While President Kevin McCarthy has insisted that Social Security cuts are off the table as part of the debt ceiling battle, some Republicans say it is “unrealistic” to leave the welfare program alone.
Louisiana Sen. John Kennedy said Sunday that lawmakers should discuss raising the retirement age for Americans who are currently 20.
“For people who are 20 years old, their life expectancy is probably going to be 85 to 90 years,” Kennedy said on Fox News.
“Does it really make sense to allow someone who is 20 today to retire at 62?” he said. “That’s the kind of thing we should be talking about, there are changes to Medicare that we should be talking about.”
Medicare is one of the largest items in the US budget and is expected to become more expensive as the population ages. President Biden in his budget released last week proposed imposing a new tax on investment income from the wealthy to extend the solvency of Medicare by 25 years.
Meanwhile, in the House, Republican Rep. Nancy Mace told CNN that raising the retirement age for Social Security “has to be on the table.”
Meanwhile, in the House of Representatives, Republican Rep. Nancy Mace told CNN that raising the retirement age for Social Security “has to be on the table.”
“We don’t want to eliminate those who are retired or nearing retirement, but if we’re talking about younger generations… then that should be on the table.”
The 45-year-old South Carolina Republican speculated that she herself “will have no retirement funds” because she “assumes Social Security will be insolvent.”
‘We have to look at Social Security. We have to look at spending in this country, mandatory and discretionary, if we’re going to fix Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, whatever,” Mace said. We have to take it seriously.
GOP presidential candidate Nikki Haley also said she supports raising the retirement age for young people.
“It’s unrealistic to say you’re not going to touch the rights,” Haley said on Fox News.
‘The thing is, you don’t have to play it for seniors and anyone close to retirement. You are talking about the new generation, like the arrival of my children, ”she added.
Social Security is currently on track to become insolvent by 2035 if Congress doesn’t make changes. At that point, the program could pay 80 percent through 2096. Some 66 million people depend on Social Security checks.
And while House Republicans continue to insist they won’t cut the popular program, there have been bipartisan meetings in the Senate to extend the life of the program.
Sen. Mike Rounds, a South Dakota Republican who is involved in the talks, told DailyMail.com last week that proposals like whether or not to raise the payroll tax cap beyond the $160,200 program funds or increase retirement age were “side issues”. ‘and the main focus of it was the creation of a sovereign wealth fund.
Louisiana Sen. John Kennedy said Sunday that lawmakers should discuss raising the retirement age for Americans who are currently 20.
“Those are secondary in nature to the larger question of whether we ultimately do what other pension programs do, which is invest in the market and still give beneficiaries a guarantee that their benefits won’t change based on market conditions.” .
‘Life expectancy in the 1930s was considerably less than today, and what will it be in 30 years?’ he said rounds. “So those are reasonable discussions to have, but they’re not the critical part of the discussions that we’re having today.”
Life expectancy peaked in 2014 at 78.9 and has since declined to 76.1.
Currently, people age 62 are eligible to apply for benefits, but do not receive them in full until age 66-67 based on date of birth. In 1983, Congress voted to gradually increase the retirement age to 65-67, citing higher life expectancies and workers staying at their jobs longer.
Former President Trump, whom Haley faces in the 2024 Republican primary, has warned Republicans against cutting Social Security and Medicare.
“Under no circumstances should Republicans vote to cut a single penny from Medicare or Social Security,” he said in a video message posted on Truth Social.
“Eliminate waste, fraud and abuse everywhere we can find it and there is a lot of it,” Trump said. ‘But don’t reduce the benefits our seniors worked and paid for their entire lives. Save Social Security, not destroy it.’
On Sunday, Kennedy took aim at Biden for engaging in a vilifying debate about the program.
“The problem is that President Biden in his State of the Union address decided to demagogue the issue,” said the senator from Louisiana. We all saw it.
“He basically said, ‘If you talk about social security or Medicare, I’m going to call you a bad person.’ And that just took the issue off the table when the president decided to demagogue it… You can only be young once, but you can always be immature, and I thought that was a very immature thing to do.’
During his annual address to Congress last month, Biden received shrill boos from Republicans when he said that some of them want to cancel Social Security and Medicare, meaning Congress would have to periodically vote to keep them running.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene yelled, ‘Liar!’
“Anyone who doubts it, contact my office, I’ll give you a copy of the proposal,” the president said, referring to a provision now removed from Sen. Rick Scott’s Republican agenda that called for all programs to expire every five years. .
Biden’s $6.8 trillion budget called for a 10 percent increase in funding for the Social Security Administration. The budget has no chance of passing Congress, but it is a starting point for debt-ceiling negotiations with Republicans. GOP Chairman Kevin McCarthy has said his party will not allow the $31.4 trillion debt ceiling to be raised without spending cuts in the fiscal 2024 budget.
“The president’s budget took my breath away,” Kennedy said. ‘His numbers from him are extraordinary. We’re going to run out of digits here.
‘The president says that his budget will solve our financial problems in Medicare and social security… That is not true. Anything seems possible when you don’t know what you’re talking about… The only way I know of to improve the president’s budget is with a shredder.’