A Senator's Regret
By Lea Abdnor
Last night, I was talking with a former Republican senator who served during the so-called "Greenspan Commission" in 1983.
At that time, Social Security was on the brink of being unable to pay benefits to the elderly, and a compromise "deal" was made between the two parties' leadership to solve the problems in the system. The Senator talked about voting to approve the Greenspan Commission recommendations -- and those recommendations (among other things) raised payroll taxes significantly higher than was needed to pay benefits.
The bill that passed set up the scenario that we now have -- for almost 25 years Congress has been spending that excess money on other programs and putting IOUs in the Trust Fund and the Social Security Trust Fund is filled with trillions of dollars in IOUs that future taxpayers will have to redeem, starting in a few years.
The Senator said that if he -- and most of his colleagues -- had known about this scenario, they never would have agreed to it. As it was, it was one of those legislative packages brought to the Senate floor and passed quickly. The Senator regrets this situation and said it's time to stop playing games with Social Security and fix the system for our kids and grandkids.
The Senator is my uncle, Jim Abdnor of South Dakota.
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