Quite a few commenters are accusing John McCain of flip-flopping because he favored privatization of Social security in 2004 and now adamantly rejects the insinuation that he supports it now: This is a clumsy rhetorical game rather than a policy shift. Then and now, McCain’s position is that Social Security would remain as a government [...]

Publius snarks, “It’s too bad we didn’t invest one-third of the Social Security system in the market.” Indeed it is. To be sure, we’d have “lost” money if we had done so in early 2005 and taken all of it out this morning. Then again, we’d have lost money anyway since, in lieu of investing [...]

Moody’s, a credit rating agency, says the U.S. government’s triple-A credit rating is jeopardy due to soaring health care expenditures and Social Security. This shouldn’t be all that surprising. Think of a corporation whose expenditures are growing faster than its profits. Such a firm, generally, wont be around long. And that is precisely the problem [...]

Greg Mankiw presents a quote and article by Paul Krugman that, if you didn’t know any better you’d swear were written by different people. Krugman on This Week: Paul Krugman: Social Security, if you go through the federal government, piece-by-piece, and see which programs are seriously underfunded and which are close to being completely funded, [...]

Well, that moment that has been much talked about has finally arrived. The first member of the Baby Boomer generation has applied for social security. The nation’s “first” baby boomer, a retired teacher from New Jersey, applied for Social Security benefits Monday, signaling the start of an expected avalanche of applications from the post World [...]

Laurence Kotlikoff spells out what the costs are of ignoring the problems of Social Security and Medicare. Let’s face it–Uncle Sam is broke. The gap between the U.S. government’s future expenses and tax receipts is $63.3 trillion. No surprise. The nation has 77 million retiring baby boomers on track to collect well above $30,000 a [...]

One of the worst things President Bush did in terms of the fiscal outlook for this country was to put forward the Medicare prescription drug benefit. This plan is estimated to add $8.7 trillion in unfunded liabilities to Medicare’s $21 trillion in unfunded liabilities. This is money that we won’t be able to pay. And [...]

Via Menzie Chinn at Econbroswer comes this report from the GAO’s Comptroller General, David Walker. This completely rebuts any claims by President Bush in regards to fiscal restraint. What is truly disappointing for those of us who are interested in fiscal restraint is the fourth line under Implicit Exposures. Medicare Part D is Bushes baby [...]

A computer hacker has stolen the names and personal information of over 1,500 nuclear scientists. A computer hacker stole a file containing the names and Social Security numbers of 1,500 people working for the Energy Department’s nuclear weapons agency. Officials told a congressional hearing Friday that the department’s senior managers were informed only two days [...]

Well, this item is starting to make its way around the rightward blogs. From what I can tell the gist of it is this: In calculating the Social Security benefits for people who are currently illegal aliens, but become citizens under one of these various immigration reform bills, their income and contributions to Social Security [...]

With a name like that you might think her solution is to just unleash her Mongol hordes, but in actuallity she has two posts on the topic that I think have some very good points. In the first post Atilla Girl lists three points, …1) secure the border; 2) streamline the legal immigration system for [...]

No, not body snatcher imposter, but an imposter in terms of being a conservative. I have been feeling this way about Bush for quite some time now. Bush’s first reaction to any problem is to turn toward government. Government is what has brought about the new jobs he has been bragging about (and frankly it [...]

GOP Senators May Make 69 Retirement Age (AP) WASHINGTON — Key Senate Republicans are considering gradually raising the Social Security retirement age as high as 69 over several years as they struggle to jump-start legislation that President Bush has placed atop his second-term agenda, officials said Tuesday. … The possible increase to 69 over two [...]

In the South, Partisan Voting Gets Stronger (Roll Call, $) Are you ready for “premature partisan polarization”? No, it’s not a medical condition that can be treated by Cialis, as Republican pollster Rob Autry joked at a conference here on Southern politics earlier this week. Rather, it represents a shift that is already having a [...]

