What do you know about the Trump administration’s “Eagle Plan”?
While we’re in the midst of the deadliest pandemic and worst domestic crisis in 100 years — COVID-19 — one would think our government’s number one priority would be to protect its citizens to the best of its ability. Not in Trumpland!
Instead of ramping up testing, getting protective equipment to workers, or sending resources to nursing homes where tens of thousands of seniors are dying of COVID-19, Donald Trump’s obsessed with cutting payroll taxes, Social Security’s dedicated revenue. Trump is insisting on a payroll tax cut for workers. Why some experts say it's a 'terrible' idea
Now, Trump’s economic advisers and his unqualified creepy android son-in-law Jared Kushner have another way to undermine Social Security: The so-called “Eagle Plan,” which would be more aptly named the Work ’Til You Die Plan. It would give people $10,000, but only if they agreed to sign away a portion of their future Social Security benefits. This plan asks desperate families, terrified of going without food or being thrown out of their homes, to sacrifice their retirement. Jeffrey Stein on Twitter
Plans like this one betray a willful refusal to understand the nature of Social Security, which is insurance, not a piggy bank. It replaces wages lost when a worker retires, becomes disabled, or dies leaving dependents. Workers earn these benefits with every paycheck.
Turning Social Security from guaranteed insurance into a private account is a longstanding goal of Wall Street billionaires. Right now, Wall Street gets no money from Social Security. But if it were converted into hundreds of millions of private accounts, Wall Street would reap huge profits.
George W. Bush infamously attempted to convert Social Security into a piggy bank for Wall Street, and was resoundingly rebuked by the American people in the 2006 midterm elections. Given this unpopularity, proponents of privatization are using sneaky backdoor tactics instead. Social Security at roots of shift
Back in 2018, Ivanka Trump released a parental leave plan with Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL). They referred to this proposal as “paid leave,” but it actually asked parents to fund their own leave by forgoing future Social Security benefits. The plan was developed by the Independent Women’s Forum, a Koch Brothers-funded think tank whose president eagerly anticipated that it would be a first step toward privatizing Social Security. Rubio’s ‘paid family leave’ plan is actually just cutting Social Security
The so-called “Eagle Plan” is strikingly similar to Ivanka’s fake paid leave plan, but even more cruel in the choice it would foist upon people in the middle of a pandemic. With over 32 million people newly unemployed, families across the country are in desperate need of income. Thanks to the Trump administration’s utter failure to manage the pandemic by implementing a widespread testing and tracing program, that desperation isn’t going away any time soon.
Yet the United States remains the wealthiest country in the history of the world. Congress just gave corporations a $4.5 trillion bailout. We can easily afford to both send families the income they need and expand their future Social Security benefits. Congressional Democrats are proposing to do just that by sending everyone in America $2,000 every month for the duration of the corona virus crisis, while also expanding Social Security. Democratic senators propose $2,000 monthly payments to most Americans
As long as Democrats stand united against Kushner’s terrible plan, it is a political gift to them. Workers across the country are already facing a retirement income crisis, and the pandemic is only making it worse. Voters overwhelmingly want to expand, not cut, Social Security’s modest benefits. The Trump administration’s attempts to undermine Social Security, whether through payroll tax cuts or through the “Eagle Plan” scheme, will be punished in November, as they should be. Polling Memo: Americans' Views on Social Security
Fortunately, the Democratic Party is on record in support of expanding, not cutting and certainly not privatizing Social Security. During the Democratic primary, Joe Biden faced scrutiny for his past openness to cuts to Social Security. That said, as the presumptive Democratic nominee, he’s done the right thing by fighting to expand Social Security benefits to address the nation’s looming retirement income crisis. He’s also come out for an immediate across-the-board increase in response to the pandemic. Joe Biden's record on Social Security isn't perfect, but Donald Trump's is far worse
Seniors and people with disabilities are hit hardest by COVID-19. Democrats in both the House and the Senate have released plans to increase Social Security benefits in response to the crisis. Congress should ignore the monstrous “Eagle Plan” and pass those instead. Larson Introduces Coronavirus Relief Bill to Expand Social Security
And that’s Trump and his thugs in the Trump Crime Syndicate aka the administration for you. It’s all about insatiable avarice and fanatic cruelty.
Sources: everyone linked in the text and Inside Trump’s brazen plot to gut Social Security
Extended Opinion
Who concerns you more as President of the United States, Joe Biden, or Donald Trump? Why specifically?
60 years ago I read William Shirer’s Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. What I found bewildering at the time was how the Germans (who are generally regarded as a ‘smart’ people) could have been duped into following Hitler. It made absolutely no sense to me because - I now realize - that I was living in a post-WWII America that had a progressive Republican party and a middle class.
That was then, and this is now, 60 years later in 2020. The middle class is all but gone, Republicans are a party that has sold out for tax cuts for the rich, wedge issues, ethnic fear mongering, militarized police, with wealth inequality and religious intolerance for all.
And today we have a Republican sponsored, authoritarian fascist leader in the flesh, dismantling the constitution, eliminating non-defense contractor agencies of the federal government, and mesmerizing ‘smart’ people with dog whistle phrases that hearken to their primal fears, intolerance and loyalist callings.
So, does the thought of Trump reigning over America beyond November 2020 concern me? Oh Hell yes, it concerns me big time. And it should concern everyone. This is America, not pre-war Germany and Italy and Japan. We should know better. We should learn lessons that the wrong side of history are out there trying to teach us if we would only read and listen to them.
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