The trustees of the Social Security system announced
yesterday that the trust fund will be exhausted in 2033, three years earlier
than previously estimated. At that
point, the system will only be able to pay out 75% of the benefits
promised. Sounds pretty bad. Right?
Not really. The truth is there
are many ways to fix Social Security without privatizing or totally dismantling
it as the Republicans want to do.
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) last year estimated that the
Social Security shortfall would amount to about 0.6% of GDP. CBO produced a table showing the various
options that have been discussed for fixing the shortfall with an estimate of
their impact. As Kevin Drum pointed out
in a Mother Jones article last year, fixing Social Security simply involves
picking among the various options that add up to 0.6% or more. Given the new estimate of the shortfall, we
might want to look for 0.8% or more but even that would be pretty easy. Take a look at the chart below or in Drum’s
article here: http://motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2011/09/some-gutsy-talk-social-security We can fix Social Security with a few simple changes that can be implemented so slowly very few will see any real change.
So, if we want to fix Social Security, why doesn’t Congress
just pick a few of these options and get on with it. Well, that’s what the Democrats would like to
do. However, the Republicans are
blocking all of these easy options hoping that they can scare Americans into
abandoning the whole idea of Social Security for private accounts or nothing at
all.
Read the full Congressional Budget Office Report on Social
Security here:
Read about the new estimates from the Social Security
trustees here: http://nbcpolitics.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/04/23/11355323-social-security-trustees-see-earlier-fund-depletion-date?lite
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