea, and it would be disastrous for millions of American workers. That's because they support their families by doing back-breaking physical labor -- and their bodies will simply not hold out for another 5 years to get to retirement. Many of them are lucky to get to 65/66. And there are other occupations where, while they don't do a lot of physical labor, their job depends on being physically fit and mentally sharp -- jobs like being a policeman or a fireman. Do we really want people in professions like these to have to stay on the job until age 70? Wouldn't that not only put them in danger, but also the public they serve?

Raising the retirement age is a silly and mean-spirited idea -- and it has nothing to do with "saving" Social Security. Social Security could easily be fixed for many decades to come by simply removing the cap on the amount of income subject to FICA taxes (payroll taxes). That would not affect working and middle class citizens at all (since they already pay the maximum). It would only affect the rich, who pay a much smaller percentage of their income than everyone else does.

But the Republicans don't really want to fix Social Security -- they want to destroy it. They have never liked it. They don't like it, and want to destroy it, because truly fixing it would require their rich benefactors to pay their fair share in taxes -- and they never want the rich (or the corporations) to have to pay taxes.

Don't be fooled by this new "concern" for Social Security by the Republican hopefuls. It's just the same old anti-Social Security lie.

(The caricatures of Chris Christie and Jeb Bush above are by DonkeyHotey.)