In the spirit of politics, lawmakers tend to paint rival Social Security reform proposals in extremes: If one privatizesand another preserves, then never the twain shall meet. The polarized way in which proposals are debated, morethan the actual substance of the proposals, makes compromise difficult. However, compromise doesn’t have to be so daunting a task. Considerable overlap exists among reform proposals presented by lawmakers on both sides of the aisle. Agreement can be found in the following areas.

Save the Surplus

Democrats and Republicans began competing in 1999 to create the best “lock box” with which to protect Social Security’s surplus. Until then, it was common for Congress to allow deficits in other parts of the budget to exceed the size of the Social Security surplus. Read the rest of this entry »