by Bruce Webb One raging argument that needs to be settled by the end of this year is what to do about the sunsetting of Bush tax cuts. Now it seems there are three general end points here: one, do nothing and they all expire at year’s end; two, extend them all, perhaps permanently; or […]
by Bruce Webb Over at Open Left they are revisiting the concept of Conservatism and whether it is a coherent philosophy. And after concluding that Conservatives by and large have failed to come up with their own definition proceeded to advance some of their own, that it is about enabling aristocracy, or institutionalizing suffering, or […]
by Bruce Webb (My God, can we get any more jargony and wonkish? Well “Si, Si, Puede!”) When the Greenspan Commission was convened back in 1982 Social Security scoring started and stopped with the SSA Office of the Chief Actuary who are also tasked with researching, compiling and presenting the Annual Report for review and […]
by Bruce Webb In 2003 CBO published an Issue Brief illustrating the relative contribution of Aging and Real Benefit Growth to future Social Security spending called The Future Growth of Social Security: It’s Not Just Society’s Aging with results graphed above:. Discussion under the fold. Approximately 55 percent of the higher spending is due to […]
and nobody notices, did it really disappear? by Bruce Webb I started reading the Annual Report of the Trustees of Social Security in 1997 and awaited its typical March 31st release date each year since with eager anticipation. To the point that last year I put up a post that morning called Bestest Day of […]
by Bruce Webb On Conservatism.Modern Conservatism = Protection of Property Rights. The historical process in Northern Europe and Britain from the mid 17th through the 19th century was marked by a sometimes gradual, sometimes violent collapse in belief in the Divine Right of Kings, and for that matter Popes. Conservatism replaced its traditional appeal to […]
by Bruce Webb In response to my Pelosi Rule post of yesterday commenter Darms plays Devil’s Advocate in asking the following shrewd question. Bruce, Since the commision may be looking for a mechanism to delay redemption of those SS trust fund bonds and I’ve read that some of these bonds are routinely redeemed & renewed […]
by Bruce Webb There is a huge disturbance in the Force, at least as sensed by the Jedi of FireDogLake, Democratic Underground, AMERICAblog, and OpenLeft, which is to say among the Obama-skeptics of the Left. The substance is this, in a last minute move prior to adjournment Nancy Pelosi pushed through the rule for handling […]
by Bruce WebbFollowing up on the publication of CBO’s Long Term Budget Outlook (see previous two of my posts) CBO yesterday published Social Security Policy Options (Summary for Web) and Social Security Policy Options (Full 51 pg PDF) scoring various revenue and spending cut measures that have been proposed for Social Security. The included Table […]
Under CBO’s ‘Extended Baseline’, i.e. roughly Current Law the 75 year actuarial gap is up to 1.6% from 1.3% and the date of Trust Fund Exhaustion moved back from 2043 to 2039. Under the ‘Alternative Fiscal Scenario’ the corresponding numbers are 2.1% and 2037 or right in line with the Social Security Trustees 2009 projections. […]