Reengineering Social Security in the New Economy , by Thomas F. Siems, January 23, 2001. In his budget speech to Congress, President Bush revealed that he will soon appoint a presidential commission to make specific recommendations for a Social Security reform package based on personal retirement accounts for younger workers, no cuts in benefits to current or near-retirees, and putting Social Security on a financial sound footing. Names that have been mentioned as possibilities for a reform commission include former Democratic Senators Bob Kerrey and Daniel Patrick Moynihan and former Democratic Rep. Tim Penny, a member of the Advisory Board to Cato's Project on Social Security Privatization . Other names being floated include PaineWebber CEO Donald Marron, who served on the CSIS commission and was a headline speaker at Cato's recent conference on Social Security reform . Bush has been clear that any commission must be action-oriented, to design and implement a workable system of personal accounts in a short period of time, rather than simply contemplating the problem without coming to any solutions.
Past commissions offer lessons.
The 1983 Greenspan Commission, on the other hand, did eventually produce policy proposals that were implemented. The Social Security commission is one area in which history definitely should not repeat itself. The last two 'reform' commissions went nowhere. It raised taxes and cut benefits but refused to make the changes necessary to fix the Social Security's inherent flaws. As a result, Social Security is an even worse deal today than it was in 1983.