Most People Say Trump Is Too Old To Be President

 

The chart above reflects the results of the Economist / YouGov Poll -- done between August 7th and 10th of a nationwide sample of 1,589 adults (including 1,420 registered voters). The margin of error for both groups is 3.2 points.

It's Time To Put An Age Limit On Elected Federal Officials

The following editorial is by Dr. Anahita Due at MS NOW:

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., died suddenly over the weekend after what his office described as a “brief and sudden illness.” The following day, Sen. Mitch McConnell released a statement for the first time after three weeks in the hospital for a fall. Those two incidents are part of a broader issue. Former Sen. Dianne Feinstein spent her final years in office with multiple colleagues questioning her fitness to serve. Five members of the House of Representatives have died in this Congress alone. President Joe Biden ended his re-election campaign amid persistent questions about his age and cognitive stamina. President Donald Trump has faced scrutiny about his health as well. 

Enough. This is not a Republican problem or a Democratic problem. It is an American problem.

The U.S. political system has virtually no objective standards to ensure that the people entrusted with the highest offices in the country remain physically and cognitively capable of performing some of the most important and demanding jobs in the world. That is no longer acceptable.

Every profession carries responsibilities. As a vascular surgeon, if I developed a serious medical condition that impaired my judgment, concentration or stamina, I would have an ethical obligation to step away from the operating room. My patients deserve a surgeon whose complete focus is on them, not someone distracted by illness or struggling through a medical crisis. If my attention wavered at the wrong moment, a patient could die.

We accept this principle throughout society. Airline pilots undergo regular medical examinations. Members of the military must meet physical standards. Physicians are credentialed and can be evaluated for fitness for duty. These requirements are not discriminatory. They exist because the consequences of impaired performance are too great.

Politics should be no different. Serving as president or in Congress requires extraordinary judgment, focus, stamina and resilience. These positions involve national security briefings, crisis management, sensitive negotiations, economic policy, military decisions and consequential choices. If someone is battling a significant medical illness or cognitive issue, their attention should be where any reasonable person’s would be: on their health and recovery. Why should we expect less from the people making decisions that affect 340 million Americans?

As a surgeon, I believe we should consider three reforms.

First, we need an independent, nonpartisan system of routine medical evaluations for candidates seeking the nation’s highest offices and for those who hold them. While the president undergoes physical exams at Walter Reed Medical Center, that is inadequate so long as the White House can pick and choose what information to release. Those examinations should be conducted by physicians who are independent of any campaign or administration using standardized criteria that include physical and cognitive assessments. Voters deserve transparency regarding whether the people asking for their trust are capable of performing the job.

Second, we need to look at term limits. Such rules would have to be carefully constructed: the Supreme Court has ruled that congressional term limits require a constitutional amendment, and if the limits are too strict, they risk the loss of valuable experience and institutional knowledge. But no elected office should become a lifetime career simply because incumbents possess clear fundraising advantages and decades of accumulated name recognition.

Finally, age limits must be considered as well. We accept that reality in countless other areas of society. We establish minimum ages for driving, voting, military service and even kindergarten. We have maximum ages for commercial airline pilots, federal law enforcement personnel and the boards of most S&P 500 companies. Many states have age limits for judges. The same principle should apply to those who govern us. Yes, many Americans remain remarkably sharp well into their 70s and 80s. But there will always be individuals who defy expectations. Public policy, however, cannot be written around those exceptions.

Our nation’s founders also remind us that transformative leadership does not require spending decades in office. Many of the architects of the American republic were remarkably young by today’s standards. Thomas Jefferson was 33 when he drafted the Declaration of Independence. James Madison was 36 during the Constitutional Convention. Alexander Hamilton was in his early 30s when he helped shape the new nation. They did not need decades of experience to be capable, energetic, innovative and willing to challenge convention.

None of these reforms will be easy. All will require bipartisan cooperation. But the status quo is no longer tenable. This is not about Lindsey Graham or Mitch McConnell, Joe Biden or Donald Trump. Democrats, Republicans and independents — all of us deserve leaders who are healthy enough to shoulder the responsibilities of public office, transparent enough to earn our trust and humble enough to know when to pass the torch.

That is not ageism. That is responsible governance.

