Social Security Blues
Last year, when Bush was trying to peddle his plan to have Social Security give less by pretending his plan would give more, I took a look at the current version of Social Security. It wasn't a comprehensive look but I was surprised at how ungenerous Social Security can be in some situations.
For example, a lot of people's bodies start giving out in their early sixties but Social Security only partly addresses the issue. Yes, you can retire at 62 on a lower monthly amount than if you retired at 65 or 67, but if you can work part-time, there are penalties for doing so above $12,000 a year. The penalties are lifted at age 65 which doesn't do much good for someone who doesn't quite qualify for disability but who counted on the extra income in the last years of fulltime employment and is unable to work fulltime.
Another issue is that I'm not sure Social Security truly keeps up with real inflation as opposed to what the government says the rate of inflation is. In California, for example, if you retire on say $1800 a month, your rent and utilities have a good chance of being at least half that amount.
S.W. Anderson of Oh!pinion writes a post on more games that Bush is playing with social security:
For example, a lot of people's bodies start giving out in their early sixties but Social Security only partly addresses the issue. Yes, you can retire at 62 on a lower monthly amount than if you retired at 65 or 67, but if you can work part-time, there are penalties for doing so above $12,000 a year. The penalties are lifted at age 65 which doesn't do much good for someone who doesn't quite qualify for disability but who counted on the extra income in the last years of fulltime employment and is unable to work fulltime.
Another issue is that I'm not sure Social Security truly keeps up with real inflation as opposed to what the government says the rate of inflation is. In California, for example, if you retire on say $1800 a month, your rent and utilities have a good chance of being at least half that amount.
S.W. Anderson of Oh!pinion writes a post on more games that Bush is playing with social security:
How perfectly, quintessentially Bush. The president’s 2007 budget includes a provision to eliminate the meager $255 Social Security benefit paid to a surviving spouse on the death of their mate.No crumb of provenance is too small for this self-proclaimed “compassionate conservative” to sweep off the tables of his fellow Americans, especially those who work for modest income.
I believe the minimum payment for burying or cremating a relative is something like a $1000 in California. Bush should be tripling the death benefit, not eliminating it.
It's been clear for some time that Bush is no conservative. He's simply a reactionary who would have felt comfortable in the Gilded Age of the 1890s.
posted by Poechewe at 10:34 PM
2 Comments:
..And "Divine Right" Bush would have felt particularly comfortable in pre-revolutionary France before the deluge, too...
I think the Gilded Age you mention is precisely the way Bush thinks America should be. He's all for back to the future.
Interestingly, during the Gilded Age, there was still an open frontier where people who lacked capital and connecions could go to make their fortune, or at least a decent life if willing to work. Most Americans still lived on and worked the land, so they were not beholden to others for a job and paycheck. In harsh economic periods, they could always put food on the table and clothes on their backs, at least.
In such a society, there's much less need for unemployment compensation and programs like Social Security. There's built in opportunity for all and a backstop readily available to those having trouble prospering.
That, I think, is the understanding and vision of America conservatives carry around in the back of their mind. It's as though all the economic and social changes of the past 125 years never happened, or at least never should've happened. And with that understanding, they have no qualms about shortchanging the needy and vulnerable, seeking to do Social Security in once and for all, and to the greatest extent possible, commiting everyone's fate to the unfeeling market mechanism.
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