Could The GOP Turn Social Security Into A Perennial 'Crisis' Like The Debt Limit?

[herding cats]

My first thought was even Republicans can't be this stupid, then I realized they can. It helps with their narrative of SS being in a state of immediate crisis and fits their agenda of cuts and privatization for the program.

With a fight over Social Security brewing in the new Republican Congress, advocates are worried that a possible GOP angle is to turn Social Security into a perennial crisis in much the same way raising the debt limit has become. By setting up a series of forcing events, the argument goes, Republicans would be able to create an ongoing crisis atmosphere around Social Security that would create a pretext for dramatic changes to the 80-year-old program.

As TPM has documented, the House passed a rule on the first day of the new Congress that prohibited the routine transfer of tax revenue between Social Security's retirement and disability funds, the latter of which will stop being able to make full benefit payments starting in late 2016. The transfer, known as reallocation, has been done under Democratic and Republican administrations multiple times in the past, most recently in 1994, but the new House rule forbids it unless it is accompanied by measures that improve the overall solvency of Social Security.

House Republicans have been transparent about their intentions of using the new rule to force a debate on changes to the program, while advocates and Democrats warned that the rule could lead to benefit cuts. But there is another possibility: Republicans could pass a short-term reallocation that would set up another shortfall a few years down the road -- and one that could arrive under a new Republican president.

It would in theory turn Social Security reallocation into something akin to the debt ceiling of the last few years: A formerly routine accounting move that the GOP is now trying to use as a leverage point to advance conservative proposals. Advocates told TPM that it was a scenario they were taking seriously.

"Just as with the debt limit, Congress could require regular short-term action, keeping a climate of crisis and requiring new legislation frequently," Nancy Altman, co-director of Social Security Works, told TPM. Advocates are pushing for a clean reallocation, which is projected to keep both funds solvent until 2033.

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/dc/gop-congress-social-security-cliff-debt-ceiling

[doc03]

1. I am afraid that is the plan. They have young people convinced

SS is broke and it won't be there for them, so why would they support it? If we get a Republican president in 2016
that will be the end of it for future generations..

[woo me with science]

2. Our president already has set the stage for this pattern

by putting SS on the table and signaling that it is fair game.

Of course it will be continued.

This is oligarchy. The entire debt ceiling scam was orchestrated by both parties as a Shock Doctrine tactic.

This is how we are ruled, and duped now, by our united, bipartisan corporate oligarchy.

[freshwest]

3. KIcking for visibility.