The Other Public Interest

Shorter Sebastian Mallaby: Democrats have no principles because they won't cut Social Security for married low-income people. Snark aside, I bring this up because Mallaby and many of the entitlement-reform-obsessives around Washington are missing the point about fast-growing government spending. The fastest growing part of the budget are interest payments on the national debt. For more, Daniel Gross has a great article in Sunday's NYT explaining why interest payments have taken off.

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New Lows

Via Kevin Drum, we may now know why CBO found an unexpected drop in Medicare spending this year. Actual spending hasn't gone down. Rather, the Bush administration is waiting until next fiscal year to pay some of its bills from this year. That way, some of the spending on services performed this year will get counted in the FY07 budget. And when the CBO puts out its FY07 budget projection, there'll be no pesky election to worry about. Here's an excerpt from a great article on the scheme, from Barron's (sub. req'd).

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Bush Still Working to Slash Safety Net

What Matt says. I can't believe they're going to trying to kill Social Security again. There is, however, a new wrinkle this time around - President Bush wants to put Medicare and Medicaid on the chopping block as well. Didn't the Anti-Safety Net coalition learn its lesson last time - that Americans overwhelming do not support Social Security privatization? From today's WaPo:

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Social Security Privitization Back Again?

Congress is obsessed with really bad ideas. Take this op-ed from the Campaign for America's Future. It puts it together that if the Republican grip on Congress gets tighter this November, they may bring up Social Security privatization once again.

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Social Security is the Solution

In all the talk about the deficit and Social Security one rarely hears of the heroic role that Social Security plays in masking a $170 billion in budget shortfalls.

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Bush's Social Security Plan Rears Its Ugly Head

Despite providing the State of the Union address with its only truly funny section, President Bush's Social Security overhaul plan was barely mentioned during the speech. Bush proposed instead the classic "bipartisan commission" to put off real debate and most likely push the problem to someone else beyond his presidency. Yet the much publicized and thoroughly failed policies of Social Security privitization have not disappeared. In fact, they have been included in the FY 2007 budget release.

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Bush's Priorities: Entitlements vs. Tax Cuts

As this excellent column from Bloomberg.com highlights, there is a gap between the administration's rhetoric and reality when it comes to tackling the long-term budget implications of the rising costs of entitlement spending. Bush spent a lot of time last year making a big deal about the unfunded Social Security liability, and the liability for Medicare is expected to be even greater, with the administration estimating an $11 trillion shortfall.

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Social Security Dead Until 2009

Sen. Grassley stated yesterday that "Social Security is probably dead until 2009," according to The Hill. He is the first leader to acknowledge that an overhaul of Social Security will not be achievable in the near future. Grassley told lobbyists and officials in a speech before the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, "I can’t even get consensus among Republicans, so I’m very pessimistic about it in the future."

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Inflation and Consumer Prices Up, Benefits Will Rise

This article in today's Washington Post noted that both inflation and consumer prices are up sharply. The CPI, which rose 4.7 percent over the past year, saw the biggest 12-month increase since May, 1991. The Post reported that Social Security payments will increase 4.1 percent in January for more than 50 million retired and disabled workers. The increases will help recipients keep up with inflation, which was up last year mainly because of rising energy costs. Energy prices were up 35 percent over the past 12 months.

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Tax Reform to Take Spotlight From SS Overhaul

President Bush recently acknowledged what he called a "diminished appetite" among lawmakers for taking up social security reform. Many are now arguing that attention could swing from addressing social security concerns to addressing tax reform proposals. The President's Advisory Panel on Tax Reform will be submitting their recommendations to the Treasury on November 1, allowing for the Treasury to work the recommendations into proposals that Bush can launch in the January 2006 State of the Union address. The tax panel is supposed to be figuring out how to make the tax code, simpler, fairer, and more pro-growth. The impacts they will actually have though, are still unknown. The tax panel will be holding two meetings this month in Washington, D.C., which are open to the public. On October 11 they will be meeting at 10:00 in the Renaissance Hotel (999 Ninth St., NW) and on October 18 they will be meeting at 9:00 in the Ronald Reagan Building (1300 Pennsylvania Ave).

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