An obvious, tepid reform was greeted with shrill partisan screeching.
by Eric Boehm
Reason.com
A Republican budget plan released Wednesday included one of the most obvious, low-hanging ideas for shoring up Social Security: Raising the eligibility age for benefits from 67 to 69.
That idea was included within a 180-page budget plan released by the House Republican Study Committee (RSC), a policy-focused group that includes most but not all members of the House GOP. Proposals released by the RSC are in many ways similar to the president’s annual budget request: an aspirational document that reflects big-picture agreement on important issues, but not necessarily an actionable plan that can be passed into law.
So the call for raising the retirement age by two years—a change that the RSC plan says wouldn’t even be implemented in the short-term to spare Americans currently approaching Social Security eligibility—would barely even be accurately described as a first step.