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Saving Social Security: A Balanced Approach | 
 enlarge | Author: Peter A. Diamond; Peter R. Orszag
Publisher: Brookings Institution Press
Category: Book
List Price: $22.95
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Rating:  3 reviews
Sales Rank: 54769
Media: Paperback
Edition: Revised
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 294
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.9
Dimensions (in): 8.8 x 5.9 x 0.9
ISBN: 0815718373
Dewey Decimal Number: 368.4300973
EAN: 9780815718376
ASIN: 0815718373
Publication Date: July 29, 2005
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Product Description
While everyone agrees that Social Security is a vital and necessary government program, there have been widely divergent plans for reforming it. Peter A. Diamond and Peter R. Orszag, two of the nation's foremost economists, propose a reform plan that would rescue the program both from its projected financial problems and from those who would destroy the program in order to save it. Since the publication of the first edition of this book in 2004, the Social Security debate has moved to the center of the domestic policy agenda. In this updated edition of Saving Social Security, the authors analyze the Bush Administration's proposal for individual accounts and discuss the so-called "price indexing" proposal to restore long-term solvency through changing how initial benefits would be calculated. Saving Social Security is essential reading for policymakers involved in reform, analysts, students, and all those interested in the fate of this safeguard of American lives.
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| Customer Reviews:
 Should we keep Social Security limping along? February 24, 2005
The authors do a passable job of explaining how Social Security has gotten to where it is.
Unfortunately, they never discuss what Social Security is.
Social Security is an intergenerational welfare program. Money is taken from the young, and given to retirees.
We can "Save Social Security" - by increasing taxes, reducing benefits, and using all sorts of accounting tricks.
But should we?
Retirees are living in comfort - while young people are being paid less and are struggling to survive.
Retirees have health insurance - while young people are likely to have none.
Social Security has lasted as long as it has because people saw it as a good deal - you got more out of it than you paid in.
Young people know that this is no longer true. They see no armies of children to support them in their old age. To pay for their retirement and medical costs.
What the authors suggest is that we continue to force young people to pay for retirees to live in comfort and health.
This means that young people will be forced to work until they drop. Every moment of their lives, they will live in fear that a medical emergency will drop them into the financial abyss.
And they will see retirees living in comfort and health - taking vacations, clogging the roads with their RV's.
This doesn't sound fair to me - or to the young people under 45 I talk to.
Does it sound fair to you?
Peter Simmons Author - The Next Crash
 Only Balanced on the High End January 4, 2005
6 out of 14 found this review helpful
First, the good things. This text gives a general understanding of how the 75-year projection has gone from on-balance in 1983 to off-balance in 2003, it provides many examples of possible errors in the system, and it gives good recommendations to the current system to enhance the ability of Social Security to remain in balance once it has been restored, namely things like adjusting retiree benefits for changes in expected life span over and above projected changes and including a universal legacy charge which does not eliminate the legacy cost but, rather, creates a stable legacy cost over time such that the cost of the system is being borne by all rather than only one generation (ours!). These earn the book 4 stars.
The authors state in chapter 3 their five goals for Social Security reform: "restor[e] Social Security to a sound financial footing, reduc[e] the future burden from Social Security on the rest of the Federal Budget, shar[e] the ongoing costs of the program's past generosity in a fair manner, preserv[e] and strenghten the program's social insurnace function,s and ensur[e] that, on balance, the changes enhance the overall performance of the economy." Given that the current 75-year projection by the Office of the Chief Actuary now shows a 1.9% of payroll imbalance, the authors contend that this imbalance should be corrected by not just revenue increases (higher payroll taxes, new estate taxes, or a non-renewal of the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts) or benefit reductions, but both. In fact, this is the type of balance they propose - that all parties should share in the costs of the system equally. This "all parties" mentality leads them to include those state and local government workers currently not covered by the program, but conveniently (or maybe politically correctly) leads them to EXCLUDE all current retirees and near-retirees (those retiring in the next 10 years or so). The "all parties" mentality also belies their obvious disdain for the higher-earning cohorts of the country, in that many of the balance reforms do not balance reductions in benefits across all earnings groups with tax increases across those same groups, but mostly balances the increased revenue from taxing higher-wage earners more with decreasing benefits to those same high-wage earners through incrasing the "progressivity" of benefits. Such inconsistency in comparing apples to apples (for example, continually discussing the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts and options to reinstate those taxes as revenues dedicated to Social Security, when in fact these tax cuts are outside the scope of Social Security, and should have stayed there throughout the whole text) as the authors like to say they are doing causes them to lose 2 stars.
Overall, this book provides both positive analysis and negative inclusion of meaningless comparison. It is good for background to understand what the dilemma is truly about, but their whole package will probably not be, and should not be, implemented, though certain specific parts are appropriate.
 A highly recommended ray of hope July 17, 2004
8 out of 10 found this review helpful
Written by the chair of the board of the National Academy of Social Insurance and a former special assistant to the president for economic policy during the Clinton administration, Saving Social Security: A Balanced Approach Proposes a reform plan for America's social security system that would save it from both its financial problems and those who would do away with it. Focusing on means that promote long-term balance and sustainable solvency, while protecting the program's benefits for the disabled, low earners, widows, and young survivors. Exhaustively researched and deeply entrenched in practical issues and mathematical calculations, Saving Social Security is a highly recommended ray of hope against a looming national crisis.
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