Nonpartisan Social Security Reform Plan
Along with Jeff Liebman of Harvard University and Maya MacGuineas of the New America Foundation, I am pleased to announce the "Nonpartisan Social Security Reform Plan." Jeff was a Special Assistant to President Clinton's National Economic Council, where he worked on Social Security, and Maya was a Social Security adviser to Senator McCain's 2000 presidential campaign. Combined with my experience on the staff of the CEA in the Bush administration, we cover the political spectrum of recent years.
We've all spent plenty of time worrying about the looming fiscal crisis associated with the demographic shift toward an aging population, of which Social Security is the tip of the iceberg. Push finally came to shove, and we bound ourselves together via months of conference calls, and this is the plan that emerged. It's not what any one of us would have come up with on our own, but those sorts of plans never become legislation anyway.
What is unique about the plan is that it is designed around the broad areas of likely compromise across the political landscape on how to restore solvency to the system. What makes the plan important is that the Office of the Chief Actuary has evaluated it and certified that it would "easily satisfy the criteria for attaining sustainable solvency."
The plan contains four primary elements: a gradual reduction in future benefits; an increase in the payroll tax cap; an increase in the retirement age; and the establishment of personal retirement accounts. The plan puts great emphasis on fiscal responsibility – there are no transfers from general revenues to achieve sustainable solvency. Specifically:
1) Pay-as-you-go benefits would be gradually reduced to keep the costs of the traditional system to what can be afforded by the 12.4 percent payroll tax. The cuts are structured such that cuts are larger for high earners than for low earners.
2) The plan would establish mandatory personal retirement accounts (PRA) in the amount of 3 percent of taxable payroll. The accounts would be funded by a combination of diverting 1.5 percent of taxable payroll from the Social Security trust fund and requiring workers to contribute an additional 1.5 percent of payroll into their PRAs.
3) The funds diverted from the trust fund would be replaced, once the Social Security surplus was not adequate, by raising the cap on earnings subject to the Social Security payroll tax so that 90 percent of earnings were taxed. Workers would receive no incremental benefits for paying these additional taxes.
4) The plan would gradually increase the normal retirement age (currently scheduled to reach 67 in 2017) to 68 and the earliest age at which retirees could collect Social Security benefits from its current 62 to 65. People would be able to tap into their PRA assets beginning at age 62.
5) In order to minimize risks and administrative costs, accounts would be tightly regulated and full annuitization of account balances would be required.
6) Total replacement rates from the remaining traditional benefits and the new PRAs are comparable for most workers to those promised but currently underfunded in present law.
I invite your comments and questions on the plan, and I will be blogging more about the plan in the days and weeks to come. It was a fascinating experiment--we were trying to walk the very thin line between compromising our principles, which serves no one, and the principle of compromise, which is essential to moving public policy forward. It is a plan that respects political differences but not entrenched political interests. We believe that we have staked out the center of the political spectrum--the challenge now is to capture enough of the people just left and right of center to build the necessary coalition to see it through.
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39 comments:
There were 2 aspects to the WH SS plan: Reform and Privitization.
While the former is necessary, the plan died because it was mostly about the latter . . .
It sounds like serious, responsible, consensus proposal. Too bad there aren't any serious repsonsible adults in Washington.
I can't imagine the AARP signing up for this
William H.
"...by raising the cap on earnings subject to the Social Security payroll tax so that 90 percent of earnings were taxed."
I am not certain sure how this would work in detail. For example: under the tentative proposal, would a CEO with a $900,000 annual salary remit payroll taxes on 90% * 900,000 of annual income? This would be equal to ~ .9 * $900,000 * .062, or $50,000 in payroll taxes paid annually by the CEO. Currently, wouldn't the CEO pay around $90,000*.062, or $5,580? Also, do you consider an executive's annual cash bonus in annual earnings subject to the payroll tax?
This proposal seems like a big tax increase on high-income people. Politically, this might drum up some fierce resistance and make fundraising difficult for elected politicians who support the proposed change at hand.
