Choice Reviews Online · 2004 · 241 citations · 0 references
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Social Security is a vital program facing divergent reform plans, and the authors provide context on its accomplishments, financial problems, long‑term deficit causes, and its importance to policymakers and the public. Diamond and Orszag propose a reform plan to rescue Social Security from projected financial collapse and political attacks. The plan balances benefit and revenue adjustments following the 1980s precedent, and the authors outline evaluation criteria for alternatives while critiquing individual‑account replacements. The proposal restores long‑term solvency without extra budget burden, protects disability and survivor benefits, strengthens low‑earner and widow protections, and preserves the core social‑insurance role of providing assured income.
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. In Saving Social Security 's strategy balances benefit and revenue adjustments, following the precedent set by the last major Social Security reform in the early 1980s. The authors' proposal restores long-term balance and sustainable solvency to the program without imposing additional burdens on the rest of the budget. Further, it protects disability and young survivor benefits and strengthens Social Security's protections for low earners and widows. Most important, the plan preserves the program's core social insurance role by providing a base-level of assured income to American workers and their families in time of need. To better understand the accomplishments and financial problems of Social Security, Diamond and Orszag provide background on the program, as well as on the causes of the long-term deficit. They suggest ways in which various alternative reform plans should be evaluated and explain the shortcomings of proposals to replace part of Social Security with individual accounts. 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.