We found out last month that Bernie Sanders, the Independent Senator from Vermont, will be the ranking member on the Senate Budget Committee in 2015.
The ranking member is the second-most senior member on the committee from the majority party. In that position, he’ll have a prominent role in crafting Congress’ annual budget – and Sanders says he plans on wielding his power to expand Social Security and protect the program against cuts.
He said as much a few weeks ago while speaking on the Senate floor. He also denounced a proposal by Republicans that would cuts annual COLAs for Social Security beneficiaries. Reported by the Vermont Digger:
“At a time when prescription drug prices are skyrocketing and one-third of all seniors depend on Social Security for a least 90 percent of their income, we should not be cutting Social Security, we should be expanding it,” said Sanders. “Despite what you may hear from some politicians or pundits on TV, Social Security is not going broke. In fact the program has a $2.76 trillion surplus and has paid out every nickel owed to every eligible beneficiary since its inception.”
Speaking on the Senate floor, Sanders said one of the major threats to Social Security is a proposal promoted by Republican budget negotiators to change how the consumer price index is calculate in a way designed to cut annual cost-of-living adjustments for Social Security benefits. Under the so-called chained CPI, the average senior who retires at age 65 would see their Social Security benefits cut by about $658 a year when they reach 75 and by about $1,100 a year once they turn 85. At the beginning of 2014, the average Social Security benefit for a retired worker was $1,193.92 a month.
Sanders has been an outspoken defender of Social Security for years, and expanding the program has been a key component of what Sanders considers an ideal budget. From his website:
During the most challenging economic times since the Great Depression, it is grotesquely immoral and bad economic policy to cut desperately needed programs for working people, the elderly, the children, the sick and the poor while not asking millionaires and billionaires to contribute one nickel toward deficit reduction. During this past year, as Chairman of the Senate Defending Social Security Caucus, Bernie has helped lead the successful effort to protect Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid from proposed devastating cuts.
It’s not yet been decided who will chair the Budget Committee – but since the GOP own the majority in Congress, the race for chairman is between two Republicans: Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) and Sen. Mike Enzi (R-Wyo.).
Photo by Senate Democrats via Flickr CC License
