The Fiscal Commission released its final report today, and it has once again been caught loading the dice. The Social Security cuts that the Commission unveiled are virtually indistinguishable from the Co-Chairs’ initial proposal a few weeks ago—save for one clever new distortion. The Commission is now vastly inflating the effects of its “hardship exemption” to the increased retirement age for workers in physically demanding jobs, in order to whitewash the cuts its plan would inflict on the working poor.
The first thing you need to know about Rep. Jan Schakowsky’s plan to strengthen Social Security is what it does not do. It does not claim to cut benefits in order to “prevent them from being cut” in the future. It does not “fix” Social Security with 70% benefit cuts and 30% revenue increases and then turn around and call itself a compromise. It does not shove middle class retirees and their families into poverty by cutting their benefits as much as 35%.
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