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Greenspan: Social Security Benefits Need to Be Cut 25% to Be Sustainable

1 points by Four_Star 8y ago

eesmith 8y ago
Greenspan has a "long, tortured relationship with Social Security". "Greenspan famously chaired a bipartisan commission that in 1983 issued recommendations for strengthening Social Security. Those reforms, which President Reagan signed into law in April of that year, made a promise to American workers: your payroll taxes will be increased in order to finance the build up of trust funds, which will secure Social Security benefits when you retire in the 21st Century. The Greenspan Commission's plan has worked even better than imagined, with projections today showing that promised benefits can be paid in full until 2052, according to the Congressional Budget Office." "Over the past two decades, Greenspan has repeatedly argued that Reagan's "ironclad commitment" should be broken. Year after year, he has said that the benefits promised to future retirees are unaffordable, that the retirement age should be delayed further, and that other ways of reducing benefits should be considered. And yet in 2001, Greenspan endorsed the Bush tax cuts, which mainly benefited the highest income Americans. If made permanent, those tax cuts would amount to more than three times the size of Social Security's projected shortfall over the next 75 years, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. In Greenspan's view, the Social Security benefits that his own commission promised to future retirees are not affordable, but tax cuts for the wealthy are." Quotes are from https://web.archive.org/web/20061008205611/http://www.tcf.org/list.asp?type=NC&pubid=873 https://web.archive.org/web/20061008205611/http://www.tcf.or... in 2005. See also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Greenspan#Political_views_and_alleged_politicization_of_office https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Greenspan#Political_views... : "In March 2005, in reaction to Greenspan's support of President Bush's plan to partially privatize Social Security, then-Democratic Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid attacked Greenspan as "one of the biggest political hacks we have in Washington"[5] and criticized him for supporting Bush's 2001 tax cut plan."

1 points by Four_Star 8y ago

Greenspan has a "long, tortured relationship with Social Security". "Greenspan famously chaired a bipartisan commission that in 1983 issued recommendations for strengthening Social Security. Those reforms, which President Reagan signed into law in April of that year, made a promise to American workers: your payroll taxes will be increased in order to finance the build up of trust funds, which will secure Social Security benefits when you retire in the 21st Century. The Greenspan Commission's plan has worked even better than imagined, with projections today showing that promised benefits can be paid in full until 2052, according to the Congressional Budget Office." "Over the past two decades, Greenspan has repeatedly argued that Reagan's "ironclad commitment" should be broken. Year after year, he has said that the benefits promised to future retirees are unaffordable, that the retirement age should be delayed further, and that other ways of reducing benefits should be considered. And yet in 2001, Greenspan endorsed the Bush tax cuts, which mainly benefited the highest income Americans. If made permanent, those tax cuts would amount to more than three times the size of Social Security's projected shortfall over the next 75 years, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. In Greenspan's view, the Social Security benefits that his own commission promised to future retirees are not affordable, but tax cuts for the wealthy are." Quotes are from https://web.archive.org/web/20061008205611/http://www.tcf.org/list.asp?type=NC&pubid=873 https://web.archive.org/web/20061008205611/http://www.tcf.or... in 2005. See also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Greenspan#Political_views_and_alleged_politicization_of_office https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Greenspan#Political_views... : "In March 2005, in reaction to Greenspan's support of President Bush's plan to partially privatize Social Security, then-Democratic Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid attacked Greenspan as "one of the biggest political hacks we have in Washington"[5] and criticized him for supporting Bush's 2001 tax cut plan."