by Bruce Webb Well there is no such bill, but it would be a good title for what we would see if we put the entire economic right tax agenda together. Because what seem to be totally different arguments end up delivering the same outcome. We can start with the corporate income tax. The argument […]

by Bruce Webb (Update 2 : Deleted Update 1.) Currently there is a lot of discussion about forming a new bipartisan Entitlements Commission modeled in part on the ‘Greenspan Commission’ of 1981-82 and partly on the Base ReAlignment Commission (BRAC). The idea is that you get people to agree on ‘Crisis’, then get a ‘bipartisan’ […]

by Bruce Webb Last month we were delivered alarming news from AEI: Slowdown Slashes Social Security Surplus illustrated with the table above in turn derived from this source SSA-Trust Fund Data. And sure enough if you followed the link and inserted Feb 2009 that is exactly what you would see. But what if you put […]

by Bruce Webb In the course of a post called the The Vanishing Surplus-Revealed there arose a semantic dispute about what ‘surplus’ means. Well I maintain that the answer to that question is not in authorial intent but instead on audience reception. If you are writing for a popular audience you have an obligation to […]

by Bruce Webb By a quirk in blogger this post finished today ended up showing up dated yesterday.‘Headline’ Surplus/Deficit and ‘Headline’ Debt

by Bruce Webb Commenter and blogger Arne (whose largely SS Blog is found here) asked in comments whether it was time to move beyond “Nothing” and propose to policy makers some alternative plans to address future discontinuities. Which is a very sensible question, because if and when the Social Security Trust Funds (DI and then […]

by Bruce Webb (Well it seems a little slow around the Bear Cave today, sorry if this seems like deja vu all over again.) DI or Social Security Disability Insurance is maybe not in immediate crisis but it is not well. But then again it has been ailing for a long time and where the […]

by Bruce Webb (Update 4/13: several commenters pointed out that this claim is in fact wrong: “In this Report CBO has introduced a new term of art called ‘Primary Surplus’.” ‘Primary surplus’ is not a new term of art at all, it is instead one of five measures of ‘Budget Surplus/Deficit” as described in Table […]

by Bruce Webb (updated to add table) Click to enlarge. New poll: NCPSSM: Americans Support Protecting Social Security Benefits. Andrew Biggs links us to good news for those supporters of Social Security who oppose addressing the problem through benefit cuts. He comments on this and rightly points out that the poll is expressly limited to […]

by Bruce Webb Articles this week by Kevin Hassett and Lori Montgomery sought to make the claim that deficits scheduled for 2017 had been moved up to today as a reason to immediately convene a bi-partisan Commission to Reform Social Security (with ‘bi-partisan’ meaning dominated by Blue Dog Dems and Conservative Republicans). Well first of […]