Social Security was once the third rail of politics. For years, the conventional wisdom held that if politicians mentioned the system's financial problems and so much as alluded to changing anything, they faced electrocution in the court of public opinion and a grisly end to their career
Social Security was once the third rail of politics. For years, the conventional wisdom held that if politicians mentioned the system's financial problems and so much as alluded to changing anything, they faced electrocution in the court of public opinion and a grisly end to their career.
How times have changed. Now everyone talks about the Social Security mess and the even more dire Medicare crisis.
Perhaps because almost everyone realizes that our national retirement system is on the express track to disaster, senators and representatives have no qualms about frequently yakking about the issue. But while politicians have no trouble speaking of the problem, actually doing something about it apparently is another matter entirely.
Washington's intense partisanship allows little room for thoughtful, responsible action. The parties would rather talk at each other than work together.
Elected Democrats would have you believe that Republicans want to turn the Social Security clock back to 1931. Senate and House Republicans would try to convince you that Democrats would transform Medicare into the Czech motor vehicle department circa World War I.
But while Democrats and Republicans preen before the C-SPAN cameras instead of doing anything substantive, Americans are getting precious little in the way of responsible leadership.
If Congress and the White House turned their ears to the public's wishes for Social Security and Medicare, they would probably learn that many of us are fed up with both sides of the aisle, and the executive branch, too. Although the public may not like facing the expensive economics of an aging population, our elected officials must take the bold, honest and necessary — if politically unpleasant — steps needed to put the national retirement program on sounder financial footing.
The political, economic and actuarial experts know the pieces to the final puzzle, and — if they are honest — so do elected officials. Here they are:
Raise the retirement age.
Supplement government programs with private-savings plans.
Foster greater competition and the use of government buying power to lower costs.
Emphasize prevention and wellness programs.
Reduce government and private bureaucracy and inefficiency.
Require greater individual responsibility for health care and spending.
The precise proportion of each element and the shape of a new system down to its gritty details — where the devil resides — is where politicians (and lobbying groups, to be more cynical) earn their pay.
Elected officials could and should engage in vigorous debate about these elements. If they need help, let them tap leading policy experts from across the political spectrum.
They also should look abroad for guidance.
Australia, Canada, Chile, Finland, the Netherlands and Norway, among other nations, are also grappling with the problem of an aging population. All have come up with innovative public- policy solutions; we can learn from them.
But the main challenge is to set a limit for talking and put an emphasis on doing. The nation must start fixing the Social Security and Medicare problems now.
It is high time for those people we employ by the Potomac to do something.
