Senators Introduce Bill To Establish Task Force on Entitlement Programs

[Robbien]

Source: Kaiser Network

Senate Budget Committee Chair Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) and ranking member Judd Gregg (R-N.H.) on Tuesday introduced a bill that would require the next Congress to address problems with the long-term financial stability of Medicare and other entitlement programs, CQ Today reports. The legislation would establish a bipartisan, 16-member task force comprised of lawmakers and Bush administration officials that would make recommendations to address the issue by Dec. 9, 2008.

The task force would include 14 lawmakers; the secretary of the Department of Treasury, who would chair the committee; and a second administration official selected by the president.
. . .

Under the bill, lawmakers would have to introduce the recommendations as legislation in the next Congress, and both the House and Senate would have to consider the legislation after they reconvene in January 2009. Lawmakers could not amend the legislation, which would require a three-fifths majority to pass in both the House and Senate.

. . .

Jim Manley, a spokesperson for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), said that the bill "raises some serious questions," such as whether lawmakers should "entrust the future of health care, Social Security, our tax system and perhaps even Iraq to a small group of individuals whose recommendations could be moved through Congress without meaningful input or amendment."



Read more: http://www.kaisernetwork.org/daily_reports/rep_index.cfm?DR_ID=47611

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Social Security privatization will probably be the top recommendation of the panel.

[Mountainman]

1. I hate how the word "entitlements" is used. I pay taxes and I want my taxes to go to social

programs rather than war. The word "entitlements" is used as a derogatory term I think. It shouldn't be. We are entitled to have our tax money used for our interests. Nothing wrong with being entitled to your tax money being spent on you.

[fasttense]

2. I know what you mean, It never failed to get my hackles up during the failed

bush plan to privatize SS. They repeatedly referred to us Baby Boomers as leaches on society by demanding our SS entitlements. As if Ronald Raygun hadn't doubled the Baby Boomer's SS taxes (at the advice of the Security Commission — chaired by the man he later made Fed chairman, Alan Greenspan) so that we were the First generation to pay for BOTH our parent's SS and our own retirement. As if we Baby Boomers haven't been paying double SS taxes for the last 22 years. The bottom line is that Greenspan encouraged Raygun, and all the presidents to follow, to BORROW and USE our SS Trust Fund to pay for government operations. If we had a balanced budget, our SS Trust Fund would not be simply a bunch of IOUs. Entitlement indeed, Social Security is our money and damn right we are entitled to it.