Republican Senator Wants to Raise Retirement Age (Pickler on Hagel)

[struggle4progress]

Democrats Vow to Fight Personal Accounts

By NEDRA PICKLER
Associated Press Writer
Sunday, March 6, 2005; 3:33 PM

WASHINGTON -- A leading Republican senator is offering to raise the Social Security retirement age from 67 to 68, while Democrats maintain their opposition to the president's plan to overhaul the retirement program with private investment accounts.

Nebraska Sen. Chuck Hagel's plan would raise the age that retirees could receive full benefits, beginning in 2023. "We are living longer," Hagel said Sunday on CBS' "Face the Nation." "So when you look at the total universe of this, I think that makes some sense to extend the age."

But some leading Democrats said they could not support Hagel's plan because he would pay for private accounts by borrowing and increasing the nation's deficit. Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., told ABC's "This Week" that would be "a great threat to seniors" because it would raise interest rates. <snip>

Also on Sunday, House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi said on Fox that because of Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan's support of personal accounts, some people "have seriously questioned the independence of the Fed." She declined to say whether she would describe Greenspan as a "political hack," as Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid did last week. <snip>

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A11660-2005Mar6.html

[Name removed]

1. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[BigBearJohn]

2. LMFAO -- I love your picture of Bush

[theophilus]

3. I heard that many (most?) Europeans retire at 55. We should be

lowering the retirement age. Folks can retire but reportedly (a recent poll) says over 70% will continue to work at something. Have them continue to pay in to Social Security. Problem solved. Forget the 2:1 ratio of workers to "supported". That is a myth.

[PurityOfEssence]

4. Hey, let's just raise it to 85; that way, we could get it PROFITABLE

instead of just solvent. Sheesh, these guys call themselves REPUBLICAN and they can't even figure out the obvious way to fleece the weak.

The gummint needs more sources of revenue now that investors, owners and inheritors don't have to pay their dues; what better way than have everyone pay into something for a very long time that they'll probably never get? Think of it like the lottery, except without the splashy winner.

[Warren Stupidity]

5. oh the problem is that we are living longer

Sorry.

There are of just tons of jobs for people in their late 60's. What a crock of shit. I know we can all be f'ing walmart greeters.

"Hi, how f'n ya' doin'? Come on in and buy some cheap foreign made crap". Yeah I'd last five minutes.

Why don't they just announce that they are going to kill all of us boomers 'cause we are being shitheads and living too long?

[TahitiNut]

6. Another slimeball presstitute

"Democrats .. to Fight Personal Accounts"
"A leading Republican senator"
"the president's plan"
"Democrats said they could not support"
"support personal retirement accounts."
"The president's plan would allow workers"
"in exchange for lower guaranteed future benefits."
"...most of the opposition is coming from people over 55 who won't be affected by it."
"the White House wants to work with Democrats but"
"willing to change his plan"
"the president's call for personal accounts"
"the personal accounts still must be part of the solution." (even though they 'solve' NOTHING!)
"Other Democrats distanced themselves from Reid's comment."


The Whoreshington Post strikes again. (Who needs enemies with 'friends' like them?)

[NV Whino]

7. Jesus H. I can't afford to retire until I'm 70 under the present setup.

I'm seriously condisering retiring at 62 just so I can get SOMETHING.

[mikehiggins]

8. People with hard, dirty jobs aren't going to "live longer"

If I sat behind a desk in the Beltway and had to worry about going to the gym to keep in shape, another three or four years of work might not have too deleterious an effect on me.

However, since I'm a construction worker, those extra few years might well kill me. I'm sure there are a lot of people in the same boat as me so this discussion of postponing retirement is not at all an academic one for us.

We should be lowering the retirement age, and if the Feds didn't use the SocSec funding to run the government, that might just be possible.

[Canuckistanian]

9. I thought progress meant earlier retirement?

Or are they going back to the days of elderly men dying in the mills?

[AlamoDemoc]

10. What the Senator is forgetting is that

people are living longer because they have chosen a healthy lifestyle, and not because Social security provided them a living-wage to live longer

[Sandpiper]

11. The Conservative Motto: Work till you Drop Dead!

Seriously, to these people, if you're no longer a cog in the capitalist machine, they wish you'd just get busy dying.

[indepat]

12. Why not just raise it to 80? Surely to God SS would then be adequately

funded except for raids on the lockbox.

[Straight Shooter]

13. How many times will they jerk that retirement-age rug from under our feet?

I don't know if I'll last until I'm 67, the kind of work I do is really physically taxing and it's damn sure hard on my eyes.

Sure, go ahead and raise the age, because all the CEOs with fat salaries are going to go for that in a major way.

What the hell is happening? bush is tarnishing our golden years.

edit: anger typo

[applegrove]

14. Anything to keep the middle class and the working poor from benefitting

greatly from the coming labour shortage in 2013. And just so long as the elites do not have to fork over the money.