Nothing sinister. The Social Security and Medicare Annual Reports are released together each year because each interacts deeply with the other. The new Health Care Reform law significantly changes Medicare and so the Obama Administration decided to update its numbers to match the new reality. Which makes sense. But expect opponents to mount a hissy […]

The 2010 Social Security Report is due out any day now and I thought I could lay some groundwork for a number based discussion of its implications. Starting with changes to the 75 year projection over time. 1996-2.19%1997-2.23%1998-2.19%1999-2.07%2000-1.87%2001-1.86%2002-1.87%2003-1.92%2004-1.89%2005-1.92% 2006-2.02%2007-1.96%2008-1.70%2009-2.01%2010-??Each Report Year the Trustees give an estimate of how much payroll tax would have to go […]

by Bruce Webb And I could add honest definitions and honest framing to that. In Dec 2005 three former staffers to Bill Clinton, John McCain and GW Bush respectively released the Liebman-MacGuineas-Samwick Non-Partisan Social Security Reform Plan (9 pg PDF) or LMS. The authors proposed a package of changes to Social Security comprised of a […]

lifted from Bruce’s e-mail Hi Bruce, I really enjoyed your recent post to OpenLeft about the war on Social Security. I wrote a related piece deconstructing Obama’s latest picks to the Debt Commission: Alternet: Obama Packs Debt Commission with Social Security Looters? Any feedback about the article or thoughts on the matter would be greatly […]

by Bruce Webb Well some things are coming clear about the Presidents Deficit Commission. One its Chairmen have made it clear that its business starts and stops with Entitlements, the concerns some Republicans had that this would be Obama’s way of boosting taxes on the General Fund side or slashing military spending have been shown […]

by Bruce Webb The immediate economic/political news this week will revolve around Health Care and then transition to Jobs. Which is a good thing because I could really use a job with health care benefits. But Social Security blogging is what I do so here is a piece on the various ways in which Social […]

by Daniel J. Becker Back in June of ’08 I asked regarding Jason Furman’s appointment by Obama: Is this the concession the Clinton/Blue Dog group was looking for? The DLC still keeps control of the money issues? I asked because of his connection to the Hamilton Project at the Brookings Institute: Hamilton Project, a small […]

by Bruce Webb (UPDATE: Digby readers, I want to make it clear that I am not NewDealDemocrat, I just got permission to cross-post this important compilation from NDD.) Blog friend NewDealDemocrat has a recommended diary up on dKos called Mr. President, No Real Democrat is agnostic about Social Security. NewDeal gave me an advance look […]

by Bruce Webb This figure shows graphically the outcomes for the OAS (black line) and DI (gray line) under the three alternative scenarios Low Cost (I), Intermediate Cost (II), and High Cost (III) in the 2008 Report. Almost universally reporting on Social Security revolves around Intermediate Cost and if we examine its lines we see […]

by Dale Coberly AN IMMODEST PROPOSAL Bruce Webb offered a modest proposal in a recent post to “fix” the Social Security “problem” by (essentially) cutting the payroll tax a few tenths of a percent to reduce the surplus and thereby reduce the debt by that much money borrowed from and owed TO Social Security. What […]