Maya MacGuineas: America Needs a Social Security Commission

Maya MacGuineas is president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. She recently wrote an opinion piece for the Dallas Morning News, the fourth and final in a four-part series about the Social Security program and its long-term financial issues. The full text can be found below.

For the past three weeks, The Dallas Morning News has published research and analysis from the organization I lead, the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. In this final installment in the series, I’d like to offer some hope. There is a path forward, and it’s one Congress has taken successfully before.

Sadly, despite knowing that Social Security has been dangerously out of balance for decades, Congress hasn’t acted to shore up the program’s finances. On a handful of occasions in the 1990s, 2000s and 2010s, a few brave policymakers from across the political spectrum tried to come together to put forward a solution. But, for reasons we’ve discussed before, a host of political challenges – myths, lies, and demagoguery – ended these efforts.

These forces don’t seem to be going away any time soon. If anything, the political challenges facing the country are greater now than they have been in decades. In past years, politicians at least paid lip service to values like bipartisanship and compromise. Today, sadly, too many have put partisan priorities over policy solutions.

It wasn’t always this way. In the early 1980s, the Social Security Trustees sounded the alarm, alerting lawmakers and the public that the program was on track to become insolvent as early as 1983. The response was robust and bipartisan. President Ronald Reagan, along with members of Congress from both parties, appointed the National Commission on Social Security Reform, chaired by future Federal Reserve Board Chairman Alan Greenspan.

Over the span of two years, the Greenspan Commission established facts and debated proposals. With just months to spare, the commission served as a conduit for high level negotiations between Reagan and House Speaker Tip O’Neill, culminating in a package of benefit, revenue and eligibility reforms that restored solvency for 50 years. Rep. Barber Conable Jr., R-N.Y., speaking in support of the plan, described it as “not a work of art, but artful work.”

The Greenspan Commission worked because it rested on two principles: truth and trust. By establishing a common set of facts, commissioners could talk to each other rather than past each other. And by embracing bipartisanship and establishing mutual trust, both sides – Democrats and Republicans – found themselves willing to compromise to achieve shared goals.

Other commissions followed. The 2005 Tax Reform Panel identified proposals that were mutually agreeable for both parties. And the 2010 National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform shaped national discourse on fiscal policy. While both were ultimately unsuccessful, ideas from both were eventually enacted. In fact, recommendations from the 2010 Commission led to $1 trillion in savings under the Budget Control Act of 2011.

These efforts show how we can set up a Social Security commission to succeed.

Bipartisanship is a necessity. Since neither party is willing to stick its neck out to fix Social Security on its own, a joint effort is needed, both to insulate each party from the potential political blowback, and to demonstrate to the public that reforms are the result of good-faith compromises and do not unfairly target any one group.

The commission must also be empowered with an enforcement mechanism, such as the ability to present Congress with a comprehensive package for an up-or-down vote. This would frame the choice in the starkest terms: either reform or insolvency. It would prevent the bill from being subject to “death by a thousand legislative cuts,” with lawmakers fixating on one provision or another. It also would make it harder for any single group, politician or activist to use bad-faith attacks or misinformation about a particular option to sabotage the commission and doom the entire endeavor.

Lawmakers could also enter a “Social Security Ceasefire” where, while they offer solutions, they promise not to attack other proposals that would shore up the program’s finances in order to create a more productive discussion filled with a variety of constructive ideas.

With less than seven years until the retirement fund is expected to run out, affecting 70 million Americans, time is slipping away for a commission to do the necessary work. Congress should act quickly to establish a bipartisan commission to save Social Security.

After the success of the Greenspan Commission, President Reagan said, “Today, all of us can look each other square in the eye and say, ‘We kept our promises.’

Will today’s lawmakers be able to say the same?

Read the entire piece here.

Published works by members or staff of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget do not necessarily represent the views of all members or staff of the Committee.