The bill would also cut Social Security taxes for 12 million recipients. Currently, benefits are taxed if a recipient has non-Social Security income exceeding $25,000 for individuals and $32,000 for couples. Larson wants to raise that threshold to $50,000 and $100,000, respectively.
In contrast, Romney’s bill “is nothing more than a back-door mechanism for enacting cuts to seniors’ earned benefits that wouldn’t otherwise be possible through the normal legislative process,” former U.S. senators Tom Harkin and Max Richtman, president and CEO of the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare, said in an opinion piece in The Hill.
The TRUST Act is a way to cut benefits “while leaving few fingerprints from individual members of Congress. ... Any changes to seniors’ crucial earned benefits must be thoroughly considered through the normal legislative process, with beneficiaries’ best interests at the forefront,” they said.
LeaMond agreed. “All members of Congress should be held accountable for any action on Social Security and Medicare. On behalf of AARP’s nearly 38 million members, we call for full and open debate that ensures public input on protecting the future of our earned benefits,” she added.
To date, nearly a quarter million people have sent messages to federal lawmakers demanding they oppose the TRUST Act, the AARP said.