We will make it a priority to secure for hardworking families the part of the American Dream that includes a secure and healthy retirement. Individuals, employers, and government must all play a role.  We will adopt measures to preserve and protect existing public and private pension plans.  In the 21st

 century, Americans also need better ways to save for retirement.  We will automatically enroll every worker in a workplace pension plan that can be carried from job to job and we will match savings for working families who need the help. We will make sure that CEOs can’t dump workers’ pensions with one hand while they line their own pockets with the other. At platform hearings, Americans made it clear they feel that’s an outrage, and it’s time we had leaders who treat it as an outrage. We will ensure all employees who have company pensions receive annual disclosures about their pension fund’s investments, including full details about which projects have been invested in, the performance of those investments and appropriate details about probable future investments strategies. We also will reform corporate bankruptcy laws so that workers’ retirements are a priority for funding and workers are not left with worthless IOU’s after years of service. Finally, we will eliminate all federal income taxes for seniors making less than $50,000 per year. Lower- and middle-income seniors already have to worry about high health care and energy costs; they should not have to worry about tax burdens as well.  

We reject the notion of the presumptive Republican nominee that Social Security is a disgrace; we believe that it is indispensable. We will fulfill our obligation to strengthen Social Security and to make sure that it provides guaranteed benefits Americans can count on, now and in future generations.  We will not privatize it.

from Reforming Government to Serve the People
Entitlement Reform

The job of modernizing Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid calls for bipartisanship, not political posturing.  Through the last four presidential terms, we have sought that cooperation, but it has not been forthcoming.  The public demands constructive action, and we will provide it. 

Social Security

We are committed to putting Social Security on a sound fiscal basis.  Our society faces a profound demographic shift over the next twenty-five years, from today’s ratio of 3.3 workers for every retiree to only 2.1 workers by 2034.  Under the current system, younger workers will not be able to depend on Social Security as part of their retirement plan.  We believe the solution should give workers control over, and a fair return on, their contributions.  No changes in the system should adversely affect any current or near-retiree. Comprehensive reform should include the opportunity to freely choose to create your own personal investment accounts which are distinct from and supplemental to the overall Social Security system. 

Medicare and Medicaid

As discussed in the health care section of this document, we commit to revive Medicare by rewarding quality care, promoting competition, eliminating waste, fraud, and abuse, and giving patients and providers control over treatment options.  We envision a new Medicaid partnership with the states, improving public health through flexibility and innovation.

from Health Care Reform:  Putting Patients First
Medicare

We support the provision of quality and accessible health care options for our nation’s seniors and disabled individuals and recognize that in order to meet this goal we must confront the special challenges posed by the growth of Medicare costs.  Its projected growth is out of control and threatens to squeeze out other programs, while funding constraints lead to restricted access to treatment for many seniors.  There are solutions. Medicare can be a leader for the rest of our health care system by encouraging treatment of the whole patient. Specifically, we should compensate doctors who coordinate care, especially for those with multiple chronic conditions, and eliminate waste and inefficiency.  Medicare patients must have more control of their care and choice regarding their doctors, and the benefits of competition must be delivered to the patients themselves if Medicare is to provide quality health care.  And Medicare patients must be free to add their own funds, if they choose, to any government benefits, to be assured of unrationed care.

Finally, because it is isolated from the free market forces that encourage innovation, competition, affordability, and expansion of options, Medicare is especially susceptible to fraud and abuse.  The program loses tens of billions of dollars annually in erroneous and fraudulent payments.  We are determined to root out the fraud and eliminate this assault on the taxpayer.

Medicaid

Our Medicaid obligations will consume $5 trillion over the next ten years.  Medicaid now accounts for 20-25 percent of state budgets and threatens to overwhelm state governments for the indefinite future.  We can do better while spending less.  A first step is to give Medicaid recipients more health care options.  Several states have allowed beneficiaries to buy regular health insurance with their Medicaid dollars.  This removes the Medicaid “stamp” from people’s foreheads, provides beneficiaries with better access to doctors, and saves taxpayers’ money.  We must ensure that taxpayer money is focused on caring for U.S. citizens and other individuals in our country legally.

Retirement planning is the responsibility of the individual, not the government. Libertarians would phase out the current government-sponsored Social Security system and transition to a private voluntary system. The proper and most effective source of help for the poor is the voluntary efforts of private groups and individuals. We believe members of society will become more charitable and civil society will be strengthened as government reduces its activity in this realm.

NATIONAL DEBT

Fairness for our children and grandchildren

OUR POSITION: Greens will reduce our national debt.

Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama have irresponsibly expanded our national debt by trillions of dollars to finance tax cuts for savings of our workers are wealthiest citizens, war, corporate welfare and bailouts of Wall Street and the automotive industry. This debt and the interest that must be paid on it is not sustainable.

Working people and the small business community are bearing a disproportionate amount of the federal debt burden. Yet the federal debt is, to a large degree, the end product of tax cuts for the wealthy and big business, and the military-defense industry buildup.

For many years the federal government borrowed trillions of dollars. Money that should have been going into a better "safety net" for the poor, homes for the homeless, environmental and public lands conservation, sustainable jobs, research and development, roads and bridges, schools and the technologies of tomorrow, has been lost to servicing the national debt. We cannot ignore the consequences of our nation's past deficits and the related costs of debt service.

GREEN SOLUTIONS

1. Reduce our national debt by increasing taxes on large corporations, the super-rich and pollution; and decreasing expenditures in some areas, especially for war, armaments and corporate welfare.

2. Oppose privatization of Social Security.

3. Increase funding for green jobs, Social Security, public housing, higher education, public transportation, environmental protection, renewable energy and energy conservation.

The Declaration of Independence declares "all men ... are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights ...That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men ..."

The Preamble of the US Constitution shows how these rights are to be secured including "provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare".

Two clear distinctions should be made here:

1. Provide implies actively and financially supporting, promote implies a more passive approach.
   • For example, I'll promote that we put on a grand feast, but I want you to provide it!
2. General Welfare is not the same as individual Welfare. General Welfare would benefit the people generally; individual Welfare targets a certain segment of society to benefit, such as the poor.

Social Security is a form of individual welfare not authorized in the Constitution.

The Constitution grants no authority to the federal government to administrate a Social Security system. The Constitution Party advocates phasing out the entire Social Security program, while continuing to meet the obligations already incurred under the system. Until the current Social Security system can be responsibly phased out, we propose that:

• The Social Security tax not be a "rainy day" fund which politicians can pirate, or from which they can borrow to cover their errors and pay for their excesses.
• Individuals who have contributed to Social Security be allowed to withdraw those funds and transfer them into an IRA or similar investments under the control of the individual contributor.
• Any sort of merger between the U.S. Social Security System and that of any foreign country be banned, so the distribution of benefits will not go to persons who have not qualified for payments under American law as legal residents.
• Earning limitations on persons aged 62 and over be removed, so that they may earn any amount of additional income without placing their benefits at risk.
• Those provisions of the Social Security system which penalize those born during the "notch years" between 1917 and 1926 be repealed, and that such persons be placed on the same benefit schedules as all other beneficiaries.

We support the right of individuals to choose between private retirement and pension programs, either at their place of employment or independently.