Monday, February 16, 2009

Obama to Tackle Social Security Reform?

Here is an item to watch. According to Co-Director of the Center for Economic Policy and Research, Dean Baker:

Word has it that President Obama intends to appoint a task force the week after next which will be charged with "reforming" Social Security. According to inside gossip, the task force will be led entirely by economists who were not able to see the $8 trillion housing bubble, the collapse of which is giving the country its sharpest downturn since the Great Depression.

Let's hope that Baker is dead wrong about this and that this rumor (I don't like to put my faith in articles that start with the phrase "word has it") will remain a rumor. Tackling Social Security reform is a silly idea at a time of such economic crisis and plus, as Baker points out, Social Security can pay out its benefits for the next 40 years without reform according to the GAO's own figures. Remember what happened when President Bush tried to reform Social Security?

Perhaps President Obama's time would be better spent continuing to focus on getting the economy back on track and if anything is in need of reform in the near future, it is the Health Care industry, not Social Security. Stay tuned on this one.

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