Bureaucrats Can Retire at 55 With a 3-Tiered Retirement Plan While Those Paying for Their Salaries, Benefits and Pensions May Have to Wait Until Age 70 to Receive Social Security Benefits and Medicare
Since 1987, federal employees including members of Congress have had the benefit of three guaranteed income payments in their retirement [for many federal retirees, their income is virtually unchanged — their retirement income is almost as much as their income while still employed by the federal government; and because they can retire so young, many of them start a second government career, double dipping into the public treasury].- First, like nearly all other workers, they receive Social Security.
- Second, like many workers, they have a 401k-style plan with an employer match (known as the Thrift Savings Plan or TSP).
- And third, like most public sector workers, they also receive a traditional pension through a system known as FERS (the federal employment retirement system).
The Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC) is an independent agency of the United States government to guarantee payment of basic pension benefits earned by more than 44 million American workers participating in more than 27,000 private-sector defined benefit pension plans. If a company ends its pensions and hands the obligation for future payments to the PBGC, the agency limits how much it will pay, with the current top benefit now $54,000 a year for people who retire at 65; less for those who retire earlier. [Source]
Mitt Romney: Cut Medicare, Social Security Benefits for Seniors and Raise the Retirement Age for Eligibility
February 24, 2012
Daily Kos - In his sparsely attended "major policy speech" today in Detroit, Mitt Romney didn't have that much new to say.
Except for his plan to mess with Social Security and Medicare. He got much more concrete, and as has been in vogue among Republicans, wants to take away benefits. He's going Ryan-lite on Medicare (the Ryan-Wyden plan), with the addition of raising the eligibility age, and both raising the retirement age for Social Security and means testing it.
When it comes to Social Security, we will slowly raise the retirement age. We will slow the growth in benefits for higher-income retirees.They are bad ideas which, no matter how many Very Serious People trumpet them, will do nothing but hurt seniors. In the case of Medicare the only thing it really achieves is increasing actual health care spending and pushing that cost increase onto seniors. Neither "solution" actually addresses making the Social Security Trust Fund stable or lowering the cost of health care for seniors. It's smoke and mirrors that does nothing more than put America's seniors—and near-retirees—at greater financial risk.When it comes to Medicare, tomorrow’s seniors will have a choice among insurance providers, including traditional Medicare. [...] And with Medicare, like with Social Security, lower-income seniors will receive the most generous benefits.
Starting in 2022, new retirees will participate in this new system. We will gradually increase the Medicare eligibility age by one month each year. In the long run, the eligibility ages for both programs will be indexed to longevity so that they increase only as fast as life expectancy.
Romney Unveils Economic Plan in Speech at Detroit’s Ford Field
"I'd also add a year or two to the retirement age under Social Security." - Mitt Romeny [Source]February 23, 2012
Mitt Romney's fiscal proposal would raise the Social Security retirement age, slow the rate at which benefits grow, or both. But that's not what he says on the campaign trail. [Source]
The Ticket - In what his campaign billed as a major economic speech, Mitt Romney sought to boost his conservative credentials by pledging "more jobs, less debt and smaller government" if he is elected president.
Criticizing President Barack Obama's handling of the economy, Romney said in a speech delivered from the 30-yard line of Ford Field, the home of the NFL's Detroit Lions, that he is "offering more than just a change in policy" from the current administration.
"I am offering a dramatic change in perspective and philosophy," Romney said.
The speech largely summarized and reiterated the economic message that Romney has put forward during his presidential campaign. He proposed cutting individual marginal income tax rates by 20 percent; reducing the corporate tax rate to 25 percent, from 35 percent; eliminating capital gains taxes for people with incomes below $200,000; abolishing the alternative minimum tax and the estate tax; indexing the eligibility age for Medicare to longevity; allowing private insurers to compete with Medicare; eliminating the Affordable Care Act, Obama's health care law; and reducing federal spending to 20 percent of the national economy by making "hundreds of billions of dollars in cuts," including to programs like Amtrak and Planned Parenthood.
[...]Romney has been slowly revealing the details of his economic proposals for months. The real purpose of Friday's speech was to answer critics who say he hasn't explained how he would carry out conservative policies as president.
"Their effort to prove he's conservative so far has been for him to deliver a speech where he says 'conservative' or 'conservatism' a million times," a Republican strategist close to the Romney campaign told Yahoo News. "There's been no policy that demonstrates that conservatism."
