The easy way they can cut social security benefits, increase the retirement age and cut Medicare is by forming a commission that will present legislation without Congressional hearings or amendments. Just an up and down vote.
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Commission to rein in federal entitlement costs is proposed
MCT News Service
October 28, 2009
WASHINGTON Amid signs that health care overhaul legislation will do little to slow the growth in health care spending in the coming decade, lawmakers and Obama administration officials are considering tougher steps to rein in soaring budget deficits.
One approach that's attracting widespread attention calls for creating a bipartisan commission to draft proposals to control the long-term costs of Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. Together, the three programs account for 40 percent of all federal spending other than interest on the national debt.
The recommendations of the proposed commission would command a swift up-or-down vote by Congress. Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad, D-N.D., and Republican Sen. Judd Gregg of New Hampshire, the chief authors of the proposal, say they may attempt to attach it to must-pass legislation raising the government's debt ceiling in the coming weeks.
"My concern is the trajectory of our deficits and debt are completely unsustainable and that (while) health care reform helps, it is not sufficient" to control runaway entitlement spending, Conrad said in an interview. "We've got to do much more, and I don't believe it will happen in the regular order. I think it requires a special process."
Christina Romer, the chair of the president's Council of Economic Advisers, said Monday that the White House was interested in the Conrad-Gregg proposal and other ideas floated by Sen. Evan Bayh, D-Ind., to create an entitlement commission next year, despite disappointments in such panels in the past. For now, however, she said, the administration's primary focus is on passing a health care overhaul bill that would extend coverage to the uninsured and impose discipline on health care expenditures.
"That's the most constructive thing we can do to deal with the long-run budget deficit," Romer said after a speech before the Center for American Progress, a policy research center in Washington. "What we're going to need besides that going forward, there certainly is the Conrad-Gregg commission idea."
The proposed Bipartisan Task Force for Responsible Fiscal Action would operate in a manner similar to the Defense Base Closure and Realignment Commission, in that its recommendations wouldn't be subject to congressional amendments, Gregg said. Because a three-fifths supermajority would be required in both chambers to adopt the recommendations, the two political parties also would have to work together to address entitlement revisions.
"The simple fact is that these are the types of issues which require people to join hands and jump off the political cliff together, or else it doesn't get done," Gregg said.
Experts agree that long-term health care and Social Security cost savings would necessitate highly unpopular measures, such as reducing health care benefits and cost-of-living adjustments, boosting taxes and fees, or, in the case of Social Security, raising the eligibility age even higher or increasing payroll taxes.
Read the full article at:
http://www.kfsm.com/sns-200910280803mctnewsservbc-healthcare-costs-mct,0,4098075.story
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