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Washington journal continues. Host the first guest of the morninis adcock as the committee to preserve Social Security and medicare and he serves as Government Relations and policy director. The name of the ornization is obvious. Tell us about it and what is your missing your mission . Guest it is to focus like a laser beam on advocacy for medicare and Social Security to ensure that not only are these programs strong and good forle c and Health Security today but also for their kids and grandchildren. We were started by jimmy, a member of congress from california who happened to be the eldest son of Franklin Delano roosevelt. You might say that the roosevelts are in thejames roosd of directors and we are happy to have him. We are uniquely devoted to William Johnsons aid for Older Americans . Host how is itundei d . Guest membership dues. We are charging 12 a year so i pretty good deal. We do not take money from outside groups, pharmaceutical or Insurance Companies or wall street. It allows us to be pure in terms of advocacy. Host we will talk about the politics in a moment but can you give an assessment of where Social Security and medicare are guest according to the most recent trustees reports on Social Security, the Social Security trust fund has 2. 8 trillion of it and will continue to have reserves until 2034 and on those reserves will be depleted. But it never becomes bankrupt because the payroll taxes flow into the program, which means that people means that the trust fund will become depleted but there will still be money coming in. That if Congress Fails to act that will be a 20 cut. We do not want that to happen and we want to make sure the there is program to ensure it is there. Medicare, until 2031, the part a trust fund responsible for caring for hospitalization is there. We think there are proposals that will extend that trust funds life. It is more complicated because health care is complicated but we can get more into that. Host we can talk about the politics. Statements earlier on from the former president. I want to tell you what he had to say a couple of days ago in get your comments on that. [video clip] one thing i think the perception is is that there is not a whole lot of difference between what you think we should with entitlements or nondiscretionary spending and what President Biden is proposing. It is almost a third rail of politics. We have a 33 or 34 trillion total debt build up. And there is very little we can do in terms of cutting spending. Discretionary will not help. Have you changed your outlook on how to handle entitlement, Social Security, that a care or medicaid . It seems i cast something has to be done or we will be stuck at 120 percent of debt in the gdp forever. First of all there is a lot you can do in terms of entitlements and cutting and in terms of also the theft and bad management of entitlements. There is tremendous amounts of things and numbers of things you can do. So i do not necessarily agree with the statement. [end video clip] that was a couple of days ago and followed up with an interview on right part saying and i will just pull you the quote saying i will never do anything that would jeopardize or hurt Social Security and medicare. Those are the statements as a standnd what is your response . Guest action speak larder larger than words. When he issued his budgets he urged that sociasecurity be cut. On one hand he is unlike many republicans in breaking the repuican orthodoxy of being supportive of doing things like cutting the cost of living adjustment and raising the retirement age. In reality as president he suggested cuts to the Social Security programs. Words do not necessarily mean anything but what you do does. But we know from past actions that he has been willing and listened able who support cutting Social Security. Host do you think there is an appetite to make those changes that you are concerned about . Guest i think there is for those who support it. But they know that it is very unpopular to do that. Never my organization or any News Organization has done polling suggests that the program should be cut it is very unpopular and it does not matter whether you are republican, independent or democrat, very unpopular. That is why they are reluctant to do that. That is why they have suggested things like a fiscal commission. Where they can make it more bipartisan. They can do everybody jumping ofthe cliff together to come to a solution because that is the only way they can get away with making cuts to programs d and their money. Host the former president S Response Team put out saying that the focus was more on waste and reducing that waste. Is there something there as far as waste and fraud in the programs of both Social Security and medicare. Guest not to the extent suggested. If you talk about any program whether it is public or private there is always going to be waste and ways to try and reduce it. But when you look at the overhead of the Social Security program just on the program alone, it is only about. 5 of the actual money paid out. 1. 6 trillion paid out in benefits. That does not mean it cannot be lower. We will get to that point especially with the nude commissionerey, the former governor of maryland, he has got a lot of great administrative experience. We have talked to him and has the potential to do a great job. And we think that he will be he will do a lot with what he has and that is with the administration of the agency. Host if you want to ask about the politics behind Social Security and medicare and the actual status of the programs itself, 2027488000 for democrats. Republicans, 2027488001. Indepeents, 2027488002. For those who received either Social Security or medicare and are a and want to give your thoughts you can call at you can use that same number if you want to text us. Before we go since the president and former president have introduced it, does this become an issue Going Forward in campaign 2024 . Guest i hope so. And i say that because when people go into the voting booth they need to think about the issue very importantly. If you are in your 30s and 40s you might not be thinking about Social Security. But if this program is cut, and medicare is cut and older people have less economic and Health Security, that means grandma will be living with you. And so even though you do not think you will be immediately affected you might be because it will force your elderly relatives to make decisions like that. That is why it is so important for people to think about. Not only for current retirees at their owfu host let us take calls. Robin. Alabama. Independent line. Good morning. My question is would Mass Immigration help Social Security, save Social Security. If so how, and if not why . Pedro, you got have a topic it america except mass icial secur . I will take my call offline. Host thank you for the suggestion. Guest that is a great question. I guess i can answer it two ways. If people are entering the country■ undocumented workers, frequently they are getting Social Security numbers and pacing and paying the taxes. Unless i get a green card or become ae a dime of the money contributed to the system. That actually helps the system. But it is interesting, the Congressional Budget Office a number of years ago, about 10, when the Senate Passed an immigration willimmigration bile green card is not citizenship. They found of people became legal citizens or got green cas, shadows and worked in jobs that paid more and they were paying payroll taxes. And so they found that the Congressional Budget Office un the solvency of the trust fund would be extended by a year if you were to enacty tor citizenship. Host margie. Republican line. Pennsylvania. Go ahead. Caller ■oode i just want to say that 70 years ago, and i am now 86. 