Waiting only makes the changes larger and more difficult - Urban Institute
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) regularly publishes reports presenting its baseline projections of what the federal budget and the economy would look like in the current year and over the next 10 years if laws governing taxes and spending generally remain unchanged. However, as required under federal budget law, to calculate their baseline, the CBO assumes the Social Security program will continue to operate under current law and pay full benefits, but it doesn’t reflect that the Social Security trust fund is projected to reach insolvency in 2032. Jonathan Schwabish, senior fellow at the Urban Institute, in his latest column entitled “Social Security Is Running Out of Money—And Congress Might Count It as Savings”, advises that if Congress waits to act on the insolvency issue, it will likely make future Social Security reforms larger and more difficult. Read Mr. Schwabish’s column here…
As an example of leading thinking on reforming Social Security, the Association of Mature American Citizens (AMAC, Inc.) believes Social Security must be preserved and modernized to serve future generations. AMAC’s position is that this 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 initial benefits for higher-income beneficiaries. Changes to the age for maximizing benefits are included in AMAC’s position, along with (1) an increase in the thresholds where benefits are subject to income tax; (2) indexing of these thresholds annually to account for inflation; (3) changing the taxable maximum formula to address the unintended loss of revenue; (4) improving survivor benefits, (5) eliminating the reduction in benefits for those choosing to work before full retirement age; and (6) improving savings tools for future retirees, including a savings account that builds estate value. 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. See AMAC’s proposal for Social Security reform here.
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