Suchergebnisse

Front Cover -- Copyright -- Book Title -- Contents -- List of Figures and Tables -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- Part One: Origins of a Problem -- 1. A Memorandum to the President and Congress -- 2. 1983: A Temporary Rescue -- 3. The Warning Bell Tolls . . . and Tolls -- Part Two: The Social Security Policy Challenge -- 4. Decision Spectrum No. 1: Slowing Benefit Growth Versus Raising Taxes -- 5. Decision Spectrum No. 2: Pay-as-you-go Versus Advance Funding -- 6. Decision Spectrum No. 3: How Much Should Social Security Redistribute Income? -- 7. Decision Spectrum No. 4: Work Incentives -- 8. Decision Spectrum No. 5: Is There a Role for Personal Accounts? -- 9. Putting It All Together: Balancing Value Judgments in a Comprehensive Plan -- Part Three: The Debate Over Solutions -- 10. President Bush's Reform Initiative: A Chronology -- 11. The Certainty and Severity of the Social Security Shortfall -- 12. President Bush's Reform Initiative: The Policy Controversies -- 13. Seizing the Common Ground -- 14. We Must Do Better -- Notes -- About the Author -- Index.

Arguing that an equitable Social Security solution will be unattainable unless we bring stakeholders together around a common understanding of the facts and of the need to take action to address them, former White House adviser Charles Blahous presents some often misunderstood, basic factual background about Social Security. He discusses how it affects program participants and explains the true demographic, economic, and political factors that threaten its future efficacy.

Charles Blahous, one of the nation's foremost retirement security experts, explains the origins and dangers of current underfunding in our single-employer defined-benefit pension system and outlines the options for solving the problem and preventing the next taxpayer-financed bailout. He provides a tutorial on the basic workings of pension law, reviews the recent history that led to the worsening condition of the pension insurance system, and suggests a range of reforms to improve the system's operation and to resolve the projected shortfall.

Recently there has been substantial press attention paid to underfunding in state and local government pension plans, a longstanding problem made more urgent by recent troubles in the larger economy. There has of yet been comparatively less attention given to a similar (though smaller) set of mounting financial risks associated with private-sector worker pensions covered by the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC). Yet, here, too, public policy corrections are required to address underfunding and avoid another taxpayer-financed bailout we can ill afford. Elected officials face a fundamental value choice about whether employer-provided pensions should be funded and insured only by plan sponsors, or whether the dollars of others should be tapped to fill the gap. Adapted from the source document.

Social security presents President Obama and Congress with a daunting policy challenge. The program currently faces both worsened near-term finances and a large long-term deficit. There is good reason to enact a correction soon, for solutions become less palatable with each year of delay. Americans care deeply about Social Security, which is possibly the nation's most cherished domestic program. One might naively assume that political rewards would accrue to elected officials who accept responsibility and credit for strengthening the program's finances. But policy makers face a further challenge, in that not only are Americans sharply divided about Social Security policy choices, but they are divided even about the underlying facts and the problem to be solved. Despite years of bipartisan efforts to objectively define and quantify the Social Security financing challenge, consensus agreement even on basic factual predicates remains elusive. An equitable solution will be unobtainable unless elected leaders bring stakeholders together around a common understanding of the facts and the need to take reformative action. Adapted from the source document.