$13.6 trillion shortfall seen in Social Security
WASHINGTON - The Bush administration said in a report yesterday that Social Security is facing a $13.6 trillion shortfall in coming years and that delaying reforms is not fair to younger workers.
A report issued by the Treasury Department said some combination of benefit cuts and tax increases will need to be considered to permanently fix the funding shortfall. But White House officials stressed that President Bush remains opposed to raising taxes.
Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said he hoped the report would help find common ground on the politically-divisive issue, but a key Democrat charged that the administration will still try to fix Social Security by imposing sharp reduction in benefits.
"The administration's new report is a reminder of President Bush's determination to not only privatize Social Security but to make deep cuts in the benefits that American workers have earned," said Senate majority leader Harry Reid, a Nevada Democrat. "Nobody should be fooled into believing that the only way to save Social Security is to destroy it with privatization or deep benefit cuts."
Bush had put forward a Social Security plan in 2005 that focused on creation of private accounts for younger workers, but that proposal never came up for a vote in Congress with Democrats heavily opposed and few Republicans embracing the idea.
The Treasury report said delaying changes reduces the number of people available to share in the burden of those changes and is unfair to younger workers. "Not taking action is thus unfair to future generations," the report stated. "This is a significant cost of delay." 