Bad Idea Stopped, For Now

It appears that the Congressional Democrats killed a proposal to convene a special Social Security task force, at least in the near term.

There will not be any announcement of such a body at the “fiscal responsibility summit”, and this is a good thing.

The solvency of Social Security is the least of our worries right now, the public already pushed back on this in 2005 when Bush tried it, and people are looking at their 401(k)s right now, and want no part of privatization.

Handing off social security to wall street is a bad idea.

Expanding the sorts of wages covered by social security, and dropping the earnings limit may not be a good thing, but the "a bipartisan group take up the issue and devise a plan" people like Representative Ellen O. Tauscher, chairwoman of the New Democrats coalition, have one plan:

• Give the money to Wall Street.
• Extract campaign contributions from Wall Street Bankers.

Further raising the retirement age, reducing benefits, and/or handing the money to investment bankers, which is what the "Social Security Reformers" really want is a bad idea.

Just look at Chile's privatized pensions.

The problem is 40 years in the future, and if one were simply to drop the cap on the employers portion of social security taxes, and expand the wages that are covered, there are an awful lot of wages to fat-cats that don't count, and the problem is solved.