Social Security reform still on the agenda, Obama advisor says
Posted on 12 August 2009
Permanent URL of this article: http://retirementrevised.com/money/social-security-reform-still-on-the-agenda-advisor-sas
The health care reform debate is raging, but the Obama Administration still plans to get to Social Security reform sometime in its first term, according to Lawrence Summers, director of the White House National Economic Council.
Summers told a conference of economists earlier this week that Obama’s priority will be shoring up benefits–not privatization as pushed by the Bush Administration, according to The New York Times.
Summers also indicated that health care is a much bigger budget problem for the federal government than Social Security, saying that just a small portion of budget savings from health care reform could resolve the looming solvency issue facing Social Security:
. . . Mr. Summers said the big cost problems for the government are in health care. Reducing the growth of Medicare costs by just a few tenths of a percent per year, he said, would over a period of decades save enough money to fill the projected shortfall for Social Security.
“If you study the federal budget closely, and if you look out beyond this budget window, if you look out 15 years you know that if you don’t get health care costs under control, you’re not going to get the budget under control no matter what you do.”
Previous coverage of Social Security issues is here.
