Obama Riles His Own Party with Social Security Offer

It doesn’t matter that the president’s budgets are symbolic and largely ignored from a financial, accounting perspective. What matters is that this rhetoric frames the discussion—and it frames it the wrong way.

President Obama’s decision to include in the budget proposal he’s scheduled to unveil Wednesday a less generous way to calculate Social Security cost-of-living increases may be the clearest sign yet that his name will not again be on a presidential ballot.

via Obama Riles His Own Party With Social Security Offer : It’s All Politics : NPR.

Real-World Simpson-Bowles Pre-Emptive Analogies

Simpson-Bowles analogies

The Social Security Program Needs to Be Shored Up

Social Security is the most successful social program in American history. It shouldn’t be privatized; its benefits shouldn’t be cut; and the retirement age shouldn’t be raised.

via Social Security: The program needs to be shored up, not dismantled – latimes.com.

Most Americans seem to believe that we should tighten our belts and balance the budget. They are willing to make budget cuts, but not where it would make any significant difference. As this article, The Futility of Budget Cuts, points out, people are more than wiling to cut mass transit, housing, agriculture, environment and foreign aid. The problem is that all tolled, these programs barely amount to 3 percent of the budget. The programs large enough to make a difference are defense, health care programs, and social security. Of course, defense is a sacred cow in US politics, there is no political will to overhaul the health care systems in any meaningful way, and social security has a funding problem in general, so we are told we are left with the choice of taxes, taxes, or taxes. And so it  goes…

The blue bars represent what people suggest should be cut, and the red bars represent the percentage of the budget.