Speaking on the Senate floor on Monday, Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren went against pro-austerity conventional wisdom and advocated for the expansion of Social Security benefits, joining a small but vocal group of economic liberals currently pushing the idea.

"Over the past generation, working families have been hacked at, chipped, and hammered. If we want a real middle class — a middle class that continues to serve as the backbone of our country — then we must take the retirement crisis seriously," Warren said. "That is why we should be talking about expanding Social Security benefits — not cutting them."

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Warren's position is exactly opposite from that advocated in a recent Op-Ed from the Washington Post's editorial board, which argued against expanding Social Security benefits, calling the move "a massive transfer of income from upper-income Americans to the retired." The Post went on to claim that the money raised by lifting the cap on income subject to the Social Security payroll tax would be better spent on America's young, an either/or proposition that Warren and others reject.

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