podesta-emails
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Thinking along very similar lines.
On Saturday, September 5, 2015, Brent Budowsky <[email protected]> wrote:
> For a variety of economic, social and political reasons I would suggest
> that HRC
> support an increase in social security benefits for recipients below a
> certain net
> worth threshold, and finance it by a combination of a small tax on Wall
> Street trades,
> and if necessary a graduated increase in the social security tax for those
> earning
> above a certain income. Sometime soon I will write a column suggesting
> this and
> wanted to give you a heads-up and suggest HRC advocate this.
>
> In brief:
>
> 1. Economic and social reasons: Seniors living on fixed incomes are
> among the
> most hard-pressed groups in America today. Their interest bearing yields
> on bank
> accounts, etc. lag far behind the real cost of living increases and their
> Social Security
> COLA's have been lagging behind the real inflation rate for many years,
> leaving them
> falling further and further behind.
>
> I would emphasize that a majority of seniors who would benefit from a
> social security
> increase are women, because they live longer, and because in most cases
> for their
> entire working careers they were receiving unequal pay compared to men
> while
> they were paying into the system.
>
> HRC and most politicians do not appreciate the severity of this from the
> point of
> view of poor and middle income seniors. They do not have a real-life or
> intuitive
> understanding of what it is like to pay ever-rising costs of groceries,
> and medicine that is not covered by insurance, and other necessities whose
> prices rise while fixed incomes decline in relative terms, because they are
> either wealthy and/or live in worlds
> inhabited without much daily interaction with fixed income seniors
> struggling with this in their daily lives.
>
> An increase in social security benefits financed as I suggest would have a
> net
> stimulative effect to the economy and increasing economic equality and
> social equity.
>
> 2. Financing: I like the idea of a small tax on Wall Street transactions
> which would
> raise substantial revenue without imposing material hardship on traders.
> Bernie
> has proposed this, to use the money for his free public college proposal.
> The problem
> with the free public college proposal, which I like in principle, is that
> it is virtually
> impossible to adequately restrain tuition costs, which needs to be done,
> but without
> doing this the transaction-tax-for-tuition trade would largely subsidize
> higher
> tuition and detracting from the benefit to students.
>
> By contrast, a transaction tax whose revenues went into the social
> security fund to
> fund an increase in social security benefits would be a straight trade
> that would
> support higher benefits. To address a legitimate issue, a combination of
> some
> means testing plus the transaction tax could enable this formula to
> strengthen
> long term social security financing while simultaneously financing some
> increase
> in benefits. We could simply take the revenue gain from the transaction
> tax plus
> the social security financing gain from the means test and divide the
> financing
> gains between one part increase benefits and the other part enhancing the
> stability
> of the system.
>
> 3. Democratic politics. Right now Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren and
> some
> other progressives support increasing benefits. I agree with them on
> principle and
> policy and would advise HRC to join and potentially lead this. This would
> rally
> the Democratic base, divert some attention from you-know-what, and be the
> kind
> of initiatives Democrats should pursue for Democratic principles behind a
> highly
> popular Democratic government program that we should aggressively champion,
> and not defensively back away from.
>
> When I write this column, if HRC opposes this, I would simply agree with
> Bernie
> and Elizabeth supporting it and would not mention HRC either way. If HRC
> supports
> this I would banner and give high praise to her leadership.
>
> 4. Democratic-Republican politics: I do not believe it is enough to
> merely repeat
> that we oppose Republicans who want to cut social security. That is fine
> as far
> as it goes, but is timid and stale and tends to ring like demagoguery and
> does not
> ring man bells with seniors because they have heard it before and we are
> merely
> arguing against a negative event that they know is unlikely in fact to
> happen.
>
> By contrast, a call for an increase in social benefits would resonate with
> voters
> because it would involve a specific amount for the proposed increase that
> all
> seniors would immediately understand, view as directly improving their
> lives
> in measurable ways, and serve as one motivating issue for a potential
> mandate
> election that would have an outstanding chance of being enacted if HRC is
> elected,
> especially with more Democrats elected to the House and Senate with her.
>
> Additionally, if an increase in benefits were financed in whole or part by
> a Wall
> Street transaction tax, we would draw a stark contrast with Republicans on
> both
> ends of the trade where Democrats have the high ground and Republicans are
> vulnerable. We support social security in ways they do not; we will
> finance this in
> a way that ask Wall Street to do their fair share in an age where there is
> great
> wealth on Wall Street and a need for economic fairness.
>
> This can but need not be accompanied with populist anti-Wall Street
> rhetoric,
> that is a political call. Res ipsa loquitur, the thing will speak for
> itself, they want
> to privatize social security and turn it into a new Wall Street profit
> center; we want
> to protect Social Security and increase benefits for poor and middle class
> recipients.
>
> 5. Senior voters. Democrats have developed a growing weakness with senior
> voters that this would directly address. And again I would emphasize that
> a majority
> of these beneficiaries are women, who simply live longer than men, and
> begin with
> a baseline of having worked for wages that were unequal in most cases for
> their
> entire careers while they were working.
>
> Politics and policies are both about choices. These are the choices I
> would
> recommend for HRC.
>
> Brent
>
>
>
> Sent from my iPad
ℹ️ Document Details
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