I take Bush's words on means-testing to mean that he wants to convert the benefit formula, which currently uses wage indexing, to a formula that uses a blend of wage indexing and inflation indexing. This is a huge and unnecessary benefit cut.
To take apart some of his talking points:
- He talked about how in three years SS will start heading towards the red. This is meaningless - we'd still have a surplus that he would be stealing. It would just be a slightly smaller amount he'd be stealing in that year.
- The reason it is "stealing" is because it's taking money from a regressive tax and subsidizing the progressive tax system with it, when he has no intention to pay it back. That's essentially stealing from the poor to give to the rich.
- In 2017, he talked about the SS deficit becoming a drain on the federal budget. He of course didn't talk at all about the need to restrain the already-existing federal budget deficit. To see some perspective, see this graph of Bush's projected budget deficit, compared to how Social Security affects it:
See that tiny sliver in 2017, where the line crosses? That's the "deficit drain" that Bush is so concerned about here. He's not concerned about the size of the budgetary deficit (which he created), but he's sure concerned about that little sliver - enough to cut our benefits. (By the way, it turns out that orange budgetary deficit projection is too kind to Bush.)
- In 2041, he says that SS will be bankrupt. However, the amount of benefits we will get after 2041, after SS goes "bankrupt", will be greater than what we will get under Bush's SS plan, because his benefit cuts are so steep.
- "Future generations will get benefits equal or greater than today's seniors". This is some pretty good misdirection, as far as used-car sales techniques go. But "equal" means inflation-indexed, when we are currently wage-indexed. Benefits equal to today's seniors will mean your benefits would grow inflation-indexed, which is a huge cut. Think of it this way. Imagine if today's seniors got benefits that were equal (inflation-adjusted) to the seniors forty years ago. You're basically forcing them to live to a 1960's standard of living. But even today, more than half of our seniors would be in poverty if not for social security.
- Bush mentioned that one of our investment options would be to invest in US Treasury Bonds, backed by the full faith and credit of the United States Government. But he says that our surplus is just a file cabinet full of IOUs, not a bank account. He omitted that these IOUs are US Treasury Bonds, backed by the full faith and credit of the United States Government. At one point he made those two points within fifteen seconds.
- Note that Bush did not say that his plan would keep Social Security from going "bankrupt" (insolvent). It does not guarantee that payroll tax income will exceed social security outflow in any sense, and I'm sure we'll find that it won't. His plan might "solve" it by mandating general fund transfers, but we could mandate that with our existing system without changing everything around.
- Bush often said something along the lines of: "Social Security benefits should be adjusted so that low-income recipients receive more money." Again, this is dishonest. It's not "more money than they currently would receive", although that's the ambiguity he's trying to hide behind. It's "more money than other recipients will receive after I cut their benefits." He's saying that the low-income recipients would have their benefits cut the least. At best, they'd retain their current benefit level. Everyone else would have deep cuts.
- Don't forget that the 2017 date depends on an economic projection so low that the performance of private accounts will not even come close to making up for the budget cuts. In turn, if the private accounts behave as Bush projects, the economy would be strong enough that Social Security as designed would not go bankrupt, which means we don't need to mess with it.