Domestic Policy in President Bush's Second Term

Transcript

PETER ORSZAG: Now what should we be doing on Social Security? In my view, because Social Security provides that core tier, the bottom layer of financial security, we should be shoring it up in a way that makes it more progressive and that protects its defined benefits structure. So, Peter Diamond of MIT and I have put forward a reform that has no accounting gimmicks, and I'm going to come back to this later on when I talk about what we should not be doing, it has no accounting gimmicks. It protects the most vulnerable beneficiaries—disabled workers, workers with low wages over a long career, young surviving children, and widows. These are people who under the current system have elevated rates of poverty and that we should be doing more to protect.

It also does ask average earners to play some role in reestablishing solvency within Social Security because frankly we need to all share in the burden to some degree. There is a deficit that needs to be addressed.

So, the benefit reduction, for example, for an average earning 35-year-old is a four and a half percent benefit reduction, relative to what's promised under the current system. That gives you some sense of the fact that there are—there is some pain for average earners, but it's not overwhelming.

Read the complete event transcripts:
· Panel 1: Social Security (PDF—53KB)
· Panel 2: Tax Reform (PDF—54KB)
· Panel 3: Fiscal Outlook (PDF—56KB)
· Panel 4: Health Care (PDF—53KB)