IPI: Eureka: Big Personal Social Security Accounts Really Work! So Says Social Security Admin. in Official Scoring, Released Today 12/1/2003
From: Sonia Hoffman of IPI, 703-912-5742, or 202-213-0379 (cell) or e-mail: shoffman@ipi.org DALLAS, Dec. 1 -- As highlighted in an op-ed in today's Wall Street Journal -- the Social Security Administration (SSA) today released official scoring of an Institute for Policy Innovation (IPI)-published personal account plan that allows contributions of an average of 6.4 percentage points without cutting benefits or raising taxes. Better yet, workers end up paying less while receiving more benefits. The SSA is releasing this scoring just as the nation and the President shift focus to domestic issues, gearing up for a campaign season sure to include debates on solving the Social Security debacle. "The SSA's scoring turns traditional Washington-establishment thinking on its head," says Peter Ferrara, IPI senior research fellow and author of the SSA-scored proposal. "The scoring reveals that large personal accounts would achieve permanent solvency for Social Security, without benefit cuts or tax increases, and with manageable transition financing burdens." What the SSA is Saying About the Ferrara/IPI Plan: -- It completely eliminates Social Security deficit, without cutting benefits or raising taxes. -- It creates the largest tax cut in world history. (A 75 year-projection period shows the Social Security payroll tax reduced from 12.4 percent to 3.5 percent.) -- It eliminates Social Security's unfunded liability. Up until now, establishment-Washington has assumed that any personal account option for Social Security would involve at most 2 percentage points of the 12.4 percent Social Security payroll tax. But the plan laid out in IPI's report, A Progressive Proposal for Social Security Private Accounts, promotes a dramatic increase of an average of 6.4 percentage points of the payroll tax to be moved into personal accounts. And all without decreasing benefits or increasing taxes. The reform plan will be introduced in Congress by a coalition of Congressmen and Senators early next year. --- The SSA scoring report, the Wall Street Journal op-ed, and IPI's new analysis of the SSA's scoring is available at http://www.ipi.org. Peter Ferrara is a senior research fellow at the Institute for Policy Innovation (IPI), Director of the International Center for Law and Economics, and a senior advisor on Social Security to the Club for Growth, the United Seniors Association, and Americans for Tax Reform. He has written extensively on Social Security for the past 20 years. Ferrara is available immediately for interviews. Contact Sonia Hoffman at shoffman@ipi.org, or 703-912-5742. |