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Tim Geithner: Social Security Reform Is Off The Table For Now (VIDEO)

Tim Geithner: Social Security Reform Is Off The Table For Now
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Senior Politics Reporter, HuffPost

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Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner said on Sunday that President Barack Obama is open to reforming Social Security, but not until after a deal has been reached to avoid the "fiscal cliff."

Geithner said on ABC's "This Week" that while Obama is willing to consider cuts or reforms to other entitlement programs before the end of the year, Social Security is off the table. “What the president is willing to do is to work with Democrats and Republicans to strengthen Social Security for future generations so Americans can approach retirement with dignity and with the confidence they can retire with a modest guaranteed benefit,” Geithner said.

“But we think you have to do that in a separate process so that our seniors aren't, don't face the concern that we're somehow going to find savings in Social Security benefits to help reduce the other deficits.”

Republicans have scoffed at Obama's plan to avoid going over the fiscal cliff on Jan. 1, because it calls for increases in spending on infrastructure and unemployment benefits as well as tax hikes for the top 2 percent of earners. Obama has indicated that would be willing to consider raising the Medicare eligibility age, but the majority of the savings in his proposal come from ending the Afghanistan war, raising taxes on the wealthiest 2 percent of Americans, reforming farm subsidies and raising premiums on higher-income Medicare patients.

Geithner said the ball is now in the Republicans' court to come up with a counter-offer if they refuse to accept Obama's proposal. "If the Republicans don't like those ideas, and they want to do it differently, they want to go beyond that, they have to tell us what makes sense for them, and then we can take a look at it," he said on NBC's "Meet the Press." "But what we can't do is try to figure out what makes sense for them."

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Before You Go

Do These Things, Don't Cut Entitlements
Prison Reform(01 of10)
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The U.S. incarcerates its citizens at a rate roughly five times higher than the global average. We have about 5 percent of the world's population, but 25 percent of its prisoners, according to The Economist,. This status quo costs our local, state and federal governments a combined $68 billion a year -- all of which becomes a federal problem during recessions, when states look to Washington for fiscal relief. Over the standard 10-year budget window used in Congress, that's a $680 billion hit to the deficit.Solving longstanding prison problems -- releasing elderly convicts unlikely to commit crimes, offering treatment or counseling as an alternative to prison for non-violent offenders, slightly shortening the sentences of well-behaved inmates, and substituting probation for more jail-time -- would do wonders for government spending. (credit:AP)
End Of The Drug War(02 of10)
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The federal government spends more than $15 billion a year investigating and prosecuting the War on Drugs. That's $150 billion in Washington budget-speak, and it doesn't include the far higher costs of incarcerating millions of people for doing drugs. This money isn't getting the government the results it wants. As drug war budgets balloon, drug use escalates.Ending the Drug War offers the government two separate budget boons. In addition to saving all the money spending investigating, prosecuting and incarcerating drug offenders, Uncle Sam could actually regulate and tax drugs like marijuana, generating new revenue. Studies by pot legalization advocates indicate that fully legalizing weed in California would yield up to $18 billion annually for that state's government alone. For the feds, the benefits are even sweeter. (credit:AP)
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