{"id":6308,"date":"2011-06-21T07:25:01","date_gmt":"2011-06-21T12:25:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/?p=6308"},"modified":"2016-06-10T12:42:41","modified_gmt":"2016-06-10T16:42:41","slug":"get-radical-raise-social-security","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/2011\/06\/21\/get-radical-raise-social-security\/","title":{"rendered":"Get Radical: Raise Social Security"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Thomas Geoghegan in his article <a title=\"Thomas Geoghegan article\" href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2011\/06\/20\/opinion\/20geoghegan.html\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>Get Radical: Raise Social Security<\/strong><\/a> gives us the kind of thinking that we need in our politics.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Right now Social Security pays out 39 percent of the average worker\u2019s preretirement earnings. While jaws may drop inside the Beltway, we could raise that to 50 percent. We\u2019d still be near the bottom of the league of the world\u2019s richest countries \u2014 but at least it would be a basement with some food and air. We have elderly people living on less than $10,000 a year. Is that what Democrats want to \u201csave\u201d?<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>A bigger pension \u2014 a raise in Social Security benefits \u2014 is the stimulus this demoralized country needs. Come on, Democrats: think of F.D.R., Robert Wagner, or heck, even Lyndon B. Johnson. Let\u2019s ask ourselves: Who are we for?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>At the very least, this is the kind of bargaining position from which the Democrats need to start.\u00a0 Instead of conceding the point to the other side and then starting negotiations, progressives need to decide where they want to end up and start way to the left of that point.<\/p>\n<p>As it is now, the radical right must be thrilled.\u00a0 They start way to the right of where they think they can get and somehow end up pretty close to that starting point.\u00a0 The other side just caves because of a lack of ideas and skill.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Thomas Geoghegan in his article Get Radical: Raise Social Security gives us the kind of thinking that we need in our politics. Right now Social Security pays out 39 percent of the average worker\u2019s preretirement earnings. While jaws may drop inside the Beltway, we could raise that to 50 percent. We\u2019d still be near the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[166],"tags":[35],"class_list":{"0":"post-6308","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-stevegsposts","7":"tag-social-security","8":"czr-hentry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6308","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6308"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6308\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22782,"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6308\/revisions\/22782"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6308"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6308"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6308"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}