Congressman Ron Barber hammered Martha McSally with her previous statements on social security and Medicare during the campaign. Martha McSally swore up and down during the campaign that “I would never do anything to undermine social security,” really.
Yet her very first substantive vote in Congress, vote No. 6 on H.Res. 5 for House Rules Changes, passed 234-176 on a party-line vote, sets up election-year battle over Social Security’s finances in 2016:
Buried in new rules that will govern the House for the next two years is a provision that could force an explosive battle over Social Security’s finances on the eve of the 2016 presidential election.
Social Security’s disability program has been swamped by aging baby boomers, and unless Congress acts, the trust fund that supports it is projected to run dry in late 2016. At that point, the program will collect only enough payroll taxes to pay 81 percent of benefits, according to the trustees who oversee Social Security.
To shore up the disability program, Congress could redirect payroll taxes from Social Security’s much larger retirement fund — as it has done in the past.
[Reallocating revenue from the much larger Social Security retirement benefits fund to SSDI would cover the shortfall, and trust fund managers have performed such reallocations 11 times since the late 1950s.]
However, the House adopted a rule Tuesday blocking such a move, unless it is part of a larger plan to improve Social Security’s finances, by either cutting benefits or raising taxes [not going to happen in a GOP controlled Congress.]
Long the third rail of American politics, tinkering with Social Security has never been easy. Throw in election-year politics and finding votes in Congress to cut benefits or raise taxes could be especially difficult.
