Commission Should Focus on Bipartisan Solutions to Social Security Reform

Kathryn Nix / July 13, 2010

Serious doubts surround President Obama’s National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, which has been tasked to make recommendations to Congress to reduce the federal deficit. Many fear that the commission will recommend the creation of a value-added tax (VAT) or similar tax increases to pay for Washington’s reckless spending. Then there is the possibility that the commission will produce nothing, succeeding only at prolonging any real action to put the nation’s fiscal house back in order.

But as The Weekly Standard’s executive editor Fred Barnes points out in the Wall Street Journal, “there’s another possibility, one that would redound to the commission’s credit.” The commission could propose cost-containing reforms to unaffordable government programs. Barnes suggests that the likelihood of the commission exploring bipartisan solutions to Social Security spending in particular is not zilch. (more…)