Let's begin with the untruthful headline of "Senator Durbin Says Social Security Cuts Are Coming" based on a news report that Durbin said "revisions to the program, such as means-testing benefits for wealthier Americans, could be among the changes suggested by the negotiators". That's a cut in Social Security? You mean if Donald Trump does not manage to shield his assets on his next bankruptcy he might not get full SS benefits? Horrors! That's worse than Bush! It's practically torture. But wait, stop rolling those eyes. The explanation is that means testing might make people think of Social Security as WELFARE. And that would make it easy to attack. Really? Consider Medicare and Medicaid programs:
Voters oppose cuts to those programs by 80-18 percent. Even among conservatives, only 29 percent supported cuts, and 68 percent opposed them.Read more: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/...
The line that social security recipients just get back what they paid in is false - there is no way the private markets could provide insurance this good - but clearly the public doesn't care about that sort of stuff given popular support for Medicare and Medicaid.
Let's step back for a moment and consider that this hysteria is being generated by the "bold progressives". You know the ones who reject Republican framing and want to go on the offense - apparently by curling up in a fetal position and crying "no, it's not welfare, really". For people like me, "welfare", feeding the poor, taking care of the widow and orphan, helping out our brothers and sisters in times of trouble, protecting children and old people is a fundamental principle of social justice. I'm not embarrassed that we have medical welfare for old people (Medicare and Medicaid) and I'm not ashamed that we help poor children get enough to eat or have pensions for the elderly. I am embarrassed that we have welfare for Fox news that lets them not pay any taxes. But the idea that we can protect Social Security only by insisting it's not welfare is not only immoral, not only a craven cave-in to Republican framing of basic human decency as wrong, but also politically suicidal. Because the true threat to public support for social security is among the young.