“I am running for President of the United States to enable the Goddess of Peace to encircle within her arms all the children of this country and all the children of the world.”
- Dennis Kucinich -
Remember Dennis Kucinich? He’s the strange little Democrat who ran for President in 2008 on ideas that would have spooked Rod Serling.
Now he’s got another one. He’s wants to lower the retirement age to sixty to reduce unemployment.¹
TaxVox’s Howard Gleckman has this to say about that:
I know it is risky so early in the year, but I have a nomination for the worst idea of 2010. Representative Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio), wants to make Social Security retirement benefits available beginning at age 60. Temporarily. To create jobs.
Let’s be serious. Social Security has a problem, and lowering the retirement age would only make it worse. The government has already promised retirees about 30 percent more in benefits than it can pay over the long-run. It will somehow have to find a way to either hike taxes or reduce promised benefits to bridge that gap. Raising, not lowering, the early retirement age would be a good start. With luck, President Obama’s deficit commission may find the political will to fix the troubled retirement program. Kucinich, by contrast, only wants to make things worse.
Gleckman is right, lowering the retirement age is a foolish idea and is probably dead on arrival. But never underestimate Kucinich. He’s known for having a grasp that greatly exceeds his reach.
Footnotes:
¹ If lowering the retirement age doesn’t work to get the old fogies out of the way, we can always just spike their prune juice with arsenic?
4 responses so far ↓
1 R2D2 // Feb 24, 2010 at 7:15 pm
What an absurd idea. You could’ve pointed out that the progressives in the early part of the (last) century advocated mandatory education for the same reason, to force unskilled workers out of the job market to benefit unions. Oops, Kucinich might suggest to add 4 more years onto high school if he reads this.–
2 Peter // Feb 24, 2010 at 8:08 pm
R2D2,
Thanks for visiting and thanks for the comment.
Kucinich has no shortage of bad left wing ideas. He makes Obama look like Atilla the Hun.
3 be // Jun 26, 2010 at 10:23 am
young adults are educated…seniors offered the best they could offer with on the job training but times have changed we need these educated people to take over
4 Peter // Jun 27, 2010 at 3:29 am
be,
To be be or not to be be, that is the question.
Please read the post again. I think you missed why we think lowering the retirement age is the worst idea since the Bay of Pigs.
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