New York Senator Charles Schumer has a website "Social Insecurity" calculator that purports to tell you how much you will lose under a personal account proposal. The fine print admits that the key assumption is a suggested change in Social Security payment calculations from a basis of "wage indexing" to one of "price indexing." What this means is that annual Social Security increases would be based on price inflation, rather than on the current wage inflation, which is higher. This is where Ben Chandler's claim of a cut of 50% in benefits (which mirrors Schumer's claim and which -- as has been pointed out on this site -- Chandler has now amended down to 30%) comes from.
The facts are substantially less sensational. Senator Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) did propose such a change in 2003. He has since backed off this proposal. This key piece of grit in the liberal craw, therefore, is not even a current part of the discussion. A more recent suggestion has been to go to price indexing only on higher income levels. While that would lower outlays, it would means-test Social Security. While that might be considered either a decent compromise or a back door tax increase, depending upon reasonable points of view, the loyal opposition responds like this:
"If you start means-testing the benefit, do you then start to turn this into, not a social insurance program, but a welfare program? That changes the perception of the program in Americans' minds," said Fred Griesbach, director of Pennsylvania's AARP chapter.
So are we to assume that the sticking point for our friends on the left is that they want to increase government control of Social Security with tax increases, but they just want to avoid the "perception" of such an increase in control? It is past time for Democrats to come to the family dinner table and discuss this rather than throwing rocks from the sidewalk.
