In the 2012 GOP budget plan Social Security gets a pass

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The Hill:


House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) will largely give Social Security a pass in his highly anticipated budget while proposing a significant overhaul of Medicare and Medicaid, according to sources briefed on the plan.

The 2012 budget resolution, which committee Republicans are still finalizing, is scheduled to be unveiled on Tuesday. It will not back specific benefit cuts to Social Security or suggest raising the retirement age, sources said.

Instead, it will lay out the problems with the program and suggest authorizing committees tackle the specifics. It also will propose “trigger” thresholds for Social Security that, once reached, would ask the president to propose a way to fix the program.
Ryan is also not planning to include a proposal that would allow recipients to invest their Social Security payroll taxes, something Democrats have attacked as a “privatization” of Social Security. Such attacks doomed a 2005 effort by then-President George W. Bush to reform the system.

By not proposing specific changes to Social Security, Ryan dodges expected arguments from Democrats who have repeatedly warned that the GOP intends to dramatically change a program popular with many voters and particularly senior citizens.