by Bruce Webb A quick hit for Super Bowl Sunday. Certain opponents of Social Security claim their goal is ‘sustainable solvency’ which is in practice defined as reducing the flow of funds from the General Fund to Social Security over the long term. In a previous post I pointed out that straight benefit cuts do […]
by Bruce Webb Well it looks like we are going to get a Deficit Commission and one way or another Social Security will be on the table. But what exactly does that mean for either Social Security or the total deficit picture? Before answering that lets review a couple of basics. In talking deficit reduction […]
by Bruce Webb The following is the opening of a proposed post by financial blogger Bruce Krasting. SSTF – My Numbers (by Bruce Krasting) A week ago I attempted to get a consensus estimate on some of the critical variables of the SSTF puzzle from the readers and contributors at Angry Bear. I started that […]
by Bruce Webb(Update-something in this doesn’t look quite right. The over all argument is right but something is amiss down in the post. Bonus points if you find it before I do.)(Update 2-found it. I think, see strike out and addition below. But there are a lot of numbers in play here.) Blogger/Reader BK: I […]
by Bruce Webb A bipartisan group of Senators is making a push to tie an increase in the debt ceiling to establishment of a Commission whose focus in on reducing the growth of entitlements. Now clearly Medicare spending growth at its current rate is not sustainable, which fact makes the current full-throated defense of that […]
by Bruce Webb In the course of an exchange between me and a fellow Bear, the question arose if social spending had a crowding out effect on other social spending. In particular if we have a small problem in Social Security and a big problem in providing health care would solving the first problem put […]
by Bruce Webb News that the Republicans are pushing two bills that would establish a ‘Bi-Partisan Commission’ to ‘reform’ Social Security and Medicare are stirring up a debate which mostly had run cold. And one myth is bubbling back to the surface, the one that claims that Reagan simply used the Greenspan Commission to generate […]
by Bruce WebbI get e-mail Everyone, Over the weekend, eight of us who worked on the Greenspan commission drafted a joint written statement (attached and pasted below.)We have just submitted it to the Budget Committee. We are hoping it gets as wide a distribution as possible. In that regard, if any of you are able […]
Rdan The National Academy of Social Insurance report on options for Social Security is public and now available in pdf form. “The purpose of this report is to help analysts and policymakers consider options to bring Social Security into long-term balance in ways that also address concerns about benefit adequacy.” One cannot simply glance through […]
by Bruce Webb If you click on the Social Security link in the upper left sidebar you are sent to an index page on my website which in turn links back to an extended series of posts here at Angry Bear starting in May of 2008. Something that apparently a reader did this morning leaving […]