Half Of Americans Say Trump Is Too Old & Has Declining Mental And Physical Health

 

The charts above are from the YouGov Poll -- done between January 7th and 10th of a nationwide sample of 1,134 adults, with a 4 point margin of error.

Many Think Trump Is Too Old And Unhealthy To Be President

 

The charts above are from the YouGov Poll -- done between September 2nd and 4th of a nationwide sample of 1,177 adults, with a 4 point margin of error.

Is It Time For Elderly Democrats To Step Aside For A Younger Generation?

The retirement age for Social Security is 66 years old, and most Americans retire before the age of 70. But in the United States Congress, that is not true. The average age of a senator is 65/66 (and 57 for House members). Some members in safe districts will serve for many years past those numbers. Meanwhile, the average age of the U.S. population is about 38.

This has resulted in a discussion among Democrats about whether some aging members of Congress should step aside for a younger generation. 

The budget bill in the House just passed by one vote (215 to 214). If Democrats had one more vote, it would not have passed - and Democrats are short by 3 of their elected members. Three House Democrats have died this year - Gerry Connolly (75), Raul Grijalva (77), and Sylvester Turner (70). If these three had not run in the last election and been replaced by younger Democrats, the GOP bill would not have passed.

While it is true that some people over 75 maintain their mental acuity and physical health, it is not true of most people - and while most senior members of Congress would likely deny it, it is also true of them.

One argument used to justify the repeated election of older members is that doing otherwise would result in a loss of expertise. I don't buy that argument. Expertise can quickly be realized by younger and newer members - and no one is so important they cannot be replaced.

Currently, there are 30 Democrats in the House that are 75 or older. Only two of them have said they will not run for re-election in 2026. Most of them have already announced they are running for re-election. I think all of them have served honorably and with distinction, but to run again is a mistake. It's time for them to step aside and make room for a new generation of Democrats.

I'm not alone in this belief. A 2023 poll of Americans by the Pew Research Center showed that 79% of adults would like to see an age limit on elected officials (including 76% of Democrats and 82% of Republicans). 

It is unlikely that Congress will address this issue. Too many members are at or near the age of 75, and too many others dream of serving past that age (in both parties). If this is to be addressed, it will be up to the voters.

There is talk currently of primary opponents for many senior Democrats. I hope that happens. The voters deserve a choice. Just because someone has held a seat for many years doesn't mean they are entitled to hold it until their death.

NOTE - In the interest of full disclosure, I am over 75 years old.  

Why Is The Media Ignoring Trump's Increasing Senility?

The media seems to be fixated on Biden's age, but Trump is just as old (and his gaffes are much worse). Here is how Brian Tyler Cohen describes this at MSNBC.com: 

We’ve all heard Republicans spout the party line about President Joe Biden: Not only is he in the throes of mental decline, but he’s also the apparent mastermind behind an entire crime family but can’t remember his own name. Does it make sense? No. Does it have to? Apparently not.

But the problem is that the people who’ve been perpetuating this narrative seem pretty willing to overlook the fact that their political deity, Donald Trump, doesn’t seem to be working with a full deck of cards — a point that’s become progressively evident these past few weeks. Like, for example, when he suggested that he defeated Obama in the 2016 election. Or when he claimed that World War II hadn’t happened yet. Or when he said that Jeb Bush got us into the Iraq War. Not exactly the next Stephen Hawking here.

And not to revert to the familiar refrain, but could you imagine if Joe Biden did any of these things? Could you imagine the wall-to-wall coverage on Fox and the rest of conservative media? The earth could quite literally fall off its axis — that still wouldn’t be enough to knock right-wing media off this news cycle.

And look, I’m not looking to get into the mud about which septuagenarian or octogenarian politician is too old; they’re all old, we get it. But what I will do is point out the obvious, glaring hypocrisy of both Republicans and many in the media who relentlessly hammer Biden on his age, his mental acuity and his fitness to serve when those same people are conveniently silent when Trump says things that are far worse. Running it as front-page news when Biden trips one time, only to then ignore when Trump suggests World War II has yet to take place, betrays right-wing media’s actual goal: It’s not because of any well-founded concern over Biden’s ability to execute the duties of office; it’s just naked partisanship.

