Comment & Debate
Robert L. Clark, an economist at North Carolina State University who specializes in aging issues, formerly served as a chairman of a national panel on Social Security’s financial status; he has said that future options for Social Security are clear: “You either raise taxes or you cut benefits. There are lots of ways to do both.”[1]
David Koitz, a 30-year veteran of the Congressional Research Service, echoed these remarks in his 2001 book Seeking Middle Ground on Social Security Reform: “The real choices for resolving the system’s problems…require current lawmakers to raise revenue or cut spending–to change the law now to explicitly raise future taxes or constrain future benefits.”