Automatic Signup In 401(k)s Backed (WaPo, May 30, A5) House Ways and Means Chairman Bill Thomas (R-Calif.) will include a provision in his Social Security legislation to help employers make enrollment in 401(k) plans automatic unless workers choose to opt out, according to congressional staff and knowledgeable lobbyists. The provision could have substantial impact on [...]

Brad DeLong thinks the combination of progressivity and privatization offered by President Bush to fix Social Security is really a secret plan to kill it off. Pozen Pill – How Bush’s version of “progressive indexing” would kill Social Security (Slate) This sounds like a not unreasonable way to keep Social Security healthy through most of [...]

While the Left are pretty much in agreement that Bush’s plan sucks, they really seem to be scattered on why it is a mess. Max Sawicky’s post on it says it is bad because Social Security is a public good. Frankly I find his arguments flacid. Public goods are goods where one’s use of the [...]

No, really. Well at least don’t cut them like Bush is suggesting. But that’s not all there is to fairness. Most Americans also intuitively accept the idea that tax rates become unfair if they get too high, no matter how rich you are. They also think it’s unfair to pay taxes and get nothing back. [...]

Michael Kinsley, long a favorite of mine among liberal pundits, once again demonstrates why in his LAT editorial “Bush Gets B for Honesty, Even Courage, on Social Security.” Bush’s rebuff to Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist was superb. The people who oppose his judgeship nominees aren’t prejudiced against religion, he said. They do it because [...]

Matthew Yglesias claims that Krugman picks apart the “pseudo-progressivity” of the Bush Social Security plan. It is at moments like this that I have to wonder what in the heck he’s got in his liqour cabinet because it must be good stuff and I want some. Seriously the cuts of the Bush plan are progressive: [...]

Well President Bush has come out with a plan and he is going, in part, with reducing benefits in a progressive manner. Basically the more money you make, the lower your retirement benefits will be. The idea, to me, seems to be that since a person might earn say, $500,000 a year that they have [...]

Michelle Malkin notes that the major news outlets, notably the NYT, WaPo, and AP, are taking President Bush’s statement last night that, I propose a Social Security system in the future where benefits for low-income workers will grow faster than benefits for people who are better off. This reform would solve most of the funding [...]

Pollster John Zogby, a Democrat, argues that President Bush’s plan to reform Social Security will likely fail but that it’s nonetheless shrewd politics. Why would the president risk his political capital on a plan that appears doomed to failure? I think the answer lies well beyond the politics of any single reform plan. And the [...]

In a purely symbolic vote, the United States Senate today voted unanimously for a non-binding measure saying strengthening Social Security is “a vital national priority.” Given that it’s rare for all 100 senators to show up to vote for anything, let alone a non-binding measure, this is at least interesting. Senate to make Social Security [...]

Andrew Lee, an undergraduate at my alma mater, argues that the gay community would benefit from President Bush’s plan: Red, Blue, and Rainbow (SF Chronicle) As it is now, same-sex couples cannot receive Social Security survivor benefits or dependent benefits because they are not married under federal law. If Social Security were privatized, however, the [...]

Victor, over at the Dead Parrot Society looks at the issue of whether or not the private accounts in a Social Security reform measure would be subject to claims by creditors. Victor’s take on it is, “No.” Victor has done much of the leg work and I don’t have anything to add so go read [...]

Nicole Gelinas makes an interesting argument about the Social Security reform movement: As the Baby Boomers retire, our perception of the elderly as poor and vulnerable is likely to change — and Social Security may lose its near-universal support. [...] It may sound crazy to warn that future generations could force 75-year-olds to work for [...]

GOP May Seek a Deal on Accounts (WaPo) President Bush is still in the opening phase of a campaign to sell the public and Congress on his ambitious plans for Social Security, but some Republicans on Capitol Hill have decided it is not too early to begin pondering an exit strategy. With polls showing widespread [...]