But while we expect this kind of hackery from right-wing media, we should demand more from the mainstream media that has arguably learned nothing from 2016 by platforming this blatant propaganda. I was truly hoping we’d come further than watching Fox and other like-minded outlets parade around their talking points about Biden’s age, only to then witness other mainstream outlets take the bait.

But lo and behold, headlines like these are the norm: “Biden’s age may be a growing problem for his reelection” from The Washington Post; “Questions over Biden’s age are getting sharper” from The Hill; “Biden and the ‘Age Question’” from The Wall Street Journal. It would be one thing if we hadn’t already encountered the disastrous consequences of a “both sides” media, but after years of the Trumpificiation of the Republican Party, to witness the media still fall for the exact same tricks that brought us Trump in the first place is truly unacceptable.

The truth is that if this was actually about Biden’s ability to fulfill his duties as president, you don’t have to sit around and play doctor; all you have to do is look at how he’s been fulfilling his duties as president. I don’t need to see the results of Joe Biden’s next colonoscopy to be able to see the American Rescue Plan, which saved the U.S. economy after Covid; to see the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, which put people to work after the “infrastructure week” punch lines of the Trump era; to see the gun safety law, the first gun bill passed in three decades; to see the Chips and Sciences Act, which has led to a boom in American manufacturing; to see the PACT Act, which gave desperately needed health care to our veterans; to see the Violence Against Women Act reauthorized; to see a record 13.5 million jobs added and the unemployment rate hit a 50-year low.

Again, we don’t have to guess whether Biden is capable of doing the job, because he’s quite literally already doing it — and I’d argue doing it more effectively than any other president in modern American history.

And to be clear, none of this is to deny the validity of anyone’s worries about Biden’s age. He’s old. Too many of our leaders are old. I get it. But aside from the fact that Biden has already proved that he is up to the job because he is currently exceeding expectations while doing the job, let’s also not pretend that we don’t know the stakes in this upcoming election. Our elections are binary; they’re a choice between two people. As of this moment, it certainly does seem that the choice is going to be between an 80-year-old Joe Biden and a 77-year-old Donald Trump. 

And I have every ounce of faith in the world that Americans — who, yes, may certainly recognize that Biden is old — won’t make that a higher priority than the fact that his opponent is a dangerous, anti-democratic authoritarian currently contending with four indictments and 91 criminal charges and whose most recent act as president was to incite an insurrection against our own government. So the GOP and its willful accomplices in the media may parrot Republican talking points about Biden’s age until they’re blue in the face, but we won’t be distracted by the same antics they deployed ahead of the 2016 election. We know the stakes of this election, and no amount of right-wing propaganda is going to change that.

Most Think Both Biden & Trump Are Too Old To Be President

The chart above reflects the results of the Washington Post / Abc News Poll -- done between September 15th and 20th of a nationwide sample of 1,006 adults, with a 3.5 point margin of error.

Most Support An Age Limit For Members Of Congress

The chart above reflects the results of the latest Quinnipiac University Poll -- done between September 7th and 11th of a nationwide sample of 1,910 adults (including 1,726 registered voters). The margin of error for adults is 2.2 points and for registered voters is 2.4 points.

Most Think There Should Be An Age Limit For Politicians

The charts above are from the CBS News / YouGov Poll -- done between September 5th and 8th of a nationwide sample of 2,335 adults, with a 2.7 point margin of error.

How Old Is Too Old?

The following is by Robert Reich: 

Nancy Pelosi, at age 83, is running again for Congress. Mitch McConnell, at 81, has had two bouts of freezing in front of news cameras this summer. Dianne Feinstein, the California senator, 90, is having difficulty doing her job. At 80, Joe Biden is the oldest president the United States has ever had. Donald Trump, his likeliest rival in the 2024 election, is 77. Iowa senator Chuck Grassley is 89. The U.S. Senate is at its oldest in history.

How old is too old? In 1900, gerontologists considered “old” to be 47. Today, you are considered “youngest-old” at 65, “middle-old” at 75, and at 85, you are a member of the “oldest-old.”

I ask with some personal stake. I’m now a spritely 77 — lightyears younger than our president. I feel fit, I swing dance and salsa, and I can do 20 pushups in a row. Yet I confess to a certain loss of, shall we say, fizz. 

