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Deficit commission on Social Security

Building on our post last week about the draft report from the co-chairs of the White House deficit commission, here's a separate article detailing the recommendations for Social Security.

Not surprisingly, the approach suggested is to make modest adjustments over an extremely long period of time. The retirement age would continue to rise, to 68 by roughly 2050 and 69 by 2075. Benefits would gradually be scaled back for wealthier recipients. Cost-of-living adjustments would be tweaked. The taxable wage base would be gradually broadened. More workers would be added to the system (new state and local workers after 2020 — didn't know they weren't already included).

Naturally, most everyone will find something to hate about this proposal (as they will with the broader list of recommendations).

That's what happens when compromise is required to solidify a budget, which is exactly what we're talking about here. Everyone smiles when it is expanded, and grimaces when it needs to be constrained. (Sounds pretty similar to every budgeting discussion we've ever had in my house.)

What's most striking to me in reading the Social Security recommendations, as well as the broader plan, is how doable all this sounds. I mean, really. For all the end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it carrying on of recent years, these changes really aren't that tough. (That's not to say we shouldn't all immediately go protest in the streets and burn stuff, as seems to be the popular response around the globe.) We're not talking about distributing ration cards here.

But for any of this to get passed, I think it'll all have to happen as one big package, and that concerns me because I'm not sure our politicians are serious enough to get something that significant done.

Taken together, most of the provisions put forth in these proposals seem pretty reasonable. There's a mix of distasteful medicine in there for everyone — rich, poor, old, young, Democrats, Republicans. And as long as everyone feels like this is legitimately a shared sacrifice, I think the people will accept it. (Wishful thinking?)

But if these provisions start getting split up into smaller proposals, forget it. That's when the problems start. Because if that happens, the seniors will get their legislators to kill the tough SS and Medicare stuff, the realtors will get their legislators to kill the home-mortgage deduction provision, the farm states will get theirs to kill the agricultural stuff, etc., etc.

Still in all, I'm encouraged by this report. There's nothing ruinous in here. Now granted, it doesn't solve all our fiscal problems either. But if we can get anything close to this passed, we'd be taking a huge step forward, one that would likely take a huge weight off the country's shoulders. If nothing else, it would help a great deal in turning the psychology around from the "we're all doomed, it's just a matter of time" feeling a lot of Americans have been carrying the past few years.

It can be done. Something like this is doable. Will our representatives rise to the challenge? That's the real question.

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