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The nation is facing a retirement income crisis.Social Security is unquestionably the nations most importantsource of retirement income. But the last time Congress expanded Social Security was when Richard Nixon was president. Unless this Congress addresses the crisis by expanding Social Security, too many Americans will be unable to retire without a drastic and precipitous drop in their standards of living.

As the wealthiest country in the history of the world, America can afford to protect and expand Social Security if we require those at the top to contribute their fair share. The good news is that this Congress is poised to take action.

Rep. John Larson John Barry LarsonDemocrats should make Social Security a top issue in the midterms here's how and why It shouldn't be this hard to grow old in America House Democrats reintroduce Social Security reform bill MORE (D-Conn.), chair of the House Social Security Subcommittee, just held ahearingon his legislation,Social Security 2100: A Sacred Trust. The 2100 Act isco-sponsoredby 90 percent of House Democrats and incorporates all of the expansions that President Joe Bidenpromisedduring his winning campaign.

The legislation increases Social Securitys modest benefits both across the board and also in long overdue ways. It adds a caregiver credit, restores student benefits, improves benefits for widow(er)s, and much, much more. It pays for every penny by requiring the highest paid earners to contribute to Social Security at the same rate as the rest of us.

Although no Republican politician has co-sponsored the expansion legislation, protecting and expanding Social Security has strong bipartisan support among those who count most the American people. Largemajoritiesof Republicans, Democrats, and independents overwhelmingly support Social Security expansion. But Republican politicians are listening to their corporate donors, not their voters.

Now is the time for Democrats, who currently control both houses of Congress and the White House, to bring Social Security expansion to a vote. Theres no better way to show constituents the difference between the two parties on this essential, bread-and-butter issue.

Social Security is a priority for voters. A Public Policy Polling survey conducted in 2018found that56 percent of those who voted for Donald TrumpDonald TrumpNews networks see major viewership drop in 2021 Man who told Biden 'let's go Brandon' goes on Bannon's podcast, touts Trump Democrats should make Social Security a top issue in the midterms here's how and why MORE and 55 percent of those who identify as Republican would be more likely to vote for a candidate who supported expanding and increasing Social Security.

Expanding Social Security, while requiring those at the top to contribute more, will help to reverse income and wealth inequality an issue President ObamaBarack Hussein ObamaDemocrats should make Social Security a top issue in the midterms here's how and why How American conservatives normalize anti-Semitism VP dilemma: The establishment or the base? MOREcalledthe defining challenge of our time. That inequality not only exacerbates the retirement income crisis; it also costs Social Security billions of dollars of revenue every year.

Because the earnings of high-income workers have increased much more rapidly than the average over the last several decades, an increasing amount of their earned incomefalls above the current $142,800 cap on which Social Security contributions are assessed.That cap has slipped from covering 90 percent of nationwide wages, as Congress intended, to 83 percent today.As a result of that seemingly small slippage,those at the top paid $84.4 billion less to Social Security justin 2020 alone. Those are billions of dollars that should have gone to Social Security but instead stayed in the pockets of the wealthiest among us.

Moreover, congressional action on legislation which both expands benefits and reduces Social Securitys projected shortfall by more than half, as the 2100 Act does, will begin to restore the intangible benefit of peace of mind that Social Security is intended to provide. Too many Americans have lost that sense of security because they have heard, erroneously, that Social Security will disappear and they will never receive their earned benefits. A vote on safeguarding and expanding Social Security will restore the American peoples confidence that Congress is a responsible steward of their earned benefits.

Expanding Social Security willstrengthen the economyand create jobs.Because the vast majority of Social Securitys 65 million beneficiaries are low or moderate income, they tend to spend their benefits immediately in the local community in which they live. Social Security is especially important to rural communities, which tend to be older.

In short, Social Securityis a solution. Protecting and expanding Social Securitys modest benefits is wise policy and represents the will of the people. It will improve the economy, create jobs, and add substantially to the security of working families.

It is imperative that this Congress vote on Social Security. Democrats must make Social Security their next top priority. They must force Republicans to stop hiding and make their views clear in an up-or-down vote. If they do, voters will reward the party that created Social Security and continues to protect and improve it.

