Presidential Candidate Nikki Haley has recently come under fire for comments she has made about the retirement age in the country.
Business Insider reported on Fox News’s town hall event earlier this month with host Bret Baier, Ron DeSantis and Haley. DeSantis quoted Haley for claiming that she believes the “retirement age is way, way too low.”
Haley denied the claim, however, in an amazing act of bravery Baier did the unthinkable and fact-checked her (he’ll have to be careful, I feel Fox does not take too kindly to checking facts.) He reminded her that she did in fact say that in a previous interview with Bloomberg.
More broadly, this is an issue that not just Haley, but Republicans struggle with. They have to dance the fine line between cutting benefits and remaining popular. It is incredibly difficult, as it should be. It is going to look terrible for you to advocate for the increase of years people have to work.
This policy battle was just hashed out in 2023 in France. Emmanuel Macron’s government pushed through legislation to move the retirement age from 62 to 64, with intense outrage from the French public.
Unfortunately, I do not think we are going to see this kind of outrage from the American people. There is an adage that I think fits this well, “In France, the government is afraid of the people and in America, the people are afraid of the government.” As much as Americans do and would disagree with a policy change such as this, there will be no meaningful resistance. Policy fixes for Social Security are simple as well, like expanding FICA tax.
Taxable income is currently capped at $160,200 for Social Security, meaning that anything over that number is not taxed. Imagine if we eliminated that income cap. The program would be funded as far as the eye could see and possibly even enough for a Universal Basic Income program, but unfortunately, no.
We still have Republicans desperately trying to find a way to alter the program, mind you the single most successful anti-poverty program in U.S. history. According to the National Institute of Social Insurance, roughly 50% of elderly adults were impoverished before the Social Security Act of 1935, in 1959 that number was 35% and now that number is 9.4%.
This is the program candidates such as Haley want to alter and the mask is starting to come off. Raising taxes is such an egregious act that our generation should have to work ourselves to the grave and grandma should have to starve.
I would hope that us, the people, come to realize that the French have the right idea. We just cannot tell them that, it may go to their heads.
Timothy Fitzpatrick can be contacted at
tfitzpatrick@kscequinox.com
