Politics is about the payoff - vote for me and I will give you that . . . to be paid for, of course, by the others who didn’t vote for me.
Joe Biden promised to give lots of stuff to seniors if they voted for him and some probably did. Now it’s time to deliver the stolen goods.
What did Uncle Joe - who is already 78 years old and thus America’s most senior president to date - offer seniors in return for their political support?
One of the biggest promises was to increase the Social Security benefits paid out to retired seniors by “asking” - he means forcing - not-retired people to pay more of their earning in taxes to finance them, at the cost of their own retirement next egg, ever-diminishing.
These higher earners already pay the most in Social Security (FICA) taxes - which take 15 percent right off the top, before federal/state and other taxes take more - while deriving the least benefit when they retire because their benefits are subject to higher (again) taxes on the same “progressive” basis that applies higher income taxes to those with higher incomes.
In plainer language, Biden intends to punish those with higher incomes . . . while they're working and after they stop working - because they had the audacity to earn more money.
Biden also has promised to increase the benefits received by those who have been receiving benefits for at least 20 years, characterizing this as benefitting “the oldest Americans.”
Interestingly, this will benefit many seniors who are much younger than Joe - since one can begin receiving SS benefits at age 62. But the give-away is these increased benefits will not be conditioned on increased expenses but solely on increased age.
Which is nice work, if you can get it.
Joe has also promised an older American version of Universal Basic Income (UBI) floated by Democrats like Andrew Yang, which promises to give every American a certain sum of money every month, just because. Joe wants to emulate that - just because of age. He proposes aminimum benefit for every older American, irrespective of the contributions they made.
Or didn’t.
This proposal would pay out to people who didn’t pay in - transforming Social Security intowelfare, outright. Which ought to concern the seniors who did pay in - as well as everyone else currently paying in - since what they’re paid will depend, ultimately, on how much is left after paying all those people who didn’t pay in. Of which there are likely to be millions more, given Uncle Joe’s promise to open the border (while at the same time demanding that states like Florida close their borders) and give Social Security and other benefits to anyone who comes across the border.
This promises to bankrupt Social Security, which is currently underfunded precisely because it is paying out more than it takes in (as well as diverting much of what was paid in to other things besides the paying of benefits).
Biden also promises to lower the age eligibility for Medicare to 60 - an age that’s just barely “senior” and pretty insulting given the youthfulness of American 60-year-olds in 2020.
Sixty may have been "senior" in 1960 - back when Joe wasn't, either.
But it does promise to increase the number of people who can be bribed to support politicians much their senior, such as pushing-80-years-old Uncle Joe. Why work when you can get paid not to? When you can vote not to?
Potentially, for decades of retirement?
Biden also promised to "take action" regarding the number of older Americans dying in care facilities from COVID. How about having New York Governor Andrew Cuomo arrested - for having ordered care facilities to accept people infected with COVID - which resulted in thousands of elderly victims dying of COVID as a result?
He might also do something about the life-shortening depression created by “locking down” these care homes and denying the seniors within the life-affirming contact with their families that gives them a reason to want to live.
He might also promise to not punish drug manufacturers for developing new medicines that help seniors by eviscerating their right to earn back the money they spent developing them. By forcing them to sell at a "fair"price and by forcing them to "share" (he means force them to give up) their discoveries to those who didn't discover them - which will have the natural effect of discouraging future discoveries.
But those promises don’t have much political payoff or sound-bite appeal, so Joe isn’t likely to make them.
Let alone keep them.
