Governor Romney took a strong stand on Social Security in last night's Florida debate. When asked if he would do what Reagan did in 1983, which was raise taxes and cut benefits, Romney insisted he will not ask workers to pay more than the 12.4% of earnings we already contribute to the program. "Raising taxes is just something you don't want to do," Romney said. He then went on to argue for reform that includes personal accounts. From the transcript, with emphasis added:
The other -- there are three other ways that you can solve the problem of Social Security, and they're ways that have been brought forward by a number of Republicans over the years. We're going to have to sit down with the Democrats and say, let's have a compromise on these three elements that could get us to bring Social Security into economic balance.
What are they? Well, number one, you can have personal accounts where people can invest in something that does better than government bonds -- with some portion of their Social Security. Number two, you can say we're going to have the initial benefit calculations for wealthier Americans calculated based on the Consumer Price Index rather than the wage index. That saves almost two-thirds of the shortfall. And then number three, you can change the retirement age. You can make -- push it out a little bit. And so those are the three arithmetic things you can do.
There's going to have to be an agreement reached, Republicans and Democrats. Senator Judd Gregg has introduced legislation cosponsored by a Democrat saying put an equal number of Republicans and Democrats in a committee, have them work together, come up with a compromise, bring it forward, require a 60-percent vote to get the job done.
And those are the three that I think are -- are the ones that have to be pursued for us to solve the issue of Social Security
But don't forget, let's not scare anybody listening in who's on Social Security or near Social Security. It's not going to change the current program. It's not going to change for anybody who's already in retirement or near retirement. But we have to be honest to the people coming along. The program's going to have to change for 20- and 30- and 40-year-olds.