The Romney heavyweights say that a President Romney will 鈥済radually reduce growth in Social Security and Medicare benefits for more affluent seniors.鈥� Thus Romney鈥檚 plan proposes some 鈥渕eans testing鈥� of Social Security and Medicare, meaning seniors who have greater 鈥渕eans鈥� would receive fewer benefits. Although not written specifically into his economic plan, Obama has also indicated a willingness to consider means testing of these programs.
On this point, Romney and his economic advisers are right. As I proposed in a June 2011 op-ed in this publication, a partial solution to the funding problem with these programs is to 鈥減hase-out鈥� the entitlements under these programs as a retiree鈥檚 broadly measured income increases from $75,000 to $175,000. Canada, which does not have the same type of debt and deficit problem faced by the US, has a similar phase-out and means testing for its Social Security equivalent.
