Social security

The 2012 Medicare and Social Security trustees’ reports have been released (see here and here). The headline is that the Medicare Hospital Insurance (HI) trust fund will have insufficient reserves to pay full benefits beginning in 2024 (the same year that was projected in last year’s report).

Robert Samuelson has a strong column today on how one of the biggest obstacles to Social Security reform might be psychological. Though FDR's original vision for the program was a "contributory pension plan" and most Americans are still under the the impression that this is what it is, the reality is that it's structured much more like a welfare program:

“What do we want?” “Jobs!” “When do we want them?” “Now!”

The couple hundred participants at Wednesday’s Rebuild the Dream rally on the southwest lawn of the U.S. Capitol raise their fists defiantly as they shout. Some hold blue, pre-made signs bearing the phrase, “Jobs, Not Cuts,” and the letter “A,” the logo for Rebuild the Dream, the organization led by former Obama administration green jobs czar Van Jones.

Rick Perry has been catching some flak for calling Social Security a Ponzi scheme. Some conservative purists defended the former frontrunner for “telling it like it is.” Maybe. But Perry’s 10^th Amendment solution — which he slightly backed away from at the Fox/Google debate — could be even more disastrous.

Although Indiana governor Mitch Daniels would like to see his New Jersey counterpart run for president, Daniels said today that he doesn't see any signs Chris Christie will change his mind. “I personally didn’t press him, so I have nothing to report,” Daniels said of his meeting last Thursday with Christie. “I saw no evidence that he’s going to change his mind.”

Charles Krauthammer writes that Social Security is, indeed, a Ponzi scheme.  It’s also “the most vital…of all social programs,” and it can easily be saved from collapse — mostly by (gradually) raising the age of eligibility:  “

If a debate more than four months before the first vote is cast can influence the outcome of a presidential nomination race, the debate last night among eight Republicans should aid Mitt Romney’s candidacy. Seldom has there been as clear a winner.

During last week's GOP presidential debate, Rick Perry spent more time defending his "provocative" rhetoric than emphasizing that he wants to save Social Security. But in a USA Today op-ed, Perry changes his tone.

Rick Perry's doubling down on his "Social Security is a Ponzi scheme" rhetoric during last night's debate could be beneficial for him in a Republican primary but hurtful in a general election. And while the Mitt Romney campaign was quick to pounce on the statement with its not-so-subtle "PERRY DOES NOT BELIEVE SOCIAL SECURITY SHOULD EXIST" press release, Perry seems to be sticking by the characterization. "Maybe it's time to have some provocative language in this country," he said in the debate.

There is a certain irony, as well as much truth, in Defense Secretary Leon Panetta’s drumbeat of warnings about the consequences of further cuts to U.S. military budgets of the sort threatened under the current deficit reduction law.

In today's Washington Post, Robert Samuelson argues that it was liberal protectors of the entitlements, not the Tea Party, that "won" the most in last week's debt deal. The military, he says, was the real loser:

CBS Evening News anchor Scott Pelley asked President Obama whether he “can tell the folks at home that, no matter what happens, the Social Security checks are gonna go out on August the 3rd?” President Obama replied that it wasn’t just Social Security checks that would need to go out and that “I cannot guarantee that those checks go out on August 3rd if we haven't resolved this issue, because there may simply not be the money in the coffers to do it.”