Over at AEI's Enterprise Blog…
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
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Occasional comments on the economics and politics of Social Security policy by Andrew Biggs.
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2010
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February
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- Are We Overpaying Grandpa?
- Accounting rules hide New Jersey’s pension deficits
- Upcoming event: Rep. Hoyer to Speak on Fiscal Resp...
- Two new issue briefs from NASI
- Discussion Social Security reform on New Hampshire...
- Event/webcast: “Trillions Of Reasons To Get Serio...
- How Not to Do Pension Reform
- New paper from CRR: “Workers’ Response to the Mark...
- Robert Myers Passes Away
- Upcoming event: "A Discussion on the U.S. Budget"
- Social Security Hypocrisy
- Me on Fox Business talking about Social Security
- Me talking about Social Security on Fox, Part 1
- USA Today: Rash of retirements push Social Securit...
- Why did the budget not use Trustees projections fo...
- CBO estimates of stimulative effect of payroll tax...
- Allan Sloan: Social Security next on bailout list?
- David Walker on how to fix Social Security
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February
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About me
- Andrew G. Biggs
- I am a Resident Scholar at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, where my work focuses on Social Security policy. Previously I held several positions within the Social Security Administration, including Deputy Commissioner for Policy and principal Deputy Commissioner. Prior to that I was a Social Security Analyst at the Cato Institute. In 2005 I worked on Social Security reform at the White House National Economic Council, and in 2001 I was on the staff of the President's Commission to Strengthen Social Security. My Bachelor's degree is from the Queen's University of Belfast, Northern Ireland. I have Master's degrees from Cambridge University and the University of London and a Ph.D. from the London School of Economics and Political Science. I can be contacted at andrew.biggs @ aei.org.
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4 comments:
Talk about asymmetry and hypocrisy.
The charter of CSSS mandated private accounts and barred any inclusion of payroll tax increases as even a component of any plan. How was the President's barring of the latter less hypocritical than the Democrats demand that Private Accounts be dropped?
In this respect Bush imposed two conditions and Democrats countered with one and the asymmetry is on the D side? This was particularly egregious given the subsequent acceptance of payroll tax increases in plans like LMS.
Megan may not get this. But as I warn everyone don't mess with Biggs unless you have your numbers down. Because he is good.
There's a differences between saying what you want and refusing to talk to people until they give in to what you want. President Bush would have talked to people who opposed and wouldn't accept carve out accounts, and maybe they could have convinced him to go with an add-on account or even no account at all. I don't know. But the other side wouldn't talk to him unless he unconditionally gave up on carve out accounts. It's not the same thing.
The CSSS guidelines say otherwise.
President Bush wasn't bound by the CSSS guidelines. For instance, they said that payroll taxes couldn't be increased yet President Bush himself said in 2005 that he was willing to consider raising the tax max. There's a difference between what he asked his commission to produce for him and what he'd be willing to compromise on with the other party.
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