Republican Congressman Mark Alford has touted raising the retirement age to help cut federal government costs.
Speaking on Fox News, the Missouri representative said GOP members had recently sat down with Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, who will head up the unofficial Department of Government Efficiency [DOGE] under Donald Trump, beginning in January, to explore ways “to cut our budget.”
“I think there’s a way, when people are living longer, they’re retiring later, then on the front end, we can move that retirement age back a little bit,” Alford said. The current full retirement age is 67 for those born in 1960 or later, and is the earliest age at which workers can begin getting Social Security benefits without any financial penalty for claiming early.
Alford said the “$36 trillion” national debt and its interest payments is “unsustainable,” with a whittling down of government spending required to “right the ship.”