People will probably want to know what goes along with this proposed change to social security (e.g., extension of dividend and capital gains taxed at 15%, top marginal income tax rates in future periods, etc.)
Let me get this straight, you want those of us in our thirties (and twenties) to add another year to our work careers (and payments), have our taxes raised another 1.5 percent for the individual accounts, and have our benefits cut (more so if we are successful).
Where I come from that is known as "throwing good money after bad." So, it sounds like a winner to me.
I bet all three of you are in your fifties.
It wouldn't be 90% of each persons income, but 90% of all income. That would currently translate to taxes on about the first $135k. The cap should be raised gradually starting immediately. Retirement age changes should enhance flexibility. People will be working longer; it is not necessary to raise the age to require them to. With little choice, PRAs are only a fig leaf. Will the annuity be indexed? Actually with current productivity growth, there may be no problem which makes this a hard sell.
Anonymous,
You lose the bet. I'm 36 and a contemporary of my two colleagues.
On the substance of your point, our generation's alternatives will require higher taxes or lower benefits, simply due to the implications of longer lifespans and continued fertility of about 2 children per woman. We cannot evade the laws of arithmetic.
Of all the plans you might see discussed, ours might interest you because it gets more money from generations older than we are. The sooner we start on a better funded path, the more generations of workers there will be to share the added burden.
Nathan,
Thank you for raising that point. We slipped into jargon and you picked up on it. What we mean is that "so that 90% of all payroll is subject to tax," which means raising the maximum taxable earnings to about $171,600 if it were done today.
The bottom line is that our plan needs an amount of money equal to 1.5 percent of taxable payroll to make sure we get to solvency. Any progressive way of reaching it could probably substitute for this particular feature of the plan.
Andrew
Anonymous,
Thanks for your comment.
On raising the cap, the increase is fully phased in by 2017. Until then, we use any annual surpluses from the SS program first, raising it only as much as we need to.
On flexibility, I think that you are right, and raising the age just allows us to acknowledge this fact and use it to help reduce the fiscal burden of paying benefits.
On PRAs, I wish they were only a fig leaf, but I don't believe that pre-funding is possible without a system of accounts that are walled off from the rest of the government's finances. Please see this earlier post. The annuities will be indexed.
On productivity, I did the calculation a while ago and concluded that it would be heroic to project productivity growth sufficient to restore actuarial balance. Please see this post.
Andrew
So in addition raising the cap on my taxable payroll income (thusly costing both myself and my employer more, if I earned over the cap, which I most certainly don't...but will one day, one hopes), you want to force me to put another 1.5% of my income into some government-run IRA? I don't like it, but it's probably better than other proposals.
Question, however: under this scheme would PRA contributions be taxable with regard to the income tax? If so would gains be taxed again upon withdrawl?
If they're taxed now, but not taxed later it's about the same as a RothIRA, if they're not taxed now but taxed later it's like a mandatory IRA...if you have to include them no AND pay capital gains when you get the benefit, this PRA is in no way preferable to other savings vehicles.
Professor, I appreciate your efforts, but ...
The two most pressing fiscal challenges for the US are: 1) the health care system and 2) the General Fund Deficit (close to $600 Billion this year alone).
Social Security is irrelevant when compared to those two problems.
I suggest fixing the most serious problems FIRST, and then returning to Social Security.
Do you have suggestions on fixing the almost $600 billion annual General Fund budget deficit?
Best Regards.
"essentially a center-left proposal"
Wasn't the goal to be non-partisan on this?
Timothy,
Income tax treatment of PRA contributions and withdrawals is exactly the same as current payroll tax payments and Social Security benefits.
CR,
I'm happy to start with the "small" problems first, but I don't dispute your rank ordering. I can tell you my ideas, but I don't pretend that these are complete solutions.
On health, I'd start with: 1) means-testing Medicare parts B & D, 2) shortening patent lives on pharmaceuticals to lower average prices, 3) dropping the health insurance premium exclusion, so that this income was taxed, 4) dramatically curtailing state-regulation of health insurance companies, to encourage competition, and 5) allowing buy-ins to Medicaid and Medicare for the poor and near-elderly, respectively.
