Senate Repubs to craft Social Security Bill - no privatization
Thursday several Senate Republicans huddled together to develop a Social Security bill they can pass through the Senate Finance Committee. It drops Bush's private accounts and the worst part of the Pozen plan he offered in his infamous press conference a couple of months ago.Josh Marshall summarizes the report rather well. The Associated Press report by David Espo is found here - GOP Leaders Weigh Raising Soc. Sec. Age.
Josh Marshall's summary as usual describes the key features of the report. "The devil would very much be in the details on this. But according to Espo, the plan under discussion would involve a gradual increase in the retirement age and a freeze, or near-freeze, in the annual wage-linked rise in benefits at retirement for upper-income earners."
The danger is, as always, that the Republicans are still looking for another way to phase out Social Security rather than to fix it. Bush realized at the end of his "60 Days - 60 Stops" propaganda blitz that his private accounts were highly unpopular, so he came up with his Pozen Plan ideas in his Press Conference (also discussed here.) In the Pozen Plan the benefits are cut for middle and high wage workers but protected for the low income workers. This didn't get a very good reception, either.
Whatever they propose needs to be compared to the plan offered by Robert Ball and discussed in The Easy fix to Social Securities' minor problems.
Watch for the details. This is still Republicans attempting to slip through as many destructive changes to Social Security as they can.
posted by Richard @ 9:54 AM
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