Here’s a Bold Idea for Hillary’s Troubled Campaign
(COMMON DREAMS) Steven Hill, August 27, 2016 — Hillary Clinton is ahead in the polls, but it’s more due to Donald Trump’s many blunders than excitement with Mrs. Clinton. She has benefited from being the anti-Trump. But new allegations about the FBI finding another 15,000 missing emails, as well as evidence of a possible “pay-to-play” donation system between her husband’s Clinton Global Initiative and the Secretary of State’s office, raises old perceptions about her untrustworthiness and dishonesty.
Mrs. Clinton’s campaign is badly in need of a bold issue that fires the imagination of voters. Otherwise, if Trump stops the bloopers and regains his economic populism, this race could tighten very quickly.
What issue should Hillary Clinton focus on that will rally voters? Here’s one that will neutralize her opponent’s economic appeal: a dramatic expansion of Social Security.
This popular program, which celebrated its 81st birthday on August 14, enjoys stratospheric support, even among 70% of Republican rank-and-file voters. It’s the greatest anti-poverty program that the US has ever devised. Three-quarters of Americans depend heavily on Social Security in their elderly years, and nearly half would be living in poverty without it. It’s been an especially important support system for minority and female retirees. During the 2008–09 economic crisis, when home ownership, private savings and the stock market collapsed, Social Security remained stable.
Despite its popularity, critics have stoked the fear that Social Security will face a financial shortfall sometime in the 2030s. But that is overblown, Social Security has an established trust fund that, legally speaking, cannot spend more than it takes in. Any future deficits could be made up from any number of revenue sources. It’s all a matter of budgetary priorities.
In fact, the real problem with Social Security is not a shortfall but that its payout is so meager. Social Security is designed to replace only about 40 percent of a worker’s wages at retirement, yet retirement experts estimate you will need almost twice that amount to live decently. With private retirement pensions, as well as personal savings centered on homeownership – the other two legs of the three-legged “stool of retirement” –still looking wobbly, and with incomes low and inequality high, tens of millions of retirees won’t have much more than their monthly Social Security checks to live on.