I had written last month about bills to Strengthen Social Security which were bottled-up in committee. And sad to say but that is still the case.

The Strengthening Social Security Act of 2013 was introduced in both houses of Congress (S. 567 sponsored by Senator Tom Harkin and H.R. 3118 sponsored by Representative Linda Sanchez). The Senate bill was introduced last March and has been in the Committee on Finance since then. The House bill was introduced in September and remains with the House Education and the Workforce Committee.

The Strengthening Social Security Act of 2013 bases Social Security COLAs based on the Consumer Price Index for the Elderly (CPI-E). This would be a better index as it is designed to account for the different spending patterns as we enter our senior years.

The bill also addresses some long-term problems to strengthen Social Security.

Much of the present talk around social security today involves cutting benefits. In my opinion this is not the way to go.

I think we need to talk about this. A good first step to my way of thinking would be to get these bills out of committee and allow debate on the floors of congress.

Perhaps a non-political panel would come up with additional ideas and be more willing to discuss long-term solutions. I would guess that most of these people have political opinions but I also think since they don’t have to worry about being re-elected, they might be more willing to consider ideas which don’t necessarily match-up with the ideas of their party.