 

Forgive me if I’ve said this before (I’m old and occasionally repeat myself), but Joe Biden could easily make it until 86, when he’d conclude his second term. After all, it’s now thought a bit disappointing if a person dies before 85. 

Three score and ten is the number of years of life set out in the Bible. Modern technology and Big Pharma should add at least a decade and a half. Beyond this is an extra helping. 

“After 80, it’s gravy,” my father used to say. Joe will be on the cusp of the gravy train.

Where will it end? There’s only one possibility, and that reality occurs to me with increasing frequency. My mother passed at 86, my father two weeks before his 102nd birthday, so I’m hoping for the best, genetically speaking. 

Yet I find myself reading the obituary pages with ever greater interest, curious about how long they lasted and what brought them down. I remember a New Yorker cartoon in which an older reader of the obituaries sees headlines that read only “Older Than Me” or “Younger Than Me.”

Most of the time I forget my age. The other day, after lunch with some of my graduate students, I caught our reflection in a store window and for an instant wondered about the identity of the short old man in our midst.

It’s not death that’s the worrying thing about a second Biden term. It’s the dwindling capacities that go with aging. "Bodily decrepitude," said Yeats, "is wisdom." I have accumulated somewhat more of the former than the latter, but Biden seems fairly spry (why do I feel I have to add “for someone his age?”). 

I still have my teeth, in contrast to my grandfather whom I vividly recall storing his choppers in a glass next to his bed, and have so far steered clear of heart attack or stroke (I pray I’m not tempting fate by my stating this fact). But I’ve lived through several kidney stones and a few unexplained fits of epilepsy in my late thirties. I’ve had both hips replaced. 

And my hearing is crap. Even with hearing aids, I have a hard time understanding someone talking to me in a noisy restaurant. You’d think that the sheer market power of 60 million boomers losing their hearing would be enough to generate at least one chain of quiet restaurants.

When I get together with old friends, our first ritual is an “organ recital” — how’s your back? knee? heart? hip? shoulder? eyesight? hearing? prostate? hemorrhoids? digestion? The recital can run — and ruin — an entire lunch.

The question my friends and I jokingly (and brutishly) asked one other in college—"getting much?"—now refers not to sex but to sleep. 

I don’t know anyone over 75 who sleeps through the night. When he was president, Bill Clinton prided himself on getting only about four hours. But he was in his forties then. (I also recall cabinet meetings where he dozed off.) How does Biden manage?

My memory for names is horrible. I once asked Ted Kennedy how he recalled names and he advised that if a man is over 50, just ask “how’s the back?” and he'll think you know him.

I often can’t remember where I put my wallet and keys or why I’ve entered a room. And certain proper nouns have disappeared altogether. Even when rediscovered, they have a diabolical way of disappearing again. Biden’s secret service detail can worry about his wallet and he’s got a teleprompter for wayward nouns, but I’m sure he’s experiencing some diminution in the memory department.

I have lost much of my enthusiasm for travel and feel, as did Philip Larkin, that I would like to visit China, but only on the condition that I could return home that night. Air Force One makes this possible under most circumstances. If not, it has a first-class bedroom and personal bathroom, so I don’t expect Biden’s trips are overly taxing.

I’m told that after the age of 60, one loses half an inch of height every five years. This doesn’t appear to be a problem for Biden but it presents a challenge for me, considering that at my zenith I didn’t quite make it to five feet. If I live as long as my father did, I may vanish.

Another diminution I’ve noticed is tact. Several months ago, I gave the finger to a driver who passed me recklessly. Giving the finger to a stranger is itself a reckless act. 

I’m also noticing I have less patience, perhaps because of an unconscious “use by” timer that’s now clicking away. Increasingly I wonder why I’m wasting time with this or that buffoon. I’m less tolerant of long waiting lines, automated phone menus, and Republicans.

Cicero claimed "older people who are reasonable, good-tempered, and gracious bear aging well. Those who are mean-spirited and irritable will be unhappy at every stage of their lives." Easy for Cicero to say. He was forced into exile and murdered at the age of 63, his decapitated head and right hand hung up in the Forum by order of the notoriously mean-spirited and irritable Marcus Antonius.

How the hell does Biden maintain tact or patience when he has to deal with Kevin McCarthy or Joe Manchin or the White House press corps? 

