Entitlement Reform
With majorities in both houses of Congress and the presidency, Republicans should use their political power to enact reforms to programs like Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid to ensure that they will be viable in the future.
Currently, economists estimate that the Social Security Trust Fund will run out of money in 15 years, necessitating broad cuts to benefits.
“That’s a disgraceful way to run a pension program. It ought to be fixed on behalf of the beneficiaries so that they know what they’re going to get,” said Holtz-Eakin.
Medicare and Medicaid are also programs faced with choices between insolvency and cutbacks, said Holtz-Eakin, but even more concerning is the quality of health care delivered by both programs. Americans enrolled in the health entitlements receive care well below the standards established by other public systems around the world.
Failing and expensive entitlement programs are sandbagging the federal budget, said Holtz-Eakin
“The budget is on a fundamentally unsustainable track,” he said. “Entitlements are going to drive the national debt to 100 percent of the GDP. At the end of 10 years, interest payments will be the largest thing that the federal government does, bigger than any federal educational programs, and that puts us in an unstable position.”
Education Reform
The U.S. suffers because voters and policy makers both fail to understand the systems that they’re working within, said Holtz-Eakin. The best solution is reforming the American education system, he said.
Since the U.S. began assessing educational outcomes as a result of the No Child Left Behind law, the depth of the crisis in public education has become clear, he said. In fourth grade and eighth grade cohorts, between 25 percent and 30 percent of students fail to display reading, writing and mathematical skills at their grade level, said Holtz-Eakin.