Suchergebnisse

AbstractEric Kingson was an advisor to the 1982 National Commission on Social Security Reform and to the 1994 Bipartisan Commission on Entitlements and Tax Reform. Drawing on the experience of 1982 (the "Good") and 1994 (the "Bad") commissions, he concludes that the fast‐track debt commission as proposed by Senators Kent Conrad and Judd Gregg would result in an unprecedented and deleterious approach to Social Security policy‐making. The structure and functioning of the 1994 commission provides insight into likely goals and functioning of the Conrad‐Gregg Commission, a commission Kingson suggests would be akin to the 1994 entitlement commission "on steroids." Noting the disregard for traditional congressional processes and the mischaracterization of Social Security as part of a unified "entitlements" problem, Kingson concludes that Senator Max Baucus is not exaggerating when he warned on the Senate floor that "Senators Conrad and Gregg have painted a big red target on Social Security and Medicare. That's what this commission is all about."

The enactment of the 1983 Amendments to the Social Security Act was the outcome of a two-stage agenda-building process that began during the mid-1970s & culminated in late 1982 as consensus emerged about the existence of financing problems & the need to take remedial action. Economic & political factors that acted in concert to move financing problems to the top of the Social Security agenda, thereby setting the stage for the Amendments, are reviewed. Speculations are offered regarding specific proposals (eg, partial taxation of benefits, small increases in payroll taxation), but focus is on how, once the contours of the policy debate were defined in terms of the need to address financing problems, the political process worked to reaffirm Social Security as currently structured & to define some policy alternatives as viable & others as not. 26 References. Modified AA.