Boehner: Raise Social Security age

WASHINGTON, June 29 (UPI) -- House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, says the United States should raise the Social Security retirement age to 70 and limit benefits based on need.

In an interview with the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, Boehner endorsed raising the retirement age to 70 for people who are still 20 years away from retirement and limit benefit payments to those who need them, the newspaper said Tuesday. Cuts in Social Security benefits should be part of entitlement reform he said would be necessary to pay the cost of the war in Afghanistan.

Boehner also said the financial reform measure agreed to last week in a bipartisan House-Senate conference committee was out of proportion to the financial crisis that led to the deepest U.S. recession since the Great Depression.

"This is killing an ant with a nuclear weapon," he said.

Instead, Boehner called for improved enforcement of financial regulations.

Speaking with the newspaper's editors and reporters, Boehner said a backlash against the Obama administration and congressional Democrats is building among U.S. voters.

"The American people have written off the Democrats," he said. "They're willing to look at (Republicans) us again."

He accused Democrats of "snuffing out the America that I grew up in."

"There's a political rebellion brewing, and I don't think we've seen anything like it since 1776," Boehner said.