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GOP Leaders Discuss Raising Retirement Age to 69
As public support for President Bush's Social Security privatization scheme plummets, Republican leaders in Congress are quietly talking about plans to raise the retirement age to 69, among other sacrifices they want working Americans to make.
Currently, workers can retire at age 65 1/2, though that is gradually being increased to 67. Under the GOP plan, workers wouldn't get full Social Security benefits for another two years beyond that.
The behind-the-scenes talks come in the wake of one national poll after another showing that Americans dislike and distrust President Bush's plans to take the security out of Social Security through risky private accounts.
In fact, most Americans polled say they want the White House to move on to other issues. In a June 18 CBS-New York Times survey, asked to rank which of five domestic priorities were most important to them, respondents put Social Security at the bottom. It fell well below health care, education and jobs, and tied, at 14 percent, with the budget deficit.
"Working Americans understand that they are the ones who will be hurt by the Bush scheme, while the rich continue to enjoy lavish tax breaks," CWA President Morton Bahr said. "Instead of correcting that wrong, the GOP is attempting to find new ways to make life tougher and retirement incomes lower for working people.
Critics say raising the retirement age also ignores the fact that millions of Americans lose their employment before reaching retirement and can't find new jobs. Raising the age would only make matters worse, and cause poverty among senior citizens to rise, economists say.
"A higher retirement age would be a cruel blow to those who have been displaced by a rapidly changing economy and have obsolete skills, or who have struggled with low paying, physically demanding work and can no longer find suitable jobs well before they reach 62," the Economic Policy Institute said.
The proposal comes from Senator Charles Grassley (R-Iowa), chairman of the Senate Finance Committee. The Associated Press reported last week that Grassley's discussions with committee members were confidential, but were leaked by several people in the room.
One change supported by the vast majority of Americans is getting little to no traction on Capitol Hill: assessing Social Security taxes on incomes above $90,000, the current ceiling for paying into the system.
As Bahr told a ballroom full of activists at the recent Take Back America conference in Washington, D.C., the $90,000 cut-off means, for instance, that Verizon CEO Ivan Seidenberg had fulfilled his Social Security obligation by 3 p.m. on Jan. 2. General Electric CEO Jeffrey Immelt had to wait nearly a full day longer before his Social Security taxes were paid off for the year, and it took Disney's Michael Eisner until mid-afternoon Jan. 3.
Currently, workers can retire at age 65 1/2, though that is gradually being increased to 67. Under the GOP plan, workers wouldn't get full Social Security benefits for another two years beyond that.
The behind-the-scenes talks come in the wake of one national poll after another showing that Americans dislike and distrust President Bush's plans to take the security out of Social Security through risky private accounts.
In fact, most Americans polled say they want the White House to move on to other issues. In a June 18 CBS-New York Times survey, asked to rank which of five domestic priorities were most important to them, respondents put Social Security at the bottom. It fell well below health care, education and jobs, and tied, at 14 percent, with the budget deficit.
"Working Americans understand that they are the ones who will be hurt by the Bush scheme, while the rich continue to enjoy lavish tax breaks," CWA President Morton Bahr said. "Instead of correcting that wrong, the GOP is attempting to find new ways to make life tougher and retirement incomes lower for working people.
Critics say raising the retirement age also ignores the fact that millions of Americans lose their employment before reaching retirement and can't find new jobs. Raising the age would only make matters worse, and cause poverty among senior citizens to rise, economists say.
"A higher retirement age would be a cruel blow to those who have been displaced by a rapidly changing economy and have obsolete skills, or who have struggled with low paying, physically demanding work and can no longer find suitable jobs well before they reach 62," the Economic Policy Institute said.
The proposal comes from Senator Charles Grassley (R-Iowa), chairman of the Senate Finance Committee. The Associated Press reported last week that Grassley's discussions with committee members were confidential, but were leaked by several people in the room.
One change supported by the vast majority of Americans is getting little to no traction on Capitol Hill: assessing Social Security taxes on incomes above $90,000, the current ceiling for paying into the system.
As Bahr told a ballroom full of activists at the recent Take Back America conference in Washington, D.C., the $90,000 cut-off means, for instance, that Verizon CEO Ivan Seidenberg had fulfilled his Social Security obligation by 3 p.m. on Jan. 2. General Electric CEO Jeffrey Immelt had to wait nearly a full day longer before his Social Security taxes were paid off for the year, and it took Disney's Michael Eisner until mid-afternoon Jan. 3.