On the General Fund, we start by tax changes getting sunsetted sooner rather than later, and all non-entitlement spending getting frozen until balance is restored.
Bibamus,
Thank you as always. Your point #3 is right. We also try to draw people's attention to Tables B1a and B1c in the actuaries' report, which report projected benefit levels relative to present law for the Treasury-only portfolio as well as the mixed portfolio. The PRA benefits added to the remaining traditional benefit are about 5/8 as high when the conservative portfolio choice is made.
I don't know that this is center-left. How many "left" proposals actually have personal accounts in them? Except for the fact that we now don't have any unexpected budget surpluses forecast, this plan is like what Republicans were discussing 8 years ago. Some Republicans (including the President) insist that the lack of surpluses means that the PRAs need to be carved out of the payroll tax, with the transition covered by borrowing that is eventually repaid through lower pay-as-you-go benefits. Other Republicans (like Sen. Lindsay Graham) have proposed adding new revenues, though not as much as we have here. That's because they didn't have to compromise--yet. They will if they actually want to solve the problem.
Andrew
Income tax treatment of PRA contributions and withdrawals is exactly the same as current payroll tax payments and Social Security benefits.
Meaning you have to count the part taken for PRA in your 1040 this year, and you'll be taxed again on the benefits when you collect them. This treatment is one of the things I find most infuriating about Social Security, other than being expected to pay for some indigent older's cruises.
Having read the whole plan now, however, I have to say that as far as politically feasible Social Security reform plans go this is a good one. In an ideal world I'd be allowed just to keep the money to invest myself (or, , but that'll never fly. Thinking in the real world, this is likely the best solution that doesn't raise taxes exorbidantly and gives young folks like me a reasonable probability of actually getting something out of it.
Andrew: Yes, I lost the bet. I went through the effort of looking at you Dartmouth Web page and learned that I was at Cornell while you were at Harvard.
I do acknowledge the arithmetic involved in the Social Security debate -- I have been working full-time in the retirement industry full-time since I started working in 1990 and have been thinking about this issue for the past 15 years. And, no, I do not like your proposal because it “gets more money from more generations” into the system. You see, your changes would financially harm me personally, as it would all workers who are now in mid-career. Whether we take other generations down with us is a moot point to our personal situations.
As an economist, you will realize that a solution through which I pay more and receive less while working longer is not one I would voluntarily take. In a democracy (as opposed to a dictatorship) workable solutions should be ones that appeal to all groups at some level. They should also be ones that can be reversed if the polity changes its will. A dictatorship of ghost legislators is not one that appeals to me and I doubt that it appeals to you.
To have any hope of equity, any solution will have to give something to all groups in exchange for their participation in the reform. For those who earn more than $90,000 (and I am not one currently), perhaps you would increase the amount of income that they have taxed but accrue their additional benefit at a lower rate than for other groups (still unfair in an absolute sense, but not a dictator’s solution either).
If you would like those of us in our mid-thirties to work longer still -- remember that despite the fact that we have paid in 14 percent our entire working career we are already scheduled to retire at 67 while boomers, who spent most the first half of their careers paying 7 to 10 percent of their income, while be able to retire soon after 65 – you need to offer something other than a benefit cut and a payroll tax hike. You need, as some say, to offer some sugar too.
One solution could be a benefit cut and retirement age increase in exchange for an immediate payroll tax cut of some amount. Only two-thirds of current payroll taxes are used to pay current benefits. Any budget shortfall caused by the loss of Social Security surplus could be reduced through an increase in regular income taxes. That would reduce our most regressive tax and add to the integrity of the budget (I know, integrity and Washington are not nouns that mix).
That solution would allow those of us trying to afford kids and a house to better build for the future (or perhaps to divert the payroll tax savings to our 401(k) plan or IRA).
