GOP Assault on Social Security Could be 'Death Sentence' for Nation's Disabled

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

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. 

"Since most disability recipients receive barely $1,200 a month, a cut of nearly 20 percent could mean the difference between affording food, medicine, clothing or paying bills. It is an unspeakable option and one that we are determined to prevent."
—Senator Bernie Sanders

 

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." 

Republicans oppose the practice of shifting funds. On the first day of the new GOP-controlled Congress, the U.S. House passed a measure making it more difficult to move funds between separate accounts maintained by the Social Security Administration.

But failure to allow the reshuffling would "lay the groundwork for a 19 percent cut in disability benefits," according to a report (pdf) issued Tuesday by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.). "That’s a horribly devastating cut for individuals—most of whom are in their 50's and in poor health—to absorb beginning next year. In fact, since most disability recipients receive barely $1,200 a month, a cut of nearly 20 percent could mean the difference between affording food, medicine, clothing or paying bills. It is an unspeakable option and one that we are determined to prevent."

What's more, the move is "a cynical attempt to divide the senior population from the disability community," charged the report.