Who says they don't know what they're doing?

Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), the incoming chairman of the House Budget Committee in the 112th Congress, said Dec. 2 the Social Security plan in the deficit-reduction proposal by President Obama's fiscal commission showed there may be room for compromise on the issue between Democrats and Republicans.

“It's not where [Republicans] would go, but it's getting close,” he told BNA Dec. 2.
The commission proposal would change the Social Security retirement benefit formula, link the normal and early retirement eligibility ages to increases in longevity, increase the taxable maximum for Social Security taxes, and link the annual cost-of-living adjustments to a better measure of inflation.

The proposal would also expand Social Security to cover newly hired state and local workers, give enhanced benefits to those over age 85, and provide a hardship exemption to workers in physically demanding jobs who cannot work past 62 but who are ineligible for disability benefits. The commission said the plan would make Social Security solvent over the next 75 years.

“I think common ground is evolving where you have Democrats putting out some of the ideas we've put out as well. We don't like the tax increases, they don't like our personal accounts, but there are other things we're beginning to agree on,”Ryan said.

Separately, at a breakfast sponsored by the Christian Science Monitor, Ryan said he hoped Republicans and the Obama administration could decide the issues on which they can and cannot work together.

“Hopefully the President will say, you know, ‘this or that.’ I mean, I'd love to get a deal with the President on Social Security. I mean, I'd love to get a deal on something,” Ryan said.

“ He's probably not going to do health care with us, because we have just such different perspectives on that issue. That's the big one, and that's probably going to be a big 2012 issue. But I'd love to get something passed that says, “Okay, these Americans aren't crazy. Their political system isn't broken.”