President Bush’s legacy may be defined by Iraq and the war on terror, but his presidency may also be remembered for failure to act on the looming insolvency of major entitlement programs. In the waning days of the Bush administration, Treasury Secretary Paulson is trying to set the stage for action–presumably under the next president–through a series of papers designed to promote understanding of the problem. The first such paper was released yesterday, with this statement from Paulson:
“I have had many conversations with members of Congress in both parties, inviting them to discuss Social Security reform with no preconditions. While differences over personal accounts and taxes dominate the public debate over this issue, in my conversations I found that there are many other things on which people agree. Everyone I talked with recognizes the seriousness of the problem, and most agreed on some of the principles and policies that must be part of the solution. “To build on these discussions, Treasury will release a series of issue briefs that will focus on areas of common ground, and provide straightforward analysis of the challenges facing Social Security and the implications of potential reforms. “By focusing first on areas of agreement, I hope these issue briefs will narrow the divide and spur further discussions of reform.”
The first paper is a good primer on the history of Social Security, and it makes clear that the program’s fiscal imbalance becomes a real problem far earlier than is generally realized:
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