With boomers retiring without pensions or adequate savings, progressives have proposed expanding Social Security benefits …[3]. Obama, by contrast, has proposed cutting Social Security benefits as part of a “grand bargain” with the Republicans on deficit reduction, a position greatly appreciated on Wall Street. Clinton, like all Democratic candidates, will promise to protect Social Security, but will she support expanding it?

CLINTON: Well, I fully support Social Security. And the most important fight we’re going to have is defending it against continuing Republican efforts to privatize it.

BASH: Do you want to expand it?

CLINTON: I want to enhance the benefits for the poorest recipients of Social Security. We have a lot of women on Social Security, particularly widowed and single women who didn’t make a lot of money during their careers, and they are impoverished, and they need more help from the Social Security system.

And I will focus — I will focus on helping those people who need it the most. And of course I’m going to defend Social Security. I’m going to look for ways to try to make sure it’s solvent[5] into the future.

Medicare and Social Security are not handouts to the needy. They are not even intended to be a safety net. In their design, they promote the fundamental notion that dignity and good health in old age are not special privileges that can be bestowed or taken away. They are fundamental rights that every working American who has contributed productively to the economy can expect to enjoy. As James K. Galbraith told me in an email, “It’s insurance, not charity.”

Make no mistake: If means-testing on the wealthy is allowed, conservatives will keep pushing until that same means-testing is applied to the middle class, who increasingly must rely on Social Security and Medicare in times of economic uncertainty and job insecurity.

A: I have said consistently that my plan for Social Security is fiscal responsibility first, then to deal with any long-term challenges. We would have a bipartisan commission. All of these would be considered. I do not want to balance Social Security on the backs of our seniors & middle-class families.

As for chained CPI being a “Boehner-McConnell demand,” referring to House Speaker John Boehner and Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell, this echoes a talking point made by the White House. McConnell did mention chained CPI in a television interview as an indication that Obama was serious about reducing mandatory spending; Boehner implicitly referenced in a letter to Obama by urging a proposal, along the lines of a new plan advanced by Erskine Bowles, as an “imperfect, but fair middle ground.” Bowles, incidentally, is a Democrat and former chief of staff to Clinton.

(A) prominent Democrat was a driving force behind the development of the concept, and others, such as Bowles, have embraced it, as well. … Opponents of chained CPI would do better to drop the partisan attacks and acknowledge that some Democrats are as responsible for promoting chained CPI as Republicans.