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Hillary Clinton on Social SecurityDemocratic Jr Senator (NY) |
The base pay of an NYC firefighter is $68,475 after 5 years on the job. So Clinton is being misleading to suggest that a rank-&-file firefighter would be affected. On the other hand, FDNY captains make $140,173 with overtime. For them, Obama's proposal could amount to a $2,646 tax increase. As for school administrators, in NY state there are few that make less than $100,000 a year.
Obama may be correct to say that only the top 6.5% of earners would be affected. But we judge that Obama is being misleading to say that his proposal would tax only the "upper class."
It's simply not true that Clinton proposes to give out $1,000 to "everybody." That sum would only go to those making $60,000 a year or less, and only if they also contribute $1,000 of their own to their 401(k) plans. Specifically, she proposed providing "a matching refundable tax credit for the first $1,000 of savings [in a 401(k) done by every married couple making up to $60,000," according to the details of the plan on her Web site. "The plan will provide a 50% match on the first $1000 of savings for every couple making between $60,000 and $100,000, which will be phased out after that." Money could be placed in an existing 401(k) or a new "American Retirement Account," which Clinton would make available for those who either don't have a 401(k) through their employers or like the government-offered plan better.
A: First, I think that it's important to talk about fiscal responsibility. You know, when my husband left office after moving us toward a balanced budget, we had a plan to make Social Security solvent until 2055 Now, because of the return to deficits, we've lost 14 years of solvency. It's now projected to be solvent until 2041. Getting back on a path of fiscal responsibility is absolutely essential. Second, I think we do need another bipartisan process, as in 1983. That has to happen again, but with a president who is dedicated to Social Security, unlike our current president; when he first ran for Congress he was dissing Social Security. Q: When the Clinton administration left office, Social Security was only guaranteed to 2038, not 2055.
A: There was a plan, on the basis of the balanced budget and the surplus, to take it all the way to 2055. Then George Bush came in, went back to deficits, and has basically used the trust fund to pay for the war.
A: Well, I take everything off the table until we move toward fiscal responsibility and before we have a bipartisan process. I don't think I should be negotiating about what I would do as president. You know, I want to see what other people come to the table with.
A: But Senator Biden says you can't grow your way out of this. A simple question: What do you put on the table? What are you willing to look at to say, "We're not going to double the taxes, we're not going to cut benefits in half; I'm willing to put everything on the table, some things on the table, nothing on the table"?
A: I'm not putting anything on the proverbial table until we move toward fiscal responsibility. I think it's a mistake to do that.
SPENCER: I would support the concept, that Sen. Clinton calls ruining Social Security, that we can do better than making 2%, as it does now. We should look at various programs that allow people some control over their money, with protections & caps. They call that privatizing to scare everybody away, but the bottom line is working together so younger generations can make more than 2% on Social Security.
CLINTON: Social Security is one of the greatest inventions in American democracy, and I will do everything possible to protect & defend it, starting with getting back to fiscal responsibility, instead of borrowing from the Social Security trust fund. We need to provide some additional opportunities for people to invest, on top of their base guarantee of Social Security, more of a chance to build their nest egg. The risky scheme to privatize would cost between $1 and $2 trillion. That would undermine the promise of Social Security.
Proponents recommend voting YES because:
Perhaps the worst example of wasteful spending is when we take the taxes people pay for Social Security and, instead of saving them, we spend them on other things. Even worse than spending Social Security on other things is we do not count it as debt when we talk about the deficit every year. So using the Social Security money is actually a way to hide even more wasteful spending without counting it as debt. This Amendment would change that.
Opponents recommend voting NO because:
This amendment has a fatal flaw. It leaves the door open for private Social Security accounts by providing participants with the option of "pre-funding of at least some portion of future benefits."
The mission of the Alliance for Retired Americans is to ensure social and economic justice and full civil rights for all citizens so that they may enjoy lives of dignity, personal and family fulfillment and security. The Alliance believes that all older and retired persons have a responsibility to strive to create a society that incorporates these goals and rights and that retirement provides them with opportunities to pursue new and expanded activities with their unions, civic organizations and their communities.
The following ratings are based on the votes the organization considered most important; the numbers reflect the percentage of time the representative voted the organization's preferred position.