70 years ago i won a local contest and we were writing for the v. A. Or something. About why Social Security was such a bad idea and now and i am living on it completely now. I still think it isa, and it was a terrible idea to begin with when it was just a minor thing. And now the monolith that it has is i have no idea how you can fix it. But please show the pie chart so that people can see how much of the budget isand also, please eo people when they get all up in arms and say that is my money, well i have been both management and labor, half of that is your money. Your employerf. Host you said you were on Social Security, is that your sole source of income . Caller my full and only source of income. And i am going back to why it was such a bad idea. The minute you plant and someones mind that the government will take care of them, that affects their whole life. If peopled as they are growing up and as they are being educated that they are responsible for themselves, then we would not this. Host thank you very much for giving your input. Guest in terms of what i would say and margie thank you for your question, i think it is important to realize that Social Security is financed through payroll taxes which is a dedicated tax which does not at a penny to the debt. Add any to the bt in terms of employer contributions, that is part of your employers compensation to you in the same way that your employer if you are lucky enough or your employer to provide separate retirement benefits, that is compensation as well. It is a Great Program and you are not alone. There are 40 of Social Security beneficiaries depend of their income from Social Security. If you were to cut that, how may people would be in dire straits. I expect a lot would shift into poverty. Only 9 of seniors live in poverty. If you were to cut that that number would go up. That would be a tragedy. Host in the 2025 budget President Biden advocating a diff system to make wealthier americans pay for these programs. Guest we think it would be a mistake to benefits to extend the solvency of the program. A better pathway is to make sure that the wealthy pay their fair share. Time that we made major changes to the Social Security program was 1983. And when we tax a payroll income we were capturing 90 of the income. Because of income inequality and because there is a great difference between the and havenots, we are not capturing 90 of that income, we are capturing 81 . And that is an argument why that should be increased. By doing that we do not have to cut benefits. We can extend the program for decades and that is really the answer, to make the wealthy pay their fair share. Host that is the desire, butgun the house in the senate supportive of that idea it would happen tomorrow. Unfortunately we do not. We hope that in the coming election to elect people to that feel that way to get to that direction. The that the better because these proposals like raising the payroll tax on income above 400,000 have more bang for the buck if they are done now instead of closer to the date of the projected insolvency of 2034. Host bruce from lexington, kentucky. Independent line. Caller i couple of quick questions and i appreciate you taking my caho raided the sociay fund in the 60s, and we are spending money on immigrants. What do we need to shore up Social Security and medicare. Guest thanks for your question, i up the program is to bring more revenue into it as we have been talking about. We would free up 400,000. The me something. If your income is 168,000 a year you are■e■f paying 6. 2 ofr income toward Social Security. But also your income is above that. Let us say you a good chance tu are paying a very smaller percentage of your income to support retirement. You are probably stopping paying the payroll taxes in january and february because of that. That is important. In terms of raiding the program, it never has. That kind of notion comes from the way it is financed. It is a payasyougo system. Todays workers are paying for todays retirees. When you make your contribution, that money immediately goes to the government. The government takes that money and buys a u. S. Treasury security that earns interest, and then when it is time to pay benefits that Treasury Security is redeemed for cash and then it goes to pay benefits. In that transaction in which the Treasury Security when they take your money and they use it to buy a Treasury Security, that goes to every function that the government pays for. It is paying for firefighters, submarines and meals on wheels that eventually the money comes back. The same people put itl3 in when the terms are redeeming that security for a benefit. Host there is a recent update from tara terrence keeleds ae Social Security system isd for insolvency largely that it has restricted itself in debt equivalents because bonds returned only f what stocksn a year versus 10 . Social security expens running well ahead compared to the canadian pension plan which stems from asset allegations investing 57 in equities, 4 i bonds and real estate real tate credit. The canada percentage and engine plan annualized a 10 return. Guest any retirement expert will say that your income needs to be diversified, especially at your age you need to make less risky assessments. A problem with investing part of Social Security trust fund man these assets are that they are riskbased and we do not have to worry about that if they are invested in treasury securities which are considered to be the most widley way that people invest. Th to do it to ensure that the program is there. There are enough people that remember the financial crisis of 2007 and because we have mov pes that they lost money during that period of time that caused a delay to retirements. Make sure that there is something rocksolid and Social Security will be there for people and we want to keep it that way. Host our guest is with the National Committee to preserve Social Security and medicare. Tim, new yor hello. Caller hello. I have been hearing some rumblings that medicare might be on the chopping block and that republicans would like to eradicate medicare altogether and replace it with Medicare Advantage. Could you give us some information about that. Thank you. Guest that is a great question. There has been a lot of interest in terms of privatizing medicare and the direct way has been the direct assault hasp7 been through this idea of creating vouchers where people would get out go out and buy medicare or a private plan. That wasomething that for instance tim ryan paul ryan, i am sorry, republican for wisconsin supported and then also we have what is less a direct response but equally growing problem is the Medicare Advantage plans. These are private plans. I know there are a lot of p