Democracy in Action: Social Security Taking Prominent Role in Election Rhetoric
It’s the eve of 2022’s midterm election day, and the airwaves are peppered with conflicting opinions about how our Social Security program will be affected by the outcome. From Rep. John Larson’s (D-CT) impassioned plea for support of his candidacy and the “Social Security 2100: A Sacred Trust” bill he’s authored, to a flurry of critiques on how Social Security factors into Sen. Rick Scott’s (R-FL) “11 Point Plan to Rescue America,” it’s clear that the battle lines are crisply drawn when it comes to the program’s fate in the years ahead. Given the wide-ranging hypotheses cropping up repeatedly in the news, it becomes important to take a top-level view of the general strategies being pursued by the two major political parties. The Motley Fool’s Sean Williams has done just that in a post on their website, which you can access here…
But as you study the polarized views on what’s best for Social Security in the long run, you might want to consider that there are alternate views on the most appropriate way to tackle Social Security’s long-term solvency issue. Nobody disputes that this issue is real…the only point of conjecture is the timing of when the program’s trust fund reserves reach the depletion point and, of course, the point at which legislative inaction would trigger an across-the-board benefit cut. The Association of Mature Citizens (AMAC), for example, has been engaged for nearly a decade in advocating for a solution that would ensure the continuation of benefits for generations to come, without requiring additional taxes on America’s workforce. AMAC has produced a solid starting point for addressing the problem and has been touting its “Social Security Guarantee” proposal in Washington. This proposal, a bipartisan compromise that takes selected portions of bills introduced by the late Rep. Sam Johnson (R-TX) and current Rep. Larson (D-CT) and merges them with the Association’s own research to produce a workable plan. AMAC’s Guarantee proposal is available for review here…