Time for a contract with America’s seniors

ObamaCare preys on senior citizens. It will gut Medicare and take away many healthcare options enjoyed by seniors. If implemented as written, ObamaCare will put many seniors out in the cold and into an early grave.

The Obama Debt Commission has Social Security in its cross hairs. Leaks from the president’s commission indicate that among the options being considered are delaying the retirement age, changing the basic benefit formula, and delaying or slashing cost-of-living adjustments (COLAs).

To make matters worse, the Obama administration has been scaring seniors with regard to their Social Security benefits. Rather than fixing the longstanding problem of financing Social Security with a Bernie Madoff Ponzi scheme, the president is scaring seniors for political gain. Instead of allowing younger workers to save part of their payroll taxes in personal retirement accounts to partially pre-fund their retirement and relieve pressure on Social Security and Medicare, and rather than disavowing any cut in retirement benefits for current retirees and baby boomers about to retire, President Obama petrifies America’s seniors with talk of “privatization,” a loaded and inaccurate characterization of Social Security reform that would make the program solvent and protect seniors’ retirement income.

The president is demanding tax rate increases on capital gains, dividend and interest income that could crush seniors’ nest eggs and destroy retirement prosperity for millions of retirees. Tax rates on non-wage income that affect seniors most are slated to rise automatically next year, and President Obama calls anyone who objects to these tax rate hikes an “obstructionist.” The president’s tax increases on capital gains, dividends and interest income will harm seniors and further depress the economy.

All in all, the Obama administration is stacking up to be a disaster for seniors.

America has a compact with today’s seniors through the programs they paid taxes to support during their working years. The Obama administration is violating that compact at every turn. Therefore, if members of Congress and candidates for Congress are serious about honoring this compact, they must renew it in writing or become complicit in the president’s assault on seniors.  The leaders of this country owe America’s seniors policies that will not impede or imperil their ability to live their retirement years with security and prosperity.

Any member of Congress or congressional candidate should, therefore, be willing to sign the following Contract with America’s Seniors, or else:

•    Pledge to repeal Obamacare

•    Pledge to restore Medicare cuts resulting from Obama’s health care law and disavow price controls and rationing as part of any future health care “reform”

•    Pledge to protect Medicare and Social Security from cuts and reduce total federal spending to 2008 level

•    Pledge to repeal all pending tax increases and then cut tax rates across the board

Dr. Lawrence A. Hunter is president of the Alliance for Retirement Prosperity.