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Apologies in advance to legitimate catfood and cat-lovers everywhere.
The Social Security Reform Act of 2016 (HR 6489) needs to die a swift and prejudiced death. It is predicated on retirement age increases, benefit cuts for most, and no tax increases. There are actually tax cuts applicable to the taxability of Social Security benefits, a proposal beneficial to higher-earning retirees.
The original “Catfood Commission”, officially titled the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, released their final plan on December 1, 2010.
It proposed $238 billion in Social Security reform, to be used to ensure the program is sustainably solvent in the infinite horizon by slowing benefit growth for high and medium-income workers, increase the early and normal retirement age to 68 by 2050 and 69 by 2075 by indexing it to longevity, index cost of living adjustments to the Chained-CPI, include newly hired state and local workers after 2020, increase the payroll tax cap to cover 90 percent of wages by 2050 and creates a new minimum and old-age benefit (Wikipedia summary).
Thrifty, hard-working Americans who have tried to “follow the rules” of sensible budgeting and investing will be punished. Those who have planned carefully for decades and are able to postpone benefits beyond full retirement age, maybe even to age 70, in an attempt to use their Social Security benefits as a form of “longevity insurance” against future nursing home costs, will find their careful plans torn apart by HR 6489. This ill-conceived legislation will be considered by many as theft of a lifetime of earned benefits.
Republican Sam Johnson has been the Texas 3rd District Representative since 1991. He is Chairman of the Social Security Subcommittee and sits on the Health Subcommittee. He had no Democratic opponent in the 2014 general election, and was also re-elected unopposed in 2012! In 2016 he defeated his Democratic opponent 61-34. Sam Johnson is a “poster child” for Congressional term limits. It’s time for this 86 year-old buckaroo to hit the dusty trail.