{"id":3841,"date":"2011-01-12T12:15:06","date_gmt":"2011-01-12T20:15:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=3841"},"modified":"2011-01-12T12:15:06","modified_gmt":"2011-01-12T20:15:06","slug":"pawlenty-targets-social-security","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2011\/01\/12\/pawlenty-targets-social-security\/","title":{"rendered":"Pawlenty Targets Social Security"},"content":{"rendered":"

Republican opposition to Social Security began before FDR\u2019s ink dried on the bill, because it actually returns money to poor and middle class people, when the Republican agenda is to transfer wealth from the poor and middle classes to millionaires, billionaires and criminal corporations.  However, Social Security is so popular with the US public that it is considered the third rail of politics.  A few Republican extremists attack it directly to their own peril, but most find more sneaky ways to chip away at its edges.  Here is the latest such attempt.<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\"12pawlenty\"Last week, Gov. Mitch Daniels (R-IN) said that he believes the retirement age for Social Security needs to be increased \u2014 despite the regressive nature and complete lack of need for such a move \u2014 because young people \u201cwill live to be more than 100.\u201d \u201cThey\u2019ll be replacing body parts like we do tires,\u201d Daniels said.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Last night, Daniels was joined by another governor who may have his eye on the 2012 Republican nomination for president: Tim Pawlenty. During an interview with CNN\u2019s Elliot Spitzer, Pawlenty said that, due to the nation\u2019s fiscal position, young people will have to \u201ccorrelate your retirement\u2026to life expectancy<\/a>\u201c…<\/p>\n

…Watch it: <\/p>\n

 <\/param><\/param><\/param><\/embed><\/object><\/p>\n

Pawlenty never used the words \u201craise the retirement age,\u201d but \u201ccorrelate your retirement\u2026to life expectancy\u201d means precisely the same thing<\/strong>. Like Daniels (and many others on both ends of the political spectrum), Pawlenty is relying on a faulty understanding of America\u2019s increasing life expectancy to push a regressive cut in Social Security that will disproportionately impact those most in need of the program<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

While average life expectancy has indeed been rising, the increase is largely a result of a significant rise in life expectancy among upper income earners<\/font><\/strong>. Middle- and low-income workers have not seen the same increases<\/a>… [emphasis added<\/em>]<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Inserted from <Think Progress<\/a>><\/p>\n

Pawlenty would have us believe that he is a moderate Republican.  That is a lie, virtually all moderate Republicans have been forced out of office by the extremists.<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Republican opposition to Social Security began before FDR\u2019s ink dried on the bill, because it actually returns money to poor and middle class people, when the Republican agenda is to transfer wealth from the poor and middle classes to millionaires, billionaires and criminal corporations.  However, Social Security is so popular with the US public that […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3841","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","category-5-id","post-seq-1","post-parity-odd","meta-position-corners","fix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3841","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3841"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3841\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3841"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3841"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3841"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}