The Democrats will then be following the vision of President Franklin Roosevelt who proclaimed, when he signed Social Security into law, that he was laying down a cornerstone in a structure whichis by no means complete. President BidenJoe BidenFauci says CDC cut isolation time so people return to work faster Overnight Health Care CDC cuts isolation time for the asymptomatic Energy & Environment 2021's weather disasters cost 0B MORE, Chairman Larson, and the Democratic Party are poised to take the next step in completing this essential structure.

Nancy Altman is president of Social Security Works.

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Democrats should make Social Security a top issue in the midterms here's how and why | TheHill - The Hill

In his column Pa. Democrats have a union problem (Dec. 12,TribLIVE), Michael Torres attempts to prove that the Democrats are in trouble because they are siding with hard-working Americans and defending unions (one of the few institutions that actually works to protect working people).

Donald Trump, leader of the GOP, is being investigated for the coup he started, as well as a variety of tax dodges and frauds. There are millions of Democrats and unionists who are honest. Likewise Republicans. Finding honest GOP politicians may be harder.

The Jan. 6 commission has evidence that Trumps coup against Biden was facilitated by Republicans in the highest levels of government. In Congress, a majority of the GOP support the coup and insurrectionists who viciously assaulted police for protecting the Capitol and representatives and senators from the mayhem. State and local Republicans are passing new laws that may ensure that from now on only GOP politicians will win.

I think that both unions and Democrats will survive Torres attack. That is a lot easier to defend than a bunch of racist barbarians brutalizing police and breaking into the capitol to brutalize or kill people to impose a wannabe dictator who cant accept that he lost.

Leo Nagorski

Shaler

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Letter to the editor: There are honest Democrats, unionists - TribLIVE

Israeli author Einat Wilf, a former Laborite politician now a visiting professor at Georgetown University, spoke to the Israel lobby group Democratic Majority for Israel this month and offered advice to American Democrats. They need to issue some not pleasant messages to Palestinians about the Jewish right to a state. And Democrats must accept that Palestinians wont like them.

I had to wrestle with the fact that Im not a nice person, Wilf explained. And I accepted it. Because ultimately I do believe that the right of the Jewish people to self-determination is one of the most justified ideas.

Introduced by Arizona State Rep. Alma Hernandez, Wilf said that the conflict will end when Palestinians finally accept that Zionism is an indigenous liberation movement and therefore Jews have a right to self-determination in a Jewish state on lands where many Palestinians once lived. She explained how this was a not pleasant message for Democrats to send:

I believe that we need to first address the underlying conflict. And we need to do that by sending messages that I know especially for Democrats are not pleasant. The messages that need to be sent are, The war of 1948 is over, Israel is here to stay, the Jewish people have a historical and cultural and deeply-felt connection to the land of Israel, they are not foreigners, they belong there and have the right to self-determination.

You are not still refugees from a war that ended 70 years ago. And there will be no return because there is no such right. Not for you, not for the Germans, not for the Ukrainians, not for the Poles, not for the Hindus, not for the Muslims. Nobody has that right, and youre not special.

Now I know that these are not pleasant messages. Im from the political left in Israel. One of the things that people from the left like to believe is that they belong to the camp of the good. You know, we are for good things compromise, equality, justice. I had to go through a very wrenching and difficult emotional process to understand that even though I support two states and no settlements and end to the occupation and dividing Jerusalem and all of these things, as far as Im considered from the Palestinian perspective it doesnt make me a nice person because I still think that the Jewish people should have a state in the other part of the territory. Thats still from their perspective a terrible idea, a vile idea.

So I had to wrestle with the fact that Im not a nice person. And I accepted it. Because ultimately I do believe that the right of the Jewish people to self-determination is one of the most justified ideas. Again, I think it doesnt have to come at the expense of the Palestinians. We can live side by side. They first have to accept, that This is it, they can live next to Israel but not instead of Israel. And then we can negotiate. And by the way I think it will be at that point the easiest negotiation

The far harder process, the unpleasant process, and one that will take at least a generation once it begins we didnt even begin yet is to get the Palestinians to finally accept Zionism as a legitimate movement, as a legitimate equal claimant to the land

It is the Palestinian people who need to go through a process of reckoning and understanding that they are no longer refugees and that there is no return. And that involves the west for example giving them the harsh messages that I mentioned So defund UNRWA [UN refugee agency] Youre not refugees. Were going to tell you that. Were not going to shy away from telling you that

Wilf was delivering her message to a rightwing organization, but bear in mind that she is on the left in Israeli politics, long associated with Labor, and spoke up for the liberal Zionist group J Street when J Street needed Israeli allies.