To further nitpick, your forced annuity idea should be a nonstarter. That idea guts the value of a individual account with customizable asset allocation. Anyone who wishes to annuitize can do so affordable now and could presumably choose an annuity option through the SS Administration.
Any increase in the current payroll tax – and your idea proposes a 1.5 percent increase, or nearly a 10 percent hike in the payroll tax rate – would likely crowd out other retirement savings in the private system. Today, more than 50 million working Americans contribute an average of 6 percent of their income to defined contribution plans. For better or worse, those plans offer more flexibility than the Social Security fund (most plans offer loans and participants can always cash out the funds with a penalty if they are truly in need).
As far as I see, your proposal would not increase national income, which means the 1.5 percent increase has to come out of worker’s pocketbooks. My hypothesis is that much of that amount would come out of our $2 trillion defined contribution plan system. We should think twice before putting that hypothesis to a test since that transfer would likely harm national savings rates since workers reducing their 401(k) contribution to make up for increased payroll taxes would also lose their employer’s match.
People talk about lowering the fraction of salary you receive in retirement, or increasing the retirment age, as benefit cuts. These are just cuts in the parameters, not necessarily in the total benefit. The real way to evaluate whether benefits are cut is to consider present value, accounting for longer life expectancies. Basically, the current system has a hidden benefit increase which accounts for some of the imbalance we currently have. Since we're not going to cut life expectancy (I hope) we have to "cut" other parameters in order to keep the total benefit the same.
Personally, I think its key to have some sort of indexing of key parameters to changes in life expectancy.
Let me lead by: (1) thanking you for the email; and (2) noting Duncan Black (Atrios) is not happy with this proposal. On this one, I disagree with Duncan as I sort of like it. Two basic points:
(1) I really like the no transfer part of the proposal as my main fear regarding the Bush crowd is that they wish to abuse Soc. Sec. for a backdoor employment tax, that is, solve the General Fund crisis ala robbing from the Trust Fund. If one wishes to lower capital income taxes and raise employment taxes, just do so - HONESTLY.
(2) I could live with the idea of a small movement towards personal accounts on one proviso - we do so honestly as in Robert Barro's 2000 Business Week oped. In other words, the free lunch Cato crowd is either seriously confused about financial economics (as in risk and expected return) or flat out lying to folks with there opinion pieces on this issue.
In general - well done to an interesting set of ideas!
(Big Red) Anonymous,
Thanks for following up. I agree that all groups should be represented, but that's the rub. The political process on Social Security does not permit those generations yet to come to be represented. If we do only those things that will be financially beneficial to current voters, we invariably shift the fiscal burden to those unable to vote. When you suggested that we were "all" over 50, I was tempted to reply that, no, we are all parents of two small children. And I am now (after 15 months of blogging) much quicker to acknowledge that Social Security is only one area of the federal budget where our generation seems content to pass the buck. (See CR's comments and my reply above.)
Andrew
I accidentally posted this question to the wrong Samwick posting. Apologies for duplication.
In regards to requiring employees to put an additional 1.5% into an account:
How would this 1.5% figure into individual bankruptcy? That is, would an individual keep the 1.5% even after the individual goes bankrupt? Would an individual be allowed to borrow against the 1.5%? Would the 1.5% crowd out other things?
Awesome job on the blog posting by Professor Samwick, including the responsiveness from Samwick and the insight from other posters. Thanks!
Will there be a provision to reverse or slow down the increase in the payroll tax if it is unnecessary?
By this I mean that if the economy does better than expected, what is the likelihood that the government will "give back" the higher payroll tax rather than maintain it at the new 90% level?
How credible are the provisions? Can something be done so that the plan is fully implemented or will there be a temptation to change matters halfway through? [Dynamic inconsistency issues?]
For me, the real problems with social security have always been Public Choice ones. Does the govt fool with benefits when things work out? Do temporary taxes become permanent ones? Perhaps your plan answers these questions, but I'd like to hear your thoughts on these issues.
congrats - this is an excellent idea.
