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In 2005, Newt Gingrich described John Sununu's Social Security plan as perhaps
the most sweeping, visionary, breakthrough legislation to help enrich working people in my lifetime
(http://www.concordmonitor.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20040819/REPOSITORY/408190330). According to Gingrich, the Ryan-Sununu plan offers the best of all worlds: it requires no benefit cuts or tax increases and would give us the private accounts so beloved by conservatives. In addition, it would close the shortfall. Who could ask for anything more? Jennifer Horn seems to have signed on to this plan (http://www.jenniferhorn.org/general/page/reforming-social-security).
Unfortunately, Gingrich failed to tell the whole story about the Sununu-Horn plan. He left out that the plan relies on what the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) called a "gimmick," namely the transfer of trillions of dollars in government revenue to the Social Security Trust Fund (http://www.cbpp.org/4-26-05socsec2.htm). Social Security's Chief Actuary made it quite clear that without this transfer the plan would not work (http://www.ssa.gov/OACT/solvency/RyanSununu_20050420.html).
The CBPP estimated that in "present value" the Sununu-Horn plan would cost $8.5 trillion over 75 years, a figure more than "twice as large as the entire Social Security shortfall." Transfers of this magnitude would almost certainly require reductions in other areas, such as defense, Medicare, and veterans' benefits. The Sununu-Horn plan is hardly something we can afford.
The bottom line is that, as Jeanne Shaheen notes, Social Security is not in crisis. Even if we do nothing, the Trust Fund will not run out of money until 2041. After that, Social Security will still take in enough in payroll taxes to meet around 75 percent of its obligations. The challenge is closing this narrow gap, not creating personal accounts, as Sununu and Horn advocate. Social Security is a great success, and we should oppose any politician who would tamper with it.
