Repug Plan to Destroy Social Security

Fresh off their failure to prevent Americans getting access to affordable health care insurance, republicans have set their sights on eliminating the foundation of middle-class financial security.

From Down with Tyranny:

Right-wing extremist Marco Rubio roiled Florida politics yesterday by grabbing hold of a political third rail: the Republican mania to dismantle Social Security. Ignore the GOP-oriented headline about "experts" agreeing that Social Security has to be destroyed; right-wing "experts" have been screeching that at the top of their lungs since before it was ever enacted into law. Some Bush advisor saying Social Security needs to be cut-- even if corporately-funded reactionary "think tanks" back him up-- doesn't give Rubio the kind of cover he'd need to get away with that approach, especially not in Florida and especially not in a general election.

From as far back as Barry Goldwater in 1964, political candidates have risked backlash in Florida for suggesting changes to Social Security. So it was remarkable to see Marco Rubio in a national TV debate with Gov. Charlie Crist call for raising the retirement age.

Blogs and Facebook groups instantly lit up. The consensus was Rubio committed a serious gaffe. Older Americans are among the most reliable voters, and in Florida, 2.4 million of them receive Social Security... "Any expert from any political spectrum will tell you that Rubio was right," said Andrew Biggs, former No. 2 at the Social Security Administration and now with the conservative American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research.

Biggs is a fringe right-wing ideologue and, like his tribe tends to be, full of shit. Because the neo-fascist American Enterprise Institute and its paid hacks say something is so, it doesn't make it so. In fact, it makes it very suspect. Earlier today my friend Alex Lawson from Social Security Works (an actual expert) pointed out that "100% of Wall Street agrees that folks on Social Security need to tighten their belts to pay for the economic calamity Wall Street created. The only people who want to cut Social Security are Wall Street and their bought and paid for acolytes in DC. The author could have asked almost any expert at random from the National Academy of Social Insurance and he would have heard that most experts are not agreed that raising the retirement age is necessary." Alex is eager for more Republicans to embrace Rubio's position for their campaigns, pointing to a recent Quinnipiac poll (2 weeks ago) which asked "Do you think cutting the growth of spending on Social Security benefits should or should not be a main part of any government approach to the deficit?"

77 percent of all Americans oppose
84 percent of Democrats oppose
73 percent of Republicans oppose
57 percent of those with annual household incomes of more than $250,000 oppose

SNIP

Rubio said he agrees with Paul Ryan's widely-panned roadmap which plans to raise the age for benefits to 70. Needless to say, neither Ryan nor Rubio favors the kind of serious reform that would end the taxable income ceiling, allowing the wealthy to avoid the payroll taxes on anything over $106,800. If that were fixed, Social Security would be instantly solvent out into the direction of eternity. Ryan and Rubio are creatures of corporate power. They're not interested in finding equitable solutions; they're interested in helping their rich, powerful paymasters avoid paying their fair share of taxes.

Read that again:

They're not interested in finding equitable solutions; they're interested in helping their rich, powerful paymasters avoid paying their fair share of taxes.

That explains almost everything about what passes for repug "policy."

Read the whole thing.