How Elizabeth Warren Made Expanding Social Security Cool
Last edited Mon Apr 6, 2015, 09:41 AM - Edit history (1)
Mother Jones
4/6/2016
For years, Washington politicians and policymakers been talking about cutting Social Security benefits. The Beltway consensus, unduly shaped by deficit hawks and Wall Streeters, has been that the system is broken and must be pared back, and progressives who support Social Security have often had to play defense.
But in late March, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, the populist Democrat from Massachusetts, entered the fray—and challenged the prevailing view. In the wee hours of March 27, Warren introduced an amendment to the Senate budget resolution calling for protecting the program's solvency and expanding Social Security benefits. And every Democrat present but two voted for the amendment; every Republican opposed it.
A budget resolution is a set of nonbinding guidelines for how Congress should write spending bills during the upcoming year. Congress can and often does ignore budget resolutions, but they are a significant statement of priorities and principles, and the amendment process can be an important game of politics. By introducing this amendment, Warren forced senators to take a position on the popular retirement program. "This is how politics is played if you intend to play to win," says Damon Silvers, policy director and special counsel for the AFL-CIO. "For too long, the progressive or populist part of the Democratic Party has not played to win."...
...In November 2013, the Washington Post editorial board slammed the expansion push as "liberalism gone awry." It noted that "even the rich have finite resources; government can only go to that well so many times…Unchecked entitlement spending for the elderly crowds out spending" on young Americans and other priorities. That's when Warren stepped into the conflict.
The same day, Warren gave a floor speech outlining the looming economic crisis for retirees and lambasting the Post. "The Washington Post framed the choice as more children in poverty versus more seniors in poverty," Warren said. "The suggestion that we have become a country where those living in poverty fight each other for a handful of crumbs tossed off the tables of the very wealthy is fundamentally wrong." Warren ended with a call to start "talking about expanding Social Security benefits."
"That was the beginning of really the media starting to take notice and for the conversation to start to shift," recalls Altman, the coauthor of a new book, Social Security Works!...
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/04/can-elizabeth-warren-expand-social-security
Editing to add the names of the 2 "Democrats" who joined republicans & voted "No" on this~
Tom Carper (D-DE)
Heidi Heitkamp (D-ND)
= new reply since forum marked as read
I hope other Senate Dems are inspired by her & take on other issues which address the fundamental Democratic principles of our country, putting people first. Representing the People's interests over Moneyed Interests. For real, not just in rhetoric. 
do not buy anything which is associated with Jeff Bezo's (Amazon).
I do not personally think that the op-ed writers of the Washington Post such a George Will, Charles Krauthammer, and others of this ilk should be in that newspaper.
I wonder if they have an Ombudsman position (if it was not cut to make a profit).
This paper has become a shrill of right leaning misinformation and a lot of people are not buying this rag, they are owned by an oligarchy and Jeff Bezo's business model.
I am ecstatic that Warren put people on notice and forced them to side on the issue of Social Security, this is a fundamental issue of human beings paying and getting there money for there later years and having something, instead of standing on a street corner with sign saying---"homeless will work for food, god bless you." It just makes my blood boil to see a human being begging to live.
Because most of these human beings standing on that corner have to wait until there 66 to get "there" money and there are some who want to raise the age higher---they should be making it lower and without a "MEANS TEST".
Right now there is a "Fast Track" bill being introduced in the House by a DINO from Maryland--- Delaney (6th District) and by a Oklahoma republican by the name of Cole, who want to place this "TRUST FUND" into the hands of crooks on wall street and hedge funds and have a "MEANS TEST", you just can't make this stuff up.
These two hypocrites are using the tactic that this program is going broke---- it is not, my generation has being paying the 6.2% pay deduction longer than anyone else (and have subsidized over three generations----because we are the baby boomers and I personally feel that not only am I helping myself, but helping others).
If these two hypocrites were to lift the cap (presently $118,000.00), so that everyone pays there earned income fair share (after $118,000.01 cent), there would be no issue, but these two want a "MEANS TEST"---just like what, Hassert--Delay did in there 2006 voice vote.
They attacked the Postal System retirement pension program and forced the employees to pay for retirement 75 years into the future, no corporations at the present moment has to do this-----none.
Again this why I am ecstatic that WARREN had this vote on the public record.
Now we know that two so called democrats did not care about the person standing on the street corner begging for there very existence and that is hypocrisy in my book.
Excellent points & visually entertaining as well!!
Educational too. I wasn't aware of this little treasonous act~
Surely, Obama will veto this if it gets past the House & then Senate? I would hope so.