First, if they want the hoi-polloi (i.e. those of us that will pay for this) to understand it, some of the jargon needs to be defined in the paper.
Second, it is my understanding that one simple change could fix the majority of the social security funding gap: Change benefit increases from being tied to wages to being tied to inflation. I was flabbergasted that this was not the case. As the current system is set up, the elderly get an increasing standard of living -since wage increases of the economy as a whole are tied to productivity in the economy and they usually rise faster than inflation. An increase solely due to inflation freezes their standard of living at their retirement year. If they want a higher standard of living, they need to save for it.
Why isn't anyone suggesting this as the first step?
The big flaw in this plan is that it inflicts all of its pain on younger people. They get stiff tax increases plus markedly reduced future benefits. If younger people had only to fund their own retirements, we could implement an actuarially-sound system for them right away at much lower cost to them.
Before increasing SS taxes, Congress should cut SS payouts.
But, you say, we can't cut eldster's expectations! They paid their contributions [taxes] in good faith! Besides, relying on promised SS benefits, older folks (being rational economic actors) have already squandered the money they would have saved if SS did not exist!
Succinct, convincing, and wrong--at least on equity grounds. First, Congress has repeatedly promised increased benefits over the years. So the eldsters' expectations now do not square with either the taxes they paid back in the day, or with amount they should rationally have saved in the past to finance the lifestyle they wish to enjoy now.
(To understand this issue better, consider the new Medicare drug benefit... it may deter savings now, but could not have deterred savings a decade ago. How can young people have an equitable obligation to pay for this program? It's pure rent-seeking by older folks.)
Any increase in Social Security promised to an age cohort too old to have paid for it through payroll taxes under an actuarially-sound system[1] should should be fair game for a rollback.
So what if this cramps the lifestyle of retirees or near-retirees? The taxes required to support retirees in luxury will cause worse harm to young taxpayers. Worse (a) because of population ratios (e.g., a dollar for each retiree is three dollars from a worker), and (b) because young workers literally need the money more. Young workers need more food, need new clothes more often, need to feed, clothe, house, educate, and doctor young children, need to pay the costs of producing their income (education, job hunting, housing near job, commuting, tools, etc.), and so-forth.
It's a moral inversion to privilege retirees' leisure spending (from rents of taxes on workers) over workers' own spending.
It's also poor economic policy. Increased SS taxes harm workers' and businesses' productivity. Money which could be profitably invested is instead diverted to dead-end consumption, with high transaction costs and deadweight loss to boot.
Here's my reform plan: today, reduce payroll taxes to the level required to fund current payouts (the so-called "trust fund" where excess taxes go now is completely phoney--Congress just diverts a portion of regressive taxes SS to the general fund). Never raise the payroll tax rate or ceiling again. In the future, reduce benefits to whatever level can be paid from the fixed tax rate. Distribute the cuts in proportion to rational expectations at the time retirees were still working (that is, discounting new promises made to people later in their working lives--those people should have saved more when they were younger and SS was less generous).
Let Congress make up the loss of general funds coming from the "SS surplus" by cutting general spending or raising general taxes. Let retirees who want more money apply for means-tested welfare like SSI, which should be paid from general taxes.
To help avoid this mess in the future, allow workers to divert any amount of income into IRA's free of income and payroll taxes. Tax only distributions from those accounts as ordinary income (and allow retirees to take as much or as little as they wish in distributions, but require termination of the IRA on death and make any heir to part of the balance pay tax on the money as ordinary income in the year received). Allow even high-income taxpayers to utilize these accounts.
[1] I realize SS has never been or even claimed to be an actuarially- sound system--but I want a fair way to measure people's legitimate expectations from it. Since SS has always employed the rhetoric of "accounts" and "benefits earned" I'm willing to assume that the victims believed the propaganda, at least those who worked for a number of years after SS started. Obviously SS was just money from the Tooth Fairy for the first recipients.)
