TL: Is it necessary to fix Social Security during a lame duck Congress in December, as many have suggested?
AM: I don’t want to see any change to Social Security this year. We haven’t really had a debate.
TL: How can we foster such a debate?
AM: Policymakers are reluctant to cut benefits or raise taxes due to fears of the public’s reaction. Therefore, one way to improve the climate for a debate is to first raise the level of public knowledge of both the nature of the problem and the implications of different options for addressing it.
Click here for more from Trudy Lieberman on Social Security and entitlement reform.
I'm not sure why in this interview Alicia Munnell assumes that problems with a shortfall HAS to be fixed with other people's money, be they richer or just younger:
TL: What are the policy solutions to closing the Social Security shortfall that deficit hawks are so concerned about?
AM: We have to put in more money, either through a slight increase in the payroll tax or having the tax apply to more wages
The http://crr.bc.edu/special_projects/the_social_security_fix-it_book.html
by Steven Sass, Alicia H. Munnell, and Andrew Eschtruth is more balanced.
#1 Posted by AndrewDover, CJR on Wed 27 Oct 2010 at 07:57 PM