Nominee for Senate makes visit to city
By Steve Herring
Published in News on July 29, 2016 1:46 PM
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News-Argus/STEVE HERRING
Deborah Ross, right, Democratic nominee for the U.S. Senate, met Thursday afternoon with a group of Wayne County senior citizens.
Stories and concerns voiced by Goldsboro senior citizens Thursday afternoon were ones that Deborah Ross, Democratic nominee for the U.S. Senate, has heard before.
Their concerns about Social Security cost-of-living increases, Congressional efforts to cut the program and to privatize Medicare have been a familiar refrain in the policy sessions Ms. Ross is holding across the state.
She also uses the time to discuss how she will work to strengthen and protect the programs and to drum home her message that her Republican opponent, Sen. Richard Burr, has spent his 20-plus years in Congress looking out for himself and special interests, not the working people who elected him.
Ms. Ross said she wants to ensure that the wealthiest Americans pay their fair share into Social Security; make it easier for more employers to sponsor retirement plans; crack down on inefficiencies, errors, and those trying to abuse the Medicare program; engage consumers with information to make efficient and effective health care decisions; and make prescription drugs more affordable.
"Burr voted to cut Social Security and took more than $1 million from insurance companies while also writing a plan to privatize Medicare and raise the retirement age," she told the small gathering in the upstairs room at the Wayne County Museum.
She was also in town for a private fundraiser Thursday evening.
"I am running because the people of North Carolina deserve better representation in Washington, D.C., primarily for senior citizens," said Ms. Ross, a former state legislator. "One of the main focuses of the campaign has been economic security for all generations."
For the younger generation that means access to education without crushing student loan debt, she said.
For working people, it is about increasing the minimum wage and equal pay for women.
"Richard Burr has a bad record on all of those issues," Ms. Ross said. "He just voted against equal pay for equal work for women. He has voted against expanding the Pell grant program, refinancing student loan debt.
"But he has absolutely the worst record for our seniors on Social Security and Medicare. These programs need to be stabilized, and, to the extent that they can be, expanded, particularly for women who have not worked outside the home."
Both are "safety programs" for senior citizens, and since the great recession more and more people rely on them for their primary retirement security, she said.
Mary Rhoe said some people have worked all their lives and have put money in Social Security, but now some politicians are talking about cutting it.
"I think that is wrong," she said.
Ms. Ross agreed.
Also, the way people save has changed, Ms. Ross said. Once when people started their careers, there were set pensions, she said.
Now most employers offer options like 401K plans in which employees put their own money in and the employer does not necessarily contribute, she said.
Jack Hansel of Greenville said he was representing AARP and not acting in a partisan manner. Rather, he said AARP is asking all candidates to take a stand on Social Security.
Ms. Ross said she has taken a stand in support of both programs.
Hansel said the public needs to be aware of what is going on in Washington, D.C., and that the Social Security Trust Fund is project to run out by 2034.
Once that happens benefits will have to be cut by 25 percent just to meet the cost with the funds coming in, he said. That could be up to $10,000 for some folks, Hansel said.
There are a couple of ideas being considered that would extend the trust fund for a longer period of time, Ms. Ross said.
"One, of course, would be to raise the cap on how much you pay in," she said. "There have been some recent studies that show that the highest income earners live longer anyway so they draw more out.
"So it is not really unequal to say if you are going to be a higher wage earner, and you draw on Social Security for a longer period of time, then of course you would pay more in."
Another option is to get rid of the "shadow economy of jobs" in which people are not paid "over the table," she said.
As such the employers are not taking out for Social Security or Medicare, she said.
For Medicare there is no portal for people to see what the costs of services and outcomes are, she said.
Also, there is a need to ensure there are enough programs to help people navigate the system, but Congress is considering cutting funding for those navigators, she said.
That is not a good thing, particularly for the older generation that lacks computer skills and is not Internet savvy.
People also should be encouraged to have healthy lifestyles, she said.
Mary Ann Turlington, vice president of the Wayne County Senior Democrats, asked about Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton's comments about expanding Social Security for stay at-home moms who did not begin work until late in life after raising their children.
Ms. Ross said she was not an expert on the expansion and suggested looking at Mrs. Clinton's webpage.
However, the first thing to do is to stabilize the program to ensure it will be there for future generations, she said.
Mrs. Clinton is interested in expanding benefits for those stay-at-home moms so that they do not suffer as much when their spouse dies, Ms. Ross said.
That also includes women who worked outside the home, but were not paid fairly, she said.
Another participant said her husband had watched a lifetime of savings dwindle during the recession.
Ms. Ross said one of the ideas she has been looking at is instead of just having Social Security and Medicare having incentives for businesses, especially smaller ones, to offer additional retirement programs.
Both employers and employee would pay into it, she said.
Carl Martin, president of the Wayne County Senior Democrats, said he is concerned about cost-of-living increases.
Martin said he wrote to Burr suggesting an index other than fuel be used to determine cost of living for senior citizens.
Senior citizens do not travel as much or consume as much gas a younger people, Martin said.
"So we have benefited the least from reduced gas prices," he said. "Meanwhile the cost of medical, which we need more, has skyrocketed. So it has been a net loss for people on Social Security.
Burr basically said nothing, Martin said.
Ms. Ross said she was willing to look at another index to see if it would work better.