Israelis have long instructed Americans on how to treat Palestinians, and American leaders have listened. As former peace-processor Dennis Ross told a New York synagogue, We dont need to be advocates for Palestinians, we need to be advocates for Israel. The good news is that some American leaders are no longer willing to carry the water.

Wilf repeatedly described the Israeli war of 1948 as a war of liberation and derided the right of Palestinian refugees to return to the lands from which they or their ancestors were ethnically cleansed. She said the west has indulged the Palestinians in the idea that they possess a right that was given to no people during wars of liberation when empires receded. She analogized Palestinian refugees to the millions displaced by World War II, including German refugees from Poland and the former Czechoslovakia who wished to return to those lands but were not allowed to. The message for refugees throughout the 20th century, Greeks and Bulgarians, and Hindus and Muslims, and Ukrainians and Poles and Jews, was sad, tragic, tough move on, she said.

One rejoinder Id make to Wilfs analysis is that all these peoples she mentioned achieved sovereignty. Palestinians never gained the state the world repeatedly promised them, as the Israeli state continually expanded its borders, and so they carry on a campaign for liberation to this day, with more and more allies around the world. That campaign is today a battle for equal rights for Jews and Palestinians; and equality is counter to Zionism. As Wilf says, You cannot split the difference between Zionism and anti-Zionism.

BEFORE YOU GO Stories like the one you just read are the result of years of efforts by campaigners and media like us who support them by getting the word out, slowly but doggedly.

That's no accident. Our work has helped create breakthroughs in how the general public understands the Palestinian freedom struggle.

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Democrats need to send 'harsh' message to Palestinians and accept that Palestinians won't think they're 'nice' advice from 'Democratic Majority for...

Unlike all the Russia probes, however, there will eventually be a clean answer on Biden and 2024. He will either be on the ballot or he wont.

And while Trump set up his formal reelection campaign the moment he was inaugurated, that was an unprecedented move. Barack Obama didnt formally announce his reelection plans until the April after the 2010 midterm elections. If Biden were to follow Obamas timeline, then he has nearly a year and a half to make a decision. Then again, no one seriously doubted Obama was going to seek reelection.

Beyond all the speculating, the questions beneath the question about Biden and 2024 are probably more important and instructive for Democratic politics in 2021.

Question 1: But why wouldnt Biden run?

Very few American presidents have openly taken reelection off the table: One of them, James K. Polk, announced it the moment he received his partys presidential nomination in 1844. His decision was part ideological as a believer in limited government power and practical: agreeing to only serve one term was likely the only way he could build a coalition of party power brokers to back him for the nomination.

Biden has different issues. The reason people talk about him serving only one term is largely due to his age. At 78, he was the oldest person ever elected to serve as president in 2020. He could break that record if he ran again in 2024 at age 82.

Mental and physical capacity to serve as the leader of the free world is something that voters must determine for themselves. While plenty of data is available from Bidens doctors, it is still a subjective decision by every voter in how to read the data.

But lately, there is a second reason that people, including Democrats, are asking whether Biden will run: his poor poll numbers.

Now 10 months into his presidency, Bidens approval ratings have never been this low. A Marist poll out on Wednesday showed him at just 42 percent, in line with other recent polls. This means Biden is the most unpopular president at this point in his presidency, other than Donald Trump.

Question 2: Can anyone other than Biden win?

Aides have already signaled in anonymous quotes to the press that if Biden does run it might be out of a sense of duty. The 2020 election turned out to be much closer than Democrats thought it would be. It is possible that among all the Democrats who ran in 2020 the most diverse field in history and one of the largest only Biden could have defeated Trump for reelection.

With Trump looking more likely than not to run again, the Trump factor is not off the table. And the field of potential candidates is basically the same crew that ran in 2020.

And, yes, if Biden doesnt run it likely would be a crew. The most obvious heir apparent to Biden, his vice president Kamala Harris, had a 28 percent approval rating in one recent poll.

This has led to open speculation, even this week, that Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg could run. Buttigieg would not only be among the youngest people to be elected president, but also the first openly gay person.

Lets be clear here: Even after winning the Iowa Caucuses and coming in a close second in the New Hampshire primary, the Democratic electorate didnt think Buttigieg could win (or that he sufficiently understood the Black vote). It is unclear whether a stint as transportation secretary would change that.