The style sections of the papers tell us that the 70s are the new 50s. Septuagenarians are supposed to be fit and alert, exercise like mad, have rip-roaring sex, and party until dawn. Rubbish. Inevitably, things begin falling apart. My aunt, who lived far into her nineties, told me “getting old isn’t for sissies.” Toward the end she repeated that phrase every two to three minutes.

Philosopher George Santayana claimed to prefer old age to all others. "Old age is, or may be as in my case, far happier than youth," he wrote. "I was never more entertained or less troubled than I am now." 

True for me too, in a way. Despite Trump, notwithstanding the seditiousness of the Republican Party, regardless of the ravages of climate change, near record inequality, a potential nuclear war, and another strain of COVID making the rounds, I remain upbeat -- largely because I still spend most days with people in their twenties who buoy my spirits. Maybe Biden does, too.

But I’m feeling more and more out of it. I’m doing videos on TikTok and Snapchat, but when my students talk about Ariana Grande or Selena Gomez or Jared Leto, I don’t have clue who they’re talking about (and frankly don’t care). And I find myself using words –- “hence,” “utmost,” “therefore,” “tony,” “brilliant” — that my younger colleagues find charmingly old-fashioned. 

If I refer to “Rose Marie Woods” or “Jackie Robinson” or “Ed Sullivan” or “Mary Jo Kopechne,” they’re bewildered. 

The culture has flipped in so many ways. When I was seventeen, I could go into a drugstore and confidently ask for a package of Luckies and nervously whisper a request for condoms. Now it’s precisely the reverse. (I stopped smoking long ago.)

Santayana said the reason that old people have nothing but foreboding about the future is that they cannot imagine a world that’s good without themselves in it. I don’t share that view. 

I’m not going to tell Nancy Pelosi, Joe Biden, Donald Trump, Diane Feinstein, Chuck Grassley, or any other “middle olds” and “oldest olds” what to do. 

But as for myself, I recently made a hard decision. At the end of April, I taught my last class after more than forty years of teaching. Why? I wanted to leave on a high note, when I felt I could still do the job well. I didn’t want to wait until I could no longer give students what they need and deserve. And I hated the thought of students or colleagues whispering about the old guy who shouldn’t be teaching anymore. 

Getting too old to do a job isn’t a matter of chronological age. It’s a matter of being lucid enough to know when you should exit the stage before you no longer have what it takes to do the job well.

Younger Voters More Likely To Identify As Independents

The charts above are from the Gallup Poll. They show the results of polls done January through July of 2022 of 6,565 adults, with a 1 point margin of error. The margin of error for each group is between 2 and 4 points. 

Most Americans Want An Age Limit For Elected Officials

 

The charts above are from the YouGov Poll. They questioned 27,797 adults nationwide between January 14th and 18th. With such a large sample, the margin of error would be no more than 1 point.

It shows that a significant majority of Americans think there should be an age limit for elected officials. The most popular age for the limit was 70 (chosen by 39%). 

U.S. House Gets Younger As A Result Of 2018 Election

These charts are from the Pew Research Center. They looked at the ages of the current members of the House and the incoming members, and discovered that the House is going to be much younger in January, when the 116th Congress is sworn in.

There will be more Millennials (from 1.1% to 6%) and more Generation X members (from 27.1% to 31.5%), and less Baby Boomers (from 62.1% to 53.9%) and Silent Generation (from 9.7% to 8.6%) members. The biggest change comes in the Democratic Party. The average age of House Democrats dropped form 64.3 to 45.8 (a difference of 18.5 years). The average age of Republicans dropped from 58.4 to 48.9 (a difference of 9.5 years).

Two Charts That Should Trouble All Republicans

All you have to do is look at the policies supported by Republicans, especially base GOP voters, to know that they still think they can win with an exclusive white vote. But as the chart above shows, the percentage of whites making up the American population is growing smaller -- and by 2050 (just 35 years from now) will compose only a minority of the population.

Their policies may already be making it very difficult, if not impossible, to win a presidential election -- since enough whites (combined with minorities) already compose a majority. It's a little different when it comes to Congress, especially the House of Representatives. The Republicans have been able to stave off this demographic change by some adroit gerrymandering. But that won't last forever.