Mitt Romney Embraces Privatizing Medicare and Social Security and Raising Eligibility Ages
January 16, 2012
crooksandliars.com - I'm waiting to see how Mitt Romney walks any of this back once the general election begins if he ends up winning the Republican presidential nomination because I don't see how his statements tonight on Social Security and Medicare are going to help him with seniors later on, no matter how many times he reiterates that the cuts won't affect current recipients or those over fifty five years of age. During this Monday night's Republican debate Romney apparently thinks that seniors don't care what happens to their children or grandchildren.
Romney was asked what he would do in regards to Social Security and Medicare and he started things out with one of the Republican zombie lies out there, that President Obama cut $500 billion from Medicare. Mother Jones has more on why that's just not true here -- Return of the Big GOP Medicare Lie.
He also fully endorsed raising the eligibility ages for both Social Security and Medicare, endorsed Paul Ryan's plan to privatize Medicare, means testing which turns the programs into welfare programs and block-granting Medicaid back to the states. He also seemed to completely contradict himself within the time frame of a few minutes with his follow up a little later in the debate when he said "we simply can't say we're going to go out and borrow more money to let people set up new accounts to take money away from Social Security and Medicare today." Just what does he think those "voluntary" accounts are going to do to future benefit recipients? It's bad enough the man flip flops on every issue, he couldn't even get his talking points straight within a sentence of each other.
Sadly the awful policies he was promoting here rather than raising taxes on the wealthy and raising the income cap on payroll taxes and curbing the cost of health insurance by moving to a single payer program are not anything that either interests or is supported by his fellow Republican primary contenders, or the hapless moderators asking the questions during the debate.
Transcript below the fold.
SEIB: Gov. Romney, in the book you wrote just before this campaign began, you said you were surprised at the press in the last campaign didn't press for more specifics on how to fix Social Security and Medicare. So let's fix that tonight. Let me ask you specifically. Would you reduce the cost of these programs by raising the retirement age for Social Security, by raising the eligibility age for Medicare, or by reducing benefits for seniors with higher incomes?
ROMNEY: Let me lay it out. First of all, for the people who are already retired, or 55 years of age and older, nothing changes. It's very important because I know the Democrats are going to be showing videos of you know, old people being thrown off cliffs and so forth, but don't forget. Don't forget who it was that cut Medicare by five hundred billion dollars, and that was President Obama to pay for Obamacare. Let's not forget that.
What I would do with Social Security is that I would lower, for the, if will the 2.0, the version for the next generations coming up, I'd lower the rate of inflation growth and the benefits received by higher income recipients and keep the rate as it is now pretty high, for low income recipients. And I'd also add a year or two to the retirement age under Social Security. That balances Social Security.
With regards to Medicare, I would lay out the plan that I actually did a couple of months ago that said again, for higher income recipients, lower benefits, a premium support program, which allows people to buy either current standard Medicare or a private plan. And this is the proposal which Congressman Paul Ryan has adopted. It's a proposal that I believe is absolutely right on, where you have a premium support program, give people choice, let competition exist in our Medicare program by virtue of the two things I've described.
Higher benefits for lower income people. Lower benefits for higher income people and making a premium support program in Medicare and Social Security a slightly higher retirement age. If you balance those two programs... by the way, the third major entitlement, Medicaid you send back to the states and the fourth new entitlement, Obamacare, you repeal that one and finally get our balance sheet right.
[...]
ROMNEY: Rick is right. I know it's popular here to say we can do this and it's not going to cost anything, but look, it's going to get tough to get our federal spending from the current twenty five percent of the GDP, down to twenty, down to eighteen percent, which has been our history. We've got a huge number of obligations in this country and cutting back is going to have to happen.
I know something about balancing budgets. In the private sector, you don't have a choice. You balance your budget or you go out of business. And we simply can't say we're going to go out and borrow more money to let people set up new accounts to take money away from Social Security and Medicare today. Therefore, we should allow people to have a voluntary account, a voluntary savings program, tax free. That's why I've said anybody, middle income should be able to save their money, tax free. No tax on interest, dividends or capital gains. That'll get Americans saving and accomplish as your objective Mr. Speaker, without threatening the future of America's vitality, by virtue of fiscal insanity.
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