Social Security Report

Social Security is in big trouble. Will a commission help?

It’s hardly a new idea– set up a blue ribbon panel of experts to tell us what we already know and propose a mix of the only three possibilities to help a program in financial distress– raise taxes, cut benefits, or raise the retirement age. Prior commissions have recommended all of these. Lorie Konish of CNBC starts her piece here recounting how a protester interrupted a January congressional committee hearing to consider a bill that would create a bipartisan commission to address Social Security. “A vote for a commission is a vote to cut Social Security,” the man shouted before being whisked out of the room. Konish details the problem and retells the story of The Greenspan Commission and its bipartisan work in 1983. The changes then were designed to ensure insolvency until 2057. But 2034-35 is now the reality for benefit cuts across the board to occur, absent reform. She notes lawmakers are divided on the path forward. Full piece here.

As an example of the leading thoughts on reforming Social Security, the Association of Mature American Citizens (AMAC, Inc.) believes Social Security must be preserved and modernized.  This can be achieved without tax increases by slight modifications to cost of living adjustments and payments to high income beneficiaries plus gradually increasing the full (but not early) retirement age.  AMAC Action, AMAC’s advocacy arm, supports an increase in the threshold where benefits are taxed and then indexing for inflation, and calls for eliminating the reduction in people’s benefits for those choosing to work before full retirement age.  AMAC is resolute in its mission that Social Security be preserved for current and successive generations and has gotten the attention of lawmakers in D.C., meeting with many congressional offices and staff over the past decade. 

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