President Obama's
budget does not include any Social Security "reforms" this time around. In fact, it includes
an implicit challenge to Republicans who hope to manufacture a crisis in the program.
Obama's budget included the transfer of tax revenue from the program's retirement fund to the disability fund, which would otherwise start being unable to pay full benefits in late 2016. House Republicans passed a rule in January that would block the transfer—known as reallocation—unless Social Security's overall solvency was improved. […]
While Obama's budget acknowledges that reallocation can coincide with "a longer-term solution to overall Social Security solvency (being) developed with the Congress," its proposal is a clean reallocation with no strings attached. It also included a warning of sorts for any GOP proposals that would privatize or cut the program.
"Any reforms should strengthen retirement security for the most vulnerable, including low-income seniors, and should maintain robust disability and survivors’ benefits," the budget documents say. "The Administration will oppose any measures that privatize or weaken the Social Security system and will not accept an approach that slashes benefits for future generations or reduces basic benefits for current beneficiaries."
That doesn't necessarily mean that the White House is ruling out so-called "reforms" that include cuts, for example the chained CPI, the change to calculating cost of living adjustments the administration has previously championed that would cut benefits of seniors significantly over time. It still includes the "slashes benefits" language that the White House has been issuing for a few years now without ever clearly defining what level of cuts would be slashing them. And it leaves a crack in the door open to negotiations around the reallocation.
It does, however, rule out the kinds of "reforms" Republicans are already envisioning as the end result of their most recent round of hostage taking, including privatization.