The deadline by which the President's Advisory Panel on Federal Tax Reform needed to report their recommendations to Treasury Secretary John Snow was pushed back two months by order of President Bush last week. On June 16, Bush signed an amendment to the executive order establishing the parameters of the panel allowing the report to be sent to Treasury by September 30, a full two months after the original July 31 deadline. It is unknown whether this change was due to political calculations by the president and his advisors or if the panel was behind schedule and simply needed more time.

Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) revealed a proposal for Social Security overhaul last week that has received the attention of both the White House and the House Ways and Means Committee. According to DeMint, the proposal -- dubbed the initiative to Stop the Raid on Social Security Act (S. 274) -- would stop members of Congress from spending Social Security funds that exceed the amount currently needed to pay benefits on other priorities.

A recent wave of bankruptcies has caused the benefit pension plans of many large companies to be significantly under-funded or fold, leaving millions of workers dependent upon the government-sponsored insurance system: the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC). These bankruptcies have put additional pressure on the PBGC to cover the payments to millions of Americans who were planning on their pensions for retirement.