Senator Dianne Feinstein appeared confused during a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing on Thursday. When asked to vote on a proposal, Feinstein began giving a lengthy speech instead of simply saying “aye” or “nay” as requested. The committee chair, Senator Patty Murray, had to repeatedly tell Feinstein “just say aye” and remind her that it was time for a vote, not speeches. After some delay, Feinstein finally cast her vote. A spokesperson said Feinstein was preoccupied and did not realize a vote had been called. The incident raises further concerns about Feinstein’s ability to serve at age 90, as she has made other recent mistakes and often relies on aides.

    • The Cuuuuube
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      71 year ago

      That’s how I interpreted it too. Just because we’re living longer doesn’t mean our capacity for work is stretching further. My knees are already going out and I’m not near retirement age. I don’t want to be stuck working longer, hating every moment of it, knowing that all this means is now I won’t actually get to enjoy retirement

      • @[email protected]
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        1 year ago

        To play devil’s advocate, when Social Security was established (bringing with it the concept of a “retirement age”), the age of eligibility was deliberately set such that less than half of Americans would live long enough to draw on it. The clear expectation was that you would work until you couldn’t anymore.

        That said, in an era when changes in life expectancy are starting to take on a K-shaped distribution and labor force participation has been on a long steady decline, tying governmental income support to age and employment duration is becoming distributionally regressive. I’d much rather have some sort of UBI system that everyone can benefit from.

    • Refurbished Refurbisher
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      11 year ago

      Average life expectency goes up over time due to advancements in healthcare. Tying the retirement age to the average life expectency is effectively raising the retirement age.

      • Kerrigor
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        21 year ago

        It’s actually going down in the US. And again, I said tie the office age limits to life expectancy, not retirement age.

          • Kerrigor
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            31 year ago

            Oh sure! So “retirement age” means the age at which the general population is eligible for certain benefits like tax-deferred account withdraw without penalty, social security benefits, Medicare, etc. Politicians generally go WAY past this age, well beyond cognitive decline, because they do not want to lose power.

            Office age limits are (and should continue to be) unrelated to retirement age; otherwise it creates an incentive for politicians to RAISE the retirement age even further so that they can stay in office. Republicans already try often to increase the retirement age so that people will be stuck working until they die.