Soon after being elected speaker of the House on Oct. 25, Mike Johnson, the once little-known Republican representative from Louisiana pledged to form a bipartisan fiscal commission to study the national debt and social safety net spending, what he declared was “the greatest threat to our national security.” When Johnson chaired the Republican Study Committee several years ago, he and his GOP colleagues supported changes to Social Security and Medicare that they argued would save these programs from insolvency. Social Security Trustees expect a shortfall in the program’s Trust Fund as soon as 2033 or 2034 due to the aging of the U.S. population and declining birth rates.
In response to the proposed commission, over 100 organizations sent a letter to Congress opposing its creation, which they say is designed to fast-track cuts to Social Security and Medicare behind closed doors and will likely propose raising the retirement age and a reduction in benefits. The Biden administration agreed, calling this commission a “death panel” for Social Security and Medicare.
Between The Lines’ Scott Harris spoke with Alex Lawson, executive director of Social Security Works, the convening member of the national Strengthen Social Security Coalition. Here, he discusses opposition to the creation of a “fiscal commission,” and the simplest and fairest way to address an expected Social Security shortfall which Lawson says is to remove the cap on the amount of wages subject to the Social Security payroll tax.
ALEX LAWSON: We, specifically at Social Security Works, were formed in 2010 to fight against a so-called bipartisan commission that was really just a convening of billionaires, puppet politicians and then some fig leaves called the Bowles-Simpson Commission, which was set up to cut Social Security and Medicare and to hide that from the public view.
We find ourselves right back in this situation again, 13 years later, where we are fighting a commission that the Republicans are trying through hook and crook and anything in between to set up to cut Social Security and Medicare and to hide that action—the looting of the American people from those people.
And so that’s why it’s so incredibly important that we’re having this conversation right now, because I do want to say that although I am optimistic that we will win—as we have time and time before—there’s a slight shift in the sentiment in this town that’s sort of going toward an acceptance of a commission as possibly just the price that needs to be paid to get things done.
And that is just a sucker’s bet. It is never a price tha should be paid and it never leads to getting things done. All that happens is the billionaires use it as an excuse to attack Social Security and try to keep their fingerprints off of it.
SCOTT HARRIS: And Alex, for many years now, we’ve read in the media about the looming threat of a Social Security and Medicare financing shortfall. I believe they say Social Security will meet a shortfall in 2033, Medicare in 2031. And I wonder if you would just gauge the accuracy of these predictions as well as recap for us your formula for saving Social Security and making sure not only that it’s solvent for years to come, but that it’s strengthened and that you actually are able to get a more livable wage and a more resilient way to use your social safety net benefits. Tell us about that, if you would.
ALEX LAWSON: Yeah, it’s a really important discussion and I want to make sure that I’m being understandable in this because once you understand it, it’s so clear what’s going on. So what “solvency” means in the case of programs like Social Security, systems like Social Security and Medicare, is that all of the promised benefits can be paid. And then in the case of Social Security, it’s incredibly small “c” conservative for 75 years—what they consider solvency—into the next century.
And that’s what I want. I want all promised benefits to be paid. In fact, I want more. But so when they say that there is a solvency crisis, let’s make sure we understand what the problem is. The problem is that in 2033 or 2034, depending, but in about a decade without any action, Social Security benefits will be cut automatically to match the amount of money that is going into Social Security from dedicated revenue from the payroll taxes that we see coming out of our paychecks.
That’s a huge problem. In a decade, benefits are going to go down by 20 percent. That’s the problem. Now, to solve that problem, you have to prevent benefits from going down 20 percent. Right? Because the problem is the benefits going down.
Now, luckily, there is a simple solution to the problem of benefits going down in a decade, which is to have the ultra-wealthy pay into Social Security on all of their income, instead of just the first $160,000 of income, which is what it is now.
So think about someone like Elon Musk who might stop paying into Social Security in the first second of the first day of every year, while the vast majority of the American people pay in all year long. A person who makes about $1 million a year stops paying into Social Security on Valentine’s Day every year around the middle of February.
So this is a real threat and problem in a decade. Benefits will go down by 20 percent. But the solution is also very clear: We have millionaires and billionaires pay into Social Security on all of their income — and not only can we then pay promised benefits into the next century, meaning fully solvent, we can actually expand benefits by $200 a month for every single person in this country.
Listen to Scott Harris’ in-depth interview with Alex Lawson (17:49) and see more articles and opinion pieces in the Related Links section of this page.
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