As the population becomes more diverse (and whites lose their majority), the communities (including the suburbs) will also become more diverse -- and that will make it much more difficult to gerrymander a majority without changing their policies to include minority voters (which the GOP seems unable to do).

And that's not the only problem the Republicans have. It seems that Gen X and Millennial voters are trending increasingly toward the Democratic Party. They don't like the stances the GOP is taking on the issues (especially social issues). And as political scientists have shown, the way a person votes early in their political life tends to be the way they vote throughout their life. As the Silent and Boomer generations die off, they are being replaced by voters much more aligned with the Democratic Party.

The GOP could change their policies to appeal more to younger voters, but like with their racial and ethnic policies, the GOP base doesn't want that -- making it very unlikely those policies will change any time soon. That is their right, of course, but it is making their party an increasingly smaller party.

NOTE -- These charts are from the Pew Research Center.

Who Votes In American Elections ?

The 2016 election will depend a lot on who shows up to vote, so I thought this was interesting. It is from the Pew Research Center. They looked at demographic groups -- both is the percentage of the population (determined by the U.S. Census) and the percentage of 2014 voters (according to 2014 national exit poll).

As expected, some groups failed to vote up to their percentage of the population -- which means their voice was diluted in the election. Other groups voted in a greater percentage than their percentage of the population -- which means their voice was increased beyond what it should have been.

I was a bit surprised to see that women and men voted exactly as their proportion of the population in 2014 (52% to 48%). That's a change, since several past elections have seen women voting beyond their percentage of the population and men voting below theirs. Women still have a larger voice, but only because they outnumber men in this country.

When it comes to race, Whites both beyond the population percentage, Blacks vote about equal to theirs, and Hispanics vote significantly less than their population percentage.

There are real differences among age groups also. While those under 40 make up 38% of the population, they were only 24% of 2014 voters. Those 40-49 voted equal to their population percentage. Those over 50 voted in a much larger percentage than their population percentage. They compromise 45% of the population, but made up 59% of voters.

As the charts show, there are also differences according to education (with voter participation going up as education level rises) and income (where those making the least vote significantly less than do those at least middle class).

Will these participation levels hold in the 2016 election? It is a presidential election, so there will undoubtably be a bigger turnout overall -- but that doesn't necessarily mean the participation percentages will change. It will be interesting to see what happens though.

Who Do You Want Picking Supreme Court Justices ?

Why is the age of the Supreme Court justices important? Because the decisions of that court will affect the lives of all Americans, so it is very important who sits on that court. Note that four of those justices are 76 years old or older. That means there's a good chance that at least one, and perhaps four, justices will have to be replaced by our next president.

Who do you want making the decision on who to appoint to that court? Do you want a Democrat or a Republican making that choices (or choices)? Do you want new justices that will protect the hard fought rights of all Americans? Or do you want new justices that will take us backwards -- to a time when rights were only guaranteed for the few (white males)?

This is one of many reasons I am supporting the candidacy of Hillary Clinton in 2016. She is our best hope to keep an extremist Republican out of the White House -- our best chance to see that the Supreme Court doesn't take a sharp turn to the right.

(These ages for the justices are from thegreenpapers.com.)

Will Clinton's Age Affect Her Electability In 2016 ?

The Republicans know they are in trouble in the 2016 election unless they can somehow trash the image of Hillary Clinton and diminish her popularity. They have tried a variety of fake scandals so far -- Benghazi, Clinton e-mails, contributions to Clinton Foundation, et cetera. But the public has seen through all of those efforts.

But there is one thing that cannot be argued. Hillary Clinton will be 69 years-old when elected in 2016 -- and some Republican politicians are trying to infer that her age will be a liability. They seem to forget that their hero, Ronald Reagan, was 69 when elected for his first term and 73 when re-elected. In other words, they're being more than a bit disingenuous.

But the important question is what the American public thinks. The Reuters/Ipsos Poll decided to find out. They queried 1,752 American adults between April 23rd and 27th (and the survey's margin of error is 2.7 points).

It turns out that most Americans don't see Clinton's age as a problem at all. About 80% of the public say it would NOT make them less likely to vote for her -- including 90% of Democrats, 83% of Independents, and 67% of Republicans own base. It looks like the Republican politicians will have to try and come up with something else.

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.)