Question 3: If Biden doesnt run how badly will tensions within the party explode?

As anyone could see during the Democratic presidential primary season or witness this year during negotiations over infrastructure and Build Back Better legislation, there is a lot of tension within the party.

The partys base has moved left and wants leaders who are not old white men. There is also an establishment, led by Biden and South Carolina Representative James Clyburn, who feel like they are more in tune with Democrats and the electorate as a whole.

That next year the Republicans could win big because of Biden, prompting Biden and his allies to say only proves that Biden has to run, is the conundrum.

James Pindell can be reached at james.pindell@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @jamespindell.

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For Democrats, whether Biden will run in 2024 might be less relevant than these 3 underlying questions - The Boston Globe

Remember when Joe Biden ran for president in what commentators called the centrist lane of the Democratic primaries? The idea was that a moderate like Biden, unlike rival Bernie Sanders, would not push radical plans to completely change American society. That would reassure non-progressive Democrats, and independents, too, that Biden would be a safe choice for president. They didnt want to remake the world. They just wanted things to get better.

You could see the difference in the Democratic debates. To take one example, at a debate in November 2019, Sanders urged people to join him if you want to be part of a movement that is not only going to beat Trump but transform America. Bidens pitch was much more modest; beating Trump and going back to the old ways were enough. Lets take back this country, Biden said, and lead the world again.

Now Biden is president and pushing vast, multi-trillion-dollar spending projects, the latest of which is the Build Back Better Act, a $2.2 trillion behemoth passed last week by Democrats (and Democrats alone) in the House of Representatives. And the old Biden centrist act is nowhere to be found. Now, the word the White House and Democrats on Capitol Hill have chosen to describe the presidents agenda is transform just like Bernie used to say.

The White House frequently sends out emails headlined What They Are Saying, which collect quotes from Democratic politicians and interest group leaders praising Bidens actions. Now, they are praising the Build Back Better Act. The praise has a certain similarity.

A What They Are Saying email listing statements from LGBTQI+ Leaders calls Build Back Better a transformational bill that will make a transformative investment to transform the lives of millions of Americans. An email with the comments of Women and Family Advocates says the bill has transformational initiatives that will make transformative investments to effect a historic transformation that will transform the lives of children and families. An email from Black Leaders says the transformational bill will make a transformative investment that will transform our nation for decades to come. An email from Young Leaders calls BBB a transformative bill, while Gun Violence Prevention Leaders hail Bidens transformational agenda.

You get the idea. But no one is more on board for the Biden transformation than Democrats in the House, where party members seem to disagree only on whether the bill should be called transformational or transformative.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi calls it transformative. Rep. John Yarmouth calls it transformational. Rep. Raul Grijalva chooses transformative. Rep. Mark Takano, transformational. Rep. Jerry Nadler, transformational. Rep. Adam Smith, transformational. Rep. Judy Chu, transformational. Rep. Pramila Jayapal, transformative. Rep. Brenda Lawrence, transformational. Rep. Louis Frankel, transformational. Rep. Barbara Lee, transformational. Rep. Mike Quigley, transformative. Rep. Joe Neguse, transformational. Rep. Ayanna Pressley, transformational. Rep. Mary Gay Scanlon, transformational.

Finally, Rep. Richard Neal, choosing not to take a side in that debate, says simply that BBB will transform our country.

When Sanders pledged to transform the United States, he envisioned mind-boggling expenditures say, $10 trillion that would touch every aspect of American life. He didnt win the White House, but he won the argument. During Bidens presidency, Congress has passed a $1.9 trillion COVID relief bill (that had little to do with COVID relief) and a $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill, and now the House has passed the $2.2 trillion Build Back Better Act. In the end, Biden is likely to win about $5 trillion in extra spending just this year about half of what Sanders wanted, but still mind-boggling. And it will touch every aspect of American life.

Finally, when it comes to rhetoric, theres no doubt Sanders has won a smashing victory. The Biden White House sounds like Bernie Sanders. The Democratic leadership sounds like Bernie Sanders. The partys interest groups sound like Bernie Sanders. You could say that the old socialist senator, once an outsider and lone voice, has managed to, yes, transform his party.

(Byron York is chief political correspondent for The Washington Examiner.)

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For Democrats, the word is transform | Opinion | oleantimesherald.com - Olean Times Herald