CAS Forum on Critical Issues: Reforming Social Security
February 23, 2005
The CAS Forum on Critical Issues: Reforming Social Security, held on February 23, has been archived in both video and audio only format.
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In the first State of the Union address of his second term, President Bush announced plans to overhaul Social Security by allowing younger workers to open personal investment accounts with a portion of their payroll taxes. Although many analysts agree that the Social Security system—the social insurance program established in 1935—will face a shortage of funds sometime in the future, they disagree on the extent to which the system is in need of fixing, and whether partial privatization is the best solution.

We invite you to participate in an informal public forum on this timely topic. Convening experts from on and off campus, this panel hopes to provoke a discussion about the future of Social Security as the baby boom generation begins to retire around 2010. We hope to address the broader questions of social rights and intergenerational responsibilities, as well as the arguments for and against partial privatization and how any changes to the social insurance program will impact women and minorities as well as the population as a whole.

After brief remarks from the panelists, we will move directly to audience questions.

Our panelists include:

Jeffrey Brown, Finance
J. Fred Giertz, Economics and IGPA
Richard Kaplan, Law
Mark Leff, History
William Spriggs, Economic Policy Institute (Washington, D.C.)