On inflation vs wage indexing - an advantage of wage indexing is that it ties benifit changes to income changes - i.e. if wage growth is negative for some period of time, benifits are effectively cut. This hasn't been an issue of late, but tying your expenses to receipts is suitably conservative (small c) for a pension system. The real problem, as has been pointed out, is that changes in life expectancy add an unfunded liability that is not covered by this. This is better dealt with directly.
I would support your plan if it included one additional provision -- that individuals be given the ability to opt out of Social Security.
Are you aware that 22% of people would get out of the system if they had the choice?
Are you aware that 22% of people would get out of the system if they had the choice?
I would guess an even larger percentage would opt out of all taxes if they could do so legally. So should they be allowed to do so?
CR has it absolutely right - the budget deficit is a far greater problem and after that medical costs (both privately & publicly funded)...
Those are much bigger fish to fry and the success or failure of tackling them will directly impact the success or failure of funding Social Security.
I like the key feature, the mandatory payment of X amount toward ones own retirement fund. The same idea should be included in a health care solution.
One cannot drive a car without buying liability insurance, one should not be allowed to work without setting aside a minimal amount into a tax advantaged health savings account. The real cost to the purchaser would be negligible and numerous inefficient government programs could be canceled.
The empowerment of the poor to control their health care and retirement savings would be a nice "freedom thing".
Calculated Risk has interesting point on prioritization.
I think implicit to this discussion is a sense that the U.S. could balance the books somewhat quickly and easily with tax hikes. However, in the interest of growth and avoiding deep recessions, income tax cuts have been enacted.
The entitlement spending, on the other hand, is more fixed and not discretionary, and is potentially not as easily solved by tax hikes or future economic growth. Some slight curbing of the social security benefit per person could be used to fund the new medicare entitlement.
Personal accounts benefit poor people - arguably moreso than the rich. I do not know why liberals oppose personal accounts in knee-jerk fashion. Rich people are probably rich regardless of the 3% per year personal account. The personal accounts is for people of very modest means, and people who do not expect to live many years into retirement. This proposed change to social security would give poor people something they do not have, and this benefit would be funded by higher-income people than under the current system.
A question on full annuitization of accounts:
This benefits people who retire when the stock market and penalizes people who retire when the stock market is not at highs. Is this good? Why require full annuitization? Is there a way to provide some flexibility regarding the start of annuitization? Can some people opt out of annuitization based on demonstration of sufficient income or assets?
edit:
This benefits people who retire when the stock market "is high"
one more:
In my mind, the social security system is an "insurance" system as much as a "retirement" system. I have no problem with means testing, or curbing benefits, for retirees who have high incomes and wealth in addition to a social security check. No insurance company pays out on a policy when there is no reason for a claim.
"The two most pressing fiscal challenges for the US are: 1) the health care system and 2) the General Fund Deficit (close to $600 Billion this year alone)."
$507 billion in 2005.
"Social Security is irrelevant when compared to those two problems.
"I suggest fixing the most serious problems FIRST, and then returning to Social Security."
The present value of the unfunded SS liability is $5.7 trillion (over 75 years, much larger open ended) say the Treasury's latest numbers.
This is non-trivial in anybody's book -- and includes an extra near $500 billion for SS in 2005 alone. Matching that general fund deficit for the entire rest of the government which is so bad.
As to why fix this very non-trivial problem first, the answer is because we can. It has been studied up and down and over since the SS Advisory Commission of 1994, and the answers are all there -- specific answers -- if only there is the will to do them.
In contrast, Medicare and Medicaid are a huge mess and nobody has any plausible answers for them.
So saying "Do health care first, not SS, even though we can do SS" seems pretty much like a ploy to try to preserve the status quo and do nothing.
Unless, of course, one actually has a solution to propose for health care first. Does one??
As Moynihan used to say, "Social Security is easy, Medicare is going to be hard, if we can't fix Social Security then God help us."
I understand the grim arithmetic forcing higher taxes and lower benefits. But the idea of forced annuitizaiton is not good, as it prevents the accumulated assets from being passed to the next genera tion to build up wealth. You need to find a way to structure this so that wealth can transfer and build up over a few generations.
