Social Security was basically ignored during the most recent Democratic presidential debate and does not seem to be a prioritized topic for the candidates, but that doesn’t mean it is totally being ignored. In fact, there is a current bill being considered that would expand Social Security benefits offered by U.S. Rep. John Larson (D-Connecticut) who sits on the House Ways and Means Committee.
Larson’s bill is currently languishing in Congress, but POLITICO recently reported the legislator is adjusting his bill in response to some of his colleagues who have hesitations with the bill due to how it would impact lower wage workers. An update on the status of the bill, which can be found below, was recently published by POLITICO.
Rep. John Larson of Connecticut, a senior Democrat on the House Ways and Means Committee, has a bill, H.R. 860 (116), that would hike Social Security benefits across the board, paired with tax increases in the neighborhood of $1 trillion over a decade. Larson has pushed for Ways and Means to mark up his measure and for the full House to take up the bill — so far unsuccessfully, despite the fact that the vast majority of House Democrats have signed on to the proposal.
Larson’s fellow Democrats are especially queasy about the impact that his measure’s hefty payroll tax increases would have on lower-income workers, which is one reason the measure — which would only be a messaging bill this year, because it stands little chance of getting much attention in the Senate — has stalled in recent months.
Larson said Wednesday that he’s changing the bill in response to his colleagues’ concerns about lower-income workers. That includes employing the Earned Income Tax Credit to ensure that certain workers making $50,000 or less essentially won’t owe any payroll taxes and expanding the EITC eligibility for childless workers, as Ways and Means did in legislation last year. He added that he fully expects Ways and Means to consider the measure in the coming weeks. (It should be noted that Larson previously said he expected a markup to happen later in 2019.)
But Larson also made a more purely political pitch for the bill, pointing out that President Donald Trump was virtually alone among GOP candidates in 2016 in vowing not to pare back Social Security — and adding that Democrats would open themselves up to criticism if they didn’t move on the issue this year. “Let’s say that the Democrats were to do nothing — then what? So on your watch, in the majority, you did nothing, and he says, ‘You were too busy trying to impeach me,’” Larson said.
The POLITICO piece points out one of the largest roadblocks to an expansion of Social Security benefits, a Republican-controlled Senate. Even if the House passed Larson’s bill it would have little chance of passing the Senate and being signed by President Donald Trump. Nevertheless, Larson does expect the Ways and Means committee to consider the bill in a few weeks.
