"Done right, a combination of benefit and enforcement-related measures could provide the Administration with a clear-cut political win," the draft memo, dated Feb. 26, 2010, read.
Shorey H. Chapman San Francisco, Feb. 8, 2010 To the Editor: Your editorial advocates "a combination of benefit cuts and tax increases" for Social Security.
The federation's warnings came as charities said the combination of benefit cuts and tax rises coming in from this week will amount to a £2.3bn hit on family finances.
The survey also found strong support for reform of government pension programs, with 42 percent favoring some combination of benefit cuts and higher taxes, and 27 percent favoring keeping benefits unchanged but raising taxes to pay for them.
Elizabeth Austerberry, the chief executive of Moat, one of the south east's leading housing associations and the sponsor of the event, warned that the housing crisis could become dire by 2015 because of the combination of benefit changes, a lack of new-build affordable housing and changes to the way houses were financed.
In addition to seeking higher investment returns, the options include raising the retirement age, increasing the level of wages subjected to the Social Security payroll tax, reducing cost-of-living increases paid to beneficiaries or some other combination of benefit cuts and tax increases.
What is needed is a combination of benefit cuts and tax increases that preserve the program's essential nature — a contract under which the young support the old via taxes and the rich help the poor via a benefits formula that favors low- income beneficiaries.
Some combination of benefit cuts or tax increases is suggested as the solution, but this dumps the burden of solving the deficit problem primarily on workers and their families, who can least afford it and did not create the budget mess.
As for Social Security, the "third rail" of America politics, everyone knows that a compromise would be based on some combination of benefit cuts (as Mr Bush prefers) and higher revenues (the Democrats' solution), with perhaps the new revenues going into personal retirement accounts through which people could also be forced to save more.