As Moynihan used to say, "Social Security is easy, Medicare is going to be hard, if we can't fix Social Security then God help us."
Translated: "If we can't arrange the deck chairs what will we do when the ship sinks?"
First things first... even before Midicare... tackle the deficit NOW... then medical cost escalation including Medicare... then Social Security.
First things first always.
Since the goods and services consumed by future retirees cannot be saved up, and must be produced in the future, the only way in which saving in advance can improve retiree living standards overall is for those savings to be invested so as to fund (or free other money to fund) activities that will increase the productivity of those who will be working in that future.
Although person A may improve his or her retirement living standard relative to person B's by saving more than B, and both may improve their future standard of living relative to future workers by accumulating durable assets which future workers may forgo other consumption to buy, there'll be little improvement if the savings are mostly lent to fund consumption of services and nondurable goods.
What matters is not how much we save up in SS Trust Funds or private accounts, it's how we invest those funds. Since I can see no reason why private accounts would be more wisely invested than SS funds, I can't work up any enthusiasm at all for them, regardless of form. As recent history so clearly demonstrated, and as we could reason from basic principles, few people have the knowledge and intellect to earn a return greater than they could get on US Treasuries. If private accounts were to be invested in common stocks by creating some kind of public index fund, then we would just create innumerable opportunities for the pros of Wall Street to front-run and otherwise game the system and pump out the money; and since the only way to get the money out would be to sell the stocks, it would guarantee a market decline when the baby boom peak hits retirement age. (Note also that hardly any of the money spent to purchase stocks goes to buy new shares and fund company operations -- almost all of the money goes to buy "used" shares from people who acquired them earlier, often at enormously lower prices.)
I notice there is no mention of the raid that happens every year on the SS surplus. The press also never mentions this as well. The way I understand it, more money gets paid into the SS fund every year than is spent. That money is SUPPOSED to be set aside for future SS payments as they are needed. Unfortunately, what happens is that congress "borrows" this money and spends it on other things. Of course, they are borrowing it with no real intention of EVER paying it back, so we end up with a stack of IOUs.
SS is supposed to be a specific tax, that goes into a specific fund, for a specific purpose (read: fiscal conservatism). What congress has done is turn this into another general slush fund (read: tax-and-spend liberalism).
Again, I almost never hear this point debated. What will your plan do about protecting any surpluses that may occur? Will you put it into an account that CANNOT EVER be diverted to other purposes? If not, then you can basically chalk up any money raised from your proposal as just another stack of IOUs.
My gut feeling is that any congressional opposition to SS reform comes from the simple fact that they may no longer have this slush fund to spend on pork and the myriad of other wasteful federal programs. Without the ability to waste money, they are nothing, which is why SS reform scares them to death.
The plan allocates all of the near-term surpluses to the personal accounts, with exactly this issue in mind.
In order to achieve sustainable solvency, the plan eventually has the system returning to surplus. If I live to see the day, I would advocate some other use for those surpluses--like greater contributions to the accounts or a payroll tax rebate.
Andrew
That sounds like a great idea, glad to see someone took notice that we are being robbed blind by the current system.
I'm confused now.
Right now, we pay 12.4% (6.2% from the employee, matched by the employer) on the first $90K. (As noted above, Medicare is not being addressed here.)
Is the additional 1.5% really 3.0% (as people seem to be treating it), or is it an unmatched 1.5%?
On the demographic question, and reminding you of the Disability Insurance aspect of the program, what percentage of people now retire before 65, and why would you assume this percentage would go down?
And, by the way, what would the harm be of leaving the fourth item (mandatory PRAs) out of the plan?
Cut the entire system. I am 23 and hate the social security and don't give a crap about senior. They already take 40-50% of the fedeal budget(medicare, social security), how much do you guys want?
Goldwater was right!
And no, i am not a republican. I am a Democrat---a Liberterian Democrat(Bush is a moron too).
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