SOCIAL SECURITY: The Attempt To Kill It

He insists that Social Security and Medicare are becoming stronger under his watch when the most recent government report shows the financial condition of both programs worsening.

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On the economy, his claims of spurring the strongest U. The statements were among varied misrepresentations from the White House and in hearings for his Supreme Court nominee, coming in a remarkable week after an anonymous senior official went public about an effort within the administration to thwart his agenda.

The Democrats will destroy Social Security. The Democrats want to destroy Medicare. Both programs also will start tapping their reserves this year, meaning that income from payroll taxes and interest earned by the Social Security and Medicare trust funds will no longer cover costs. So did the Trump-supported repeal of the individual mandate in so-called Obamacare. The repeal promises to increase the number of people without health insurance and therefore Medicare payments for uncompensated medical care. Democrats want to expand the social safety net by spending more. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin has argued that tax cuts, rolling back regulations and better trade agreements could boost economic growth and help stabilize Medicare and Social Security.

This is just the beginning. We have just begun! Trump realDonaldTrump September 8, Trump realDonaldTrump September 6, The economy, though healthy, has been in better shape at many times in the past.

So far, the economy is growing at a modest rate compared with previous economic expansions. In the late s, growth topped 4 percent for four straight years, from through In the s expansion, growth even reached 7. The unemployment rate of 3. It is near an year low.

The all-time low came in , when unemployment fell to 2. Meanwhile, a greater percentage of Americans held jobs in than now. As a whole, the economy is in its 10th year of growth, a recovery that began under President Barack Obama, who inherited the Great Recession. The data show that the falling unemployment rate and gains in home values reflect the duration of the recovery, rather than any major changes made since by the Trump administration. For the record, Trump misstates the Electoral College vote in his presidential race against Democrat Hillary Clinton. The official count was to , according to an Associated Press tally of the electoral votes in every state.

Clinton won the popular vote, receiving nearly 2. Trump often pledges to make it easier for people to sue for defamation, typically after the publication of books or news articles that present an unflattering portrait of the White House. But he has little influence to change the laws. Libel laws are set at the state level, which the president and Congress do not have authority to change. Any attempt to loosen the laws would likely run afoul of the First Amendment, barring a successful Supreme Court challenge or constitutional amendment.

What do you think? Leave a respectful comment.

TRUMP , questioning whether one of his senior officials acted illegally about an administration effort to thwart his agenda: Trump realDonaldTrump September 5, Treason occurs when a U. For instance, in the Cold War case of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, who were executed for giving atomic secrets to Russia, the Rosenbergs were convicted of espionage, not treason, because the U.

No one has been convicted of treason since the aftermath of World War II, few have been through history and no one has been executed for that crime, says Carlton F. Larson, a University of California law professor who has a book coming on treason. In , the Bush administration brought a treason indictment against Adam Gadahn, an American who authorities say became an operative and spokesman for al-Qaida abroad.

The Obama administration said he was killed in a counterterrorism operation in the Pakistan-Afghanistan border region. Treason is addressed in the Constitution as part of an effort by the framers to prevent the government from using it as a reason to suppress political speech, said J.

Congress has little if any power to change the definition and the executive branch can only bring charges in extremely limited cases. Most of us are too young to remember when growing old in America almost inevitably meant a miserable descent into poverty, but until the middle of the 20th century, that's what it was. The current controversy revolves around a rule change Republicans made as soon as the new Congress was sworn in this month.

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The disability program will be facing a funding shortfall next year, and to ensure that disabled people continue to get all their benefits, Congress would have to move some money from OASI into DI. This isn't anything new -- it's been done many times in recent years.

But House Republicans adopted a parliamentary rule barring the House from allowing that transfer unless it was accompanied by benefit cuts or tax increases. If it can't get worked out, people on DI could see their benefits cut substantially. The next generation and Social Security So why would Republicans insist on this? My guess is that they think forcing a mini-crisis over the Disability Insurance program's finances will allow for a debate on the program that will make it easier to do what they've wanted to do for a long time: The justification is always that the program is "going broke.

When people say that, what they're usually referring to is that, according to the projections in the Social Security Trustees' latest report, in the program's trust fund will be exhausted. But even if there are no changes between now and then, the program would not be "broke.

Which would be awful. That would be a large reduction in income for millions of seniors. The people who tell you that the program will be "broke" are hoping that, faced with that fictional nightmare, you might be willing to accept steep benefit cuts now. The point is, it wouldn't be hard to come up with some combination of changes that could take care of the shortfall without cutting benefits. But for that to happen, both parties would have to agree on that goal.

And there's reason to wonder whether Republicans really want a Social Security that's strong and stable. Programs like Social Security and Medicare -- which provide vital benefits to millions of Americans and are hugely popular -- stand as a living rebuke to conservatives' small-government philosophy. When Republicans tell voters that government can't do anything right, they hope that the voters don't respond, "Well, the government is doing a good job keeping my grandma from having to eat cat food.