Key lawmakers from both parties have held tentative talks about overhauling the Social Security system, and Congress could turn its attention to the federal retirement program as soon as this fall if a bipartisan consensus emerges, House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer said yesterday. ...
According to an advance copy of the speech [that Hoyer will deliver today], Hoyer will suggest that Congress could approve "more revenues," "restrain the growth of benefits, particularly for higher-income workers," "and/or we can raise the retirement age, recognizing that our life expectancy is higher today."
Update: Here is a link to Hoyer's speech. Hoyer not only conflates Social Security with Medicare and Medicaid, but also with health care generally. I think that the only way to resolve whatever issues there may be with any of these is to make sure to completely delink them. Social Security, especially, should be delinked since its funding problems are trivial when compared to Medicare, Medicaid or health care. I get the strong impression that Hoyer has little idea what he is talking about. How did he become the House Majority Leader?
2 comments:
Haven't we been down this road a dozen times?
Yep, it's a long, long road awindin', and it always comes back to cuts, cuts, cuts. Who asked ole Steny anyhow? Social Security ain't broke and don't need fixin'. If you are interested in a detailed discussion of the public financing mechanism of the Trust Fund, why it's not bankrupt, and similar topics, I strongly reccommend the Angry Bear website, published by several knowledgeable people from UC Berkeley. They have published a series of articles which present a comprehensive survey of the Trust Funds, tax mechanisms funding them, and so on. I strongly urge anyone here who is interested in these topics to look at their work.
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