Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR)
Senate Democrats are spoiling for a fight with Republicans over Social Security, blasting House Republicans over the
rule they adopted last week that will force a crisis in funding for the disability program in 2016. Congress has regularly allowed the Social Security program to reallocate funds between the retirement program and the disability program if one of the two was in danger of falling short. Last week's new rule will prevent that transfer of funds, unless it is accompanied by some unspecified Social Security "reform." Senate Democrats are
gearing up for a big fight on this, and have put Senate Republicans on notice.
In a letter sent Monday to Republican Senate leadership, eight senior members of the Senate’s Democratic Conference decried the House move to establish a point of order against a fund transfer. […]
"This move is a particularly audacious in light of the fact that past reallocations have been commonplace and bipartisan. In fact, Congress has reallocated taxes between the Social Security retirement and disability trust funds 11 times before, in both directions, when it was needed to put either program on stronger footing," wrote the Democratic caucus members led by Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon, the ranking member on the Finance Committee.
Wyden was joined by Democrats Claire McCaskill of Missouri, Richard J. Durbin of Illinois, Charles E. Schumer of New York, Patty Murray of Washington, Debbie Stabenow of Michigan and Sherrod Brown of Ohio, along with independent Bernard Sanders of Vermont.
Note the presence of McCaskill on that list, one of the
fifteen Democrats in the Senate that Republicans are hoping to bring over to the dark side. At least they're not going to get her on Social Security. It's critical that congressional Democrats raise as much hell as possible over this one, in large part to get the single-most important Democratic policy-maker onboard. President Obama and the White House so far
remains silent on this move by the House, despite multiple requests from TPM for comment.
Obama's desire to establish some kind of legacy through a grand bargain with Republicans on taxes and spending has long been a sore point for progressives and Social Security advocates, as Social Security kept showing up on his bargaining table. The White House's failure to respond to this provocation from House Republicans is unsettling, to say the least. That makes it all the more important that Senate Democrats make this a real fight, and enlist Obama in it.