Candidates Go Head-to-Head on Social Security

Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton gave dueling plans to the AARP on how they would preserve and expand Social Security.

Clinton proffered specifics — including making higher-income Americans pay in more — while Trump focused on his current economic plan, which would boast growth and help pay for the entitlement program.

Clinton's four-point plan as president, laid out for the AARP, would be:

1. "Fight any attempts to gamble seniors' retirement security on the stock market through privatization."
2. "Oppose reducing annual cost-of-living adjustments."
3. "Oppose Republican efforts to raise the retirement age."
4. "Oppose closing the long-term shortfall on the backs of the middle class, whether through benefits cuts or tax increases."

In short, Clinton wrote for AARP:

"Hillary will ask the most fortunate to pay more so we can expand Social Security, and preserve its guarantee for generations to come."

Trump's position is that an economy that is "robust and growing" is the key to preserving Social Security.

His plan to improve the economy, as he outlined for the AARP:

• Comprehensive tax reform
• Renegotiate trade deals
• Repeal Dodd-Frank and the Affordable Care Act
• Attack fraud, waste and abuse in the government and reduce the federal workforce
• Immigration reform that would save "hundreds of billions of dollars a year"

"I will work with Congress to ensure we have a pro-growth agenda in place," Trump wrote. "If we are able to sustain growth rates in GDP that we had as a result of the Kennedy and Reagan tax reforms, we will be able to secure Social Security for the future."

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