Link to Robert Reich's petition to President Obama :

[hay rick]

30. I stand corrected.

As you noted, I mistook his pension revitalization plan for a Social Security privatization scheme. Harkin's plan sounds much better.

Very curious that Rubin's plan calls for a 1% payroll tax increase (don't know whether that is total or 1% from both employer and employee) while Harkin's plan makes no mention of raising the payroll tax and offers greater benefits- both by increasing AIME limits and using the more generous CPI-E. That's a substantial difference in the net benefit for a lot of people.

The other salient difference between the two plans is that Rubin would move the OASDI cut off to around $200,000 while Harkin's plan would gradually eliminate the cap entirely. I expect that increased income source accounts for the difference in net benefit. I like that plan better but I also believe it has less chance of being passed.