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Michael Meeropol: Hillary Clinton’s Policy Views On Social Security
Where does Hillary Clinton stand on the various issues related to Social Security? Does she agree with former President Bush that Social Security is going bankrupt or with former Texas Governor Rick Perry that it is a “Ponzi scheme”?….Is she in favor of taxing benefits or raising the retirement age to 70 as has been proposed by NJ Governor Chris Christie? Alternatively, does she agree with the populist wing of the Democratic Party that the cap on the payroll tax should be removed and the total level of benefits should be raised?….
Hillary Clinton has spoken out against privatization, but at times in the past she has not been as certain about things like raising the retirement age. Means testing social security benefits has often been considered by Democrats. Some of us may remember that the Obama Administration floated a proposal to change the rate at which social security payments are automatically increased to compensate for inflation (known as “indexing”). Currently, the consumer price index is used to increase benefits every year but the Obama proposal was to use a lower rate of increase which over time, of course, would have led to significant benefit cuts for long-lived retirees. Read more…