It was not very long ago that if a plan to fix Social Security were offered cutting benefit was the main idea of the plan, but more plans are now coming out that not only reject the idea of cutting benefits, but offers ways to increase benefits.
Multiple Democratic presidential contenders have offered plans as well as House Democrats that would increase benefits because the modest benefit rate is not doing enough to keep millions of people out of poverty.
The Wall Street Journal recently published an online story about how there seems to be a shift of not only legislators who want to increase benefits, but the public is behind it as well.
President Donald Trump, who seems to be on the other side of any Democratic stance, already said, in 2016, that he would not cut Social Security benefits, which seems to limit the possibility of a Republican plan to cut benefits to receive much traction. As The Wall Street Journal points out, it is not only Democrats who are against cutting Social Security, but Republicans too. A 2018 Pew Research poll found that 78 percent of Democrats and 68 percent of Republicans were opposed to cuts in future Social Security benefits.
Although congressional Republicans are still far from a point where they will endorse the idea to increase Social Security benefits, they also realize that cutting existing and future benefits is not politically popular and some have even hinted that they would listed to plans to increase benefits.
In the story, U.S. Rep. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) said he is not for increasing the payroll tax to solve the Social Security problem, but also concedes “it will be a compromise.”
Another Republican identified in the story, U.S. Rep. Tom Reed, (R-N.Y.) said some benefit increases might be worth examining.
Ten years ago you would never had heard a Republican member of Congress open to increasing Social Security benefits, but considering the overwhelming support of the American people, maybe the shift has moved to increasing benefits rather than cutting them.
