GOP Assault on Social Security Could be 'Death Sentence' for Nation's Disabled [View all]

http://www.commondreams.org/news/2015/02/12/gop-assault-social-security-could-be-death-sentence-nations-disabled



The claim that either the old-age or disability trust funds has run dry is 'one of the hoariest lies in the conservatives' playbook.'

GOP Assault on Social Security Could be 'Death Sentence' for Nation's Disabled
Deirdre Fulton, staff writer
Thursday, February 12, 2015

Republican opposition to a plan that would shore up a critical government safety-net program amounts to a new front in the GOP's class war and could equal a "death sentence" for many poor recipients, defenders of Social Security said this week.

The White House has proposed shifting money between two Social Security accounts in order to avert deep cuts in disability payments—specifically, reallocating a small portion of the Social Security payroll tax from its old-age account to disability for five years—as has been done numerous times in the past.

The AARP and other elder advocacy groups support the strategy, which would extend by 17 years the life of the disability reserve, currently projected to be exhausted by the end of 2016, according to acting commissioner of the Social Security Administration Carolyn Colvin.

And it would save lives, she added. "I don’t want to be dramatic, but I've worked with this population my whole career," Colvin said at a Senate Budget Committee hearing held Wednesday. Cutting already paltry disability benefits, she declared, would "give them a death sentence."