Support Expressed for Bipartisan Fiscal Commission - Washington Examiner; AMAC
As Social Security’s long-term financial situation continues on a downward spiral, the possibility of a bipartisan commission addressing the country’s nagging–and growing–debt problem continues to show only limited movement. In fact, with no members selected to lead–or participate in–the effort, nearly a year has passed by with the idea still not showing outward signs of progress. That could change eventually, according to Washington Examiner economics reporter Zach Halaschak, who quotes Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget president Maya MacGuineas, ““My guess is that it will be adopted in the coming months or years. It is the most sensible approach there is and particularly because politicians don’t want to actually do the hard work and pass the policies we know we need to do. I think we are likely to end up with a commission, but I would never expect it to sail through the first time around Washington.”
In his article, which you can read in full here, Halaschak reviews comments from several key sources describing the advantages of a commission approach to addressing the debt problem in general and the Social Security problems in particular. For example, he quotes comments from MacGuineas outlining the benefits of bipartisan idea exchange and the creation of a forum for public education on these critical issues.
The Halaschak post also touches on some key areas where action could be considered to resolve Social Security’s long-term financial woes and the importance of timely action to implement these actions gradually. Like many consulting organizations, the Association of Mature American Citizens (AMAC) has been heavily engaged in developing a solution to preserve and modernize Social Security for generations. This effort by AMAC and its subsidiaries, AMAC Action and AMAC Foundation, has resulted in AMAC’s Social Security Guarantee (SSG), a slate of adjustments across a range of target areas with an intent to preserve the program for current beneficiaries and to align it with 21st Century demographics and economics. One of the adjustments included in the AMAC SSG is that of progressive price indexing for initial benefits, the net effect of which would be a lowering of the initial benefit calculated for higher earners, primarily by moving more of their average earnings away from the first (90%) bend point to the bend points that generate lesser portions of the calculated benefit (the 32% and 15% portions). Learn more about the AMAC SSG by visiting the AMAC website.