Social Security Debate in The United States - Chronology of Prior Reform Attempts and Proposals

Chronology of Prior Reform Attempts and Proposals

• October 1997 – The Democratic president, Bill Clinton, and the Republican Speaker of the House, Newt Gingrich, reached a secret agreement to reform Social Security. The agreement required both the President and the Speaker to forge a centrist coalition by persuading moderate members of Congress from their respective parties to compromise.
• January 1998 – Progress on the reform agreement reached on October 28, 1997 between Bill Clinton and Newt Gingrich was derailed by the Lewinsky scandal approximately a week before Clinton was to announce the initiative in his State of the Union address.
• March 1999 - Republican Senators Spencer Abraham and Pete Domenici circulate the first of a series of "lock box" proposals. These proposals would amend each house's rules, declaring it out of order to consider any bill that would contribute to a Social Security deficit unless a majority or supermajority votes to suspend the rules. All of these proposals fail, but Vice President Al Gore will make the "lock box" concept a part of his presidential campaign program in 2000.
• February 2005 - Republican President George W. Bush outlined a major initiative to reform Social Security which included partial privatization of the system, personal Social Security accounts, and options to permit Americans to divert a portion of their Social Security tax (FICA) into secured investments. In his 2005 State of the Union Address, Bush discussed the potential bankruptcy of the program. Democrats opposed the proposal. Bush campaigned for the initiative in a 60-day national tour. However, public support for the proposal only declined. The House Republican leadership removed tabled Social Security reform for the remainder of the session. In the 2006 midterm elections, Democrats gained control of both houses, effectively killing the plan for the remainder of Bush's term in office.
• December 2011 - Democratic President Obama's National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform proposed the "Bowles-Simpson" plan for making the system solvent. It combined increases in the Social Security payroll tax and reductions in benefits, starting several years in the future. It would have reduced benefits for upper-income workers while raising them for those with lifetime earnings averaging less than $11,000 a year. Republicans rejected the tax increases and Democrats rejected benefit cuts. A powerful network of elderly and liberal organizations and union workers also fought any changes.