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Rahm Emanuel on Social Security

Democratic Rep. (IL-5); Chief of Staff-Designee

 


Help people build a nest egg outside Social Security

Most Americans have enough risk in their lives; they don't need more of it. The first step to strengthening Social Security is to help people begin building a comfortable nest egg outside Social Security. When only half of Americans have retirement savings, it's impossible to lay the foundation for ensuring the long-term solvency of Social Security. Once we restore people's confidence in their own savings--and stop rattling their confidence by piling up debt in Washington--we will be able to make bipartisan progress on Social Security.

The genius of the Social Security System, when FDR signed it into law in 1935, was that in the midst of crisis, the country was willing to strengthen itself for the long haul. Today, our challenge ought to be much easier by comparison. We're a rich, successful country that is living longer and would like to make the most of those years. The aging of America will lead to significant changes in our society, and to get all we really need is to see it coming.

Source: The Plan, by Rahm Emanuel, p. 82-83 , Jan 5, 2009

Create Retirement Savings Accounts.

Emanuel adopted the manifesto, "A New Agenda for the New Decade":

Balance America’s Commitments to the Young and the Old
An ever-growing share of the federal budget today consists of automatic transfers from working Americans to retirees. Moreover, the costs of the big entitlements for the elderly -- Social Security and Medicare -- are growing at rates that will eventually bankrupt them and that could leave little to pay for everything else government does. We can’t just spend our way out of the problem; we must find a way to contain future costs. The federal government already spends seven times as much on the elderly as it does on children. To allow that ratio to grow even more imbalanced would be grossly unfair to today’s workers and future generations. In addition, Social Security and Medicare need to be modernized to reflect conditions not envisioned when they were created in the 1930s and the 1960s. Social Security, for example, needs a stronger basic benefit to bolster its critical role in reducing poverty in old age. Medicare needs to offer retirees more choices and a modern benefit package that includes prescription drugs. Such changes, however, will only add to the cost of the programs unless they are accompanied by structural reforms that restrain their growth and limit their claim on the working families whose taxes support the programs.

Source: The Hyde Park Declaration 00-DLC7 on Aug 1, 2000

Rated 100% by the ARA, indicating a pro-senior voting record.

Emanuel scores 100% by the ARA on senior issues

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.

Source: ARA website 03n-ARA on Dec 31, 2003

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