(Photo credit: DonkeyHotey)
Voters 50 and older went solidly for Mitt Romney in this year’s presidential election: 52 percent of voters between the age of 50 and 64 voted for Romney; 56 percent of voters 65 or older went for Romney. The obvious problem for the GOP in the future is that this age cohort is dying off. By 2016, about 11 percent of those currently 55 or older will be dead, and almost 19 percent of those currently 65 and older will have met their maker.
But pure demographics is not the larger problem for Republicans. After all, voters traditionally grow more conservative, and hence more Republican leaning, as they age, and the 40-to-49-age cohort, most of whom can be expected to live for a long time yet, also voted for Romney by a slight 50-48 percent margin this year.
No, the larger problem for Republicans is that they are preparing to play Charlie Brown to Barack Obama’s Lucy on Social Security, again. The congressional Republican leadership is all charged up to cut Social Security in a Grand Bargain with President Obama on the deficit, pending only some agreement on tax increases and military-spending reductions. They better beware though; Lucy is just about to jerk the football out from under them, again, and they are going to fall flat on their keisters, again, if they don’t wise up.
Republicans had better prepare themselves for a world-class bait-and-switch con on Social Security by the president and his Democratic congressional cronies. Here’s why.
For the past two years, Mr. Obama has been tempting Republicans with a Grand Bargain on the deficit in which Republicans would concede tax increases on people earning more than $250,000 a year in exchange for the president’s delivering congressional Democrats on Social Security cuts through so-called “reforms” that would cut inflation adjustments (COLAs), means test (cut) the program on the benefits side and transform the flat-rate payroll-tax pension contribution into a progressive income tax by raising or eliminating the annual cap on the amount of earnings on which the payroll tax must be paid.
From Mr. Obama’s perspective it represents a great deal. With ObamaCare, the president already has demonstrated his callousness toward old people and a ruthless willingness to sacrifice senior citizens to achieve his political ends. A substantial majority of old people didn’t vote for him, and now he won’t be running again, anyway. The so-called Social Security “reforms” being dangled before Republicans are a redistributionist’s dream come true, which is just another demonstration—as if one is required—of why the Republican Party is the stupid party. But now it’s worse; it makes the GOP the evil party as well.
Republicans have become so fixated on their mistaken notion that Social Security is largely responsible for the deficit, and they are so intent on cutting cost of living allowances for current retirees that they are willing to help the president transform Social Security into the world’s biggest welfare program, a major step toward the Democrats’ goal of putting everyone in America on welfare. Republicans also are prepared it appears to help Mr. Obama transform the payroll tax into just another redistributive progressive income tax.
Republicans just can’t bring themselves to admit that as poorly designed as the payroll tax is, as misshapen as it may be, the payroll tax remains, nevertheless, basically a pension contribution that workers make every payday in expectation of receiving retirement benefits in exchange when they retire. Social Security is not a handout; it is an earned benefit every bit as much as any other pension.
Republicans insist on treating Social Security like welfare, and now they want to turn it into welfare in fact. Try telling that to even the most conservative retiree or near retiree who has been forced to pay into Social Security their entire working lives, many of whom now will receive a negative rate of return on that compulsory contribution. The Republican Party wants to stigmatize retirees by treating them like welfare queens and making them feel responsible and ashamed for the fiscal mess Congress itself created. Worse than the stupid party; worse even than the evil party; the Republican Party has become the brain-dead, zombie party.
The evidence is mounting that seniors and congressional Democrats—for whom the senior vote remains much more important that it does for Democratic presidential candidates—will not allow a Grand Bargain to be struck at the expense of seniors so Congress can continue corporate bailouts and pouring our treasure down the military-industrial rat hole.
For one thing, AARP has much to atone for having first betrayed seniors on ObamaCare to feather its own billion-dollar corporate nest and then also having played footsie with the president on the anti-seniors Grand Bargain for the past two years. After thousands of seniors quit AARP in outrage over its support of ObamaCare, AARP finally appears to be waking up and running nationwide TV adds opposing cuts to Social Security.
Additionally, some Hill Democrats now appear to be growing restive. For example, than half the 53 Senate Democrats (29), including Democratic Majority Leader Harry Reid, signed a letter opposing any cuts to Social Security as part of a deficit reduction package. Although Obama may be ruthless enough to pursue his long-term strategic vision at seniors’ expense, his lame duck status already may affect his ability to have his way with his own party, even before he is sworn in for a second term. So, don’t be surprised if after the Republicans cave in and give the President what he is demanding in a Grand Bargain, Mr. Obama then turns around and jerks the rug out from under them on Social Security.
You’re a clown, Charlie Brown.
