A Collection of Viewpoints About Social Security’s Insolvency - newsone.com
If there’s one thing that’s a consensus, it’s that there’s no consensus on either the severity of Social Security’s financial problems or the path to correcting the imbalance. A somewhat lighthearted post by NewsOne’s Joe Jurado on their website, however, frames this lack of consensus with this lead-in: “Congress Has No Plan For Keeping Social Security Solvent.”
Jurado goes on to cite this example of interest in taking action: “This train wreck is going to happen,” Rep. Steve Womack (R-Ark.) said in an interview. “So as early as six years from now, we’re going to have to have a plan. And of course, I’m a big believer that we need to deal with it now, or we need to start the process of dealing with it now.”
He counters this with a quote from a prominent Congressional voice: “Your Social Security is safe. You can write that down and take it home to mama,” Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) said at an event this summer. “All we got to do is go take the money out of the general fund, which we always do.”
Interesting, no? Jurado also discusses the efforts by Senators Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and Bill Cassidy (R-La.) to via the “Protecting Retirement Opportunities and Maintaining Income Security for Everyone (PROMISE) Act” (S. 4979) and its intent to light a fire under the Social Security Advisory Board to create a 50-year solvency proposal that would subsequently be submitted to the Social Security Trustees and Congress for legidlative action (for more information on this proposal, check out this post from last week on this site).
So, what will happen next remains anybody’s guess at this point. In the void between action and a funding resolution, rest assured that many organizations are working diligently to advance potential solutions for Congress to consider. Joining this stream of emerging ideas is the Association of Mature American Citizens’ (AMAC) Social Security Guarantee (SSG). AMAC’s SSG is a packaged proposal to address the insolvency issue, based on the premise that Social Security’s promise must be preserved and modernized to meet the demands of 21st-century economics.
AMAC’s Stance on Preserving, Protecting, and Modernizing Social Security
AMAC’s position is that Social Security solvency can be achieved without payroll tax increases through relatively minor program modifications, including changes to the cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) process and modifications to the formulas for calculating payments to higher-income beneficiaries. Changes to the age for maximizing benefits are included in AMAC’s position, along with steps to ensure that a larger percentage of total worker earnings are subject to FICA/SECA payroll taxes. Other changes advocated by AMAC include (1) an increase in the thresholds where benefits are subject to income tax; (2) indexing of these thresholds annually to account for inflation; (3) improved survivor benefits, (4) eliminating the reduction in benefits for those choosing to work before full retirement age; and (5) improved savings tools for future retirees, including a savings account that builds estate value.
AMAC is resolute in its mission to preserve Social Security for current and future generations and has drawn the attention of lawmakers in D.C., meeting with many congressional offices and staff over the past decade. Most recently, the suggested legislative framework has been reviewed with Social Security Administration officials. For more information on the AMAC proposal, read the “AMAC Social Security Guarantee” document on their website.