by Sharelle Burt
January 13, 2024
Time to get to work, millennials and Get Z!
Presidential hopeful Nikki Haley raised some eyebrows during the fifth Republican Party presidential debate after she said she would raise the retirement age, Newsweek reports.
The debate, held on Dec. 10 in Iowa, hosted Haley as she battled it out with Florida Governor Ron DeSantis on topics concerning the American voter. Once the moderator, CNN’s Jake Tapper, brought up the issue of Social Security, things took an interesting turn. He asked the former South Carolina governor if voters in their 20s should “plan on having
Her answer: “They should plan on their retirement age being increased. We have to go and start looking at what we can do to get out of this. We want to make sure that everybody who was promised gets it benefits, but we also want to make sure our kids have something when they get it, too.”
DeSantis’ take touched on the state of the country as Americans are fighting to make ends meet. “I don’t see how you can raise the retirement age when our life expectancy is collapsing in this country,” DeSantis said. “That’s a huge problem in and of itself.”
With a rebuttal, Haley accused the Florida governor of voting to raise life expectancy to 70 years old three years in a row and lying about it. “He can call me whatever name and be demeaning as much as he wants. It doesn’t change the fact that Ron’s lying because Ron’s losing. Everybody in the country sees it for what it is,” Haley said.
Currently, U.S. law prohibits citizens from collecting their full retirement benefits until age 67.
President Joe Biden recently trashed Republicans’ plans to cut Social Security and Medicare, while Trump called for the GOP to support the programs. According to CNN, during the Conservative Political Action Conference in early January 2023, Trump pointed the finger to some unnamed party members, alleging they “want to raise the minimum age of Social Security to 70, 75 or even 80 in some cases” and want to cut Medicare to unrecognizable levels.
Haley criticized some of Biden’s 2024 budget that increased Medicare trust funds by raising taxes on taxpayers making more than $400,000 a year. “Joe Biden now is basically saying the only way to deal with entitlements is to raise taxes. He doesn’t care that it runs out in five or 10 years, he’s not going to be there anymore,” Haley said.
The plan also allegedly allows Medicare to negotiate more drug prices, something that isn’t expected to go far within a Republican-controlled House.
RELATED CONTENT: Ava DuVernay Weighs In On Nikki Haley’s Civil War Remarks, Says They’re A ‘Wake-Up Call’
