The Heartland Institute today released a new paper in a multi-part series titled Roadmap for the 21st Century, researched and written by Heartland Institute Senior Fellow Peter Ferrara, National Tax Limitation Committee President Lewis Uhler, and other members of several “working groups” who contributed over the past several months to the Roadmap Project. The timely series provides the Trump administration, the 115th Congress, and every state legislator free-market reform solutions that will promote prosperity and address inequality.
All of the papers, including the first seven papers in the series – Introduction, Budget & Tax Reform, Health Care Reform, Monetary Policy, Energy Deregulation, Welfare Reform, and Education Choice – can be viewed here.
The latest paper focuses on reforming Social Security and Medicare. It describes how through the creation of personal accounts, “the unfunded liabilities of Social Security – and eventually Medicare – would be eliminated entirely.”
The authors write,
[T]hrough such personal accounts, retirees of all income levels and family combinations would receive much higher benefits and substantial lifetime accumulations of wealth. Those lifetime accumulations of wealth would do far more to reduce inequality than any policy ever proposed, ultimately providing trillions of dollars in accumulated wealth to working people across America.
Read the whole series at Heartland’s Roadmap for the 21st Century page.
The following quotes may be used for attribution. To interview Ferrara, Uhler, or Heartland Institute President Joseph Bast, please contact Director of Communications Jim Lakely at [email protected] and 312/377-4000 or (cell) 312/731-9364.
Heartland Institute President Joseph Bast:
“Peter Ferrara and Lewis Uhler have produced a succinct and compelling case for the most important entitlement reform President Donald Trump and Congress could adopt in the next four years. Allowing workers to put into savings accounts the dollars now taken out of their paychecks for Social Security would dramatically improve their return on investment and provide a huge boost to the national economy. There really are ‘win-win’ solutions to the nation’s biggest problems, and this is one of them.”
Heartland Institute Senior Fellow Peter Ferrara:
“With the freedom to choose personal savings, investment, and insurance accounts for Social Security, a proven reform in the real world, this paper shows that middle-income Americans would be empowered to retire as millionaires.”
Peter Ferrara is senior fellow for entitlement and budget policy at The Heartland Institute and a senior fellow at the Social Security Institute. He served in the White House Office of Policy Development under President Ronald Reagan and as associate deputy attorney general of the United States under President George H.W. Bush. He is a graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Law School. Ferrara is author of several books, including The Obamacare Disaster, from The Heartland Institute, President Obama’s Tax Piracy, and America’s Ticking Bankruptcy Bomb: How the Looming Debt Crisis Threatens the American Dream – and How We Can Turn the Tide Before It’s Too Late. Ferrara’s latest book (Heartland Institute, 2015) is Power to the People: The New Road to Freedom and Prosperity for the Poor, Seniors, and Those Most in Need of the World’s Best Health Care.
Lewis K. “Lew” Uhler is founder and president of the National Tax Limitation Committee, one of the nation’s leading grassroots taxpayer advocates. With offices in the Sacramento area and Washington, DC, NTLC works with the White House, members of Congress, legislators in states across the nation, and grassroots organizations to limit state and federal spending through legal restrictions and constitutional change. Uhler has been at the forefront of the national movements for a tax limitation/balanced budget amendment to the United States Constitution and for term limits. He has written numerous articles and opinion pieces on taxes and spending. In 2010, Uhler co-authored with Erick Erickson the book Red State Uprising: How to Take Back America. Uhler also wrote the book Setting Limits: Constitutional Control of Government, with a foreword by Milton Friedman, published in 1989. Uhler speaks internationally on fiscal issues and has appeared on numerous national, regional, and local television and radio programs and has been widely quoted in the print media.
The Heartland Institute is a 33-year-old national nonprofit organization headquartered in Arlington Heights, Illinois. Its mission is to discover, develop, and promote free-market solutions to social and economic problems. For more information, visit our website or call 312/377-4000.
The National Tax Limitation Committee (NTLC) was organized in 1975. Its mission is to provide national leadership to achieve the optimal size and functions of government and promote candidates and initiatives that support these goals. For more information, visit our website.
The new paper on Social Security and Medicare as well as previously released papers in the Roadmap for the 21st Century can be viewed at this Heartland Institute web page. Subsequent parts will be released in January and February.
Joseph Bast is a Senior Fellow at The Heartland Institute. He cofounded Heartland in 1984, serving as executive director then as president & CEO until January 2018. His research and writing focuses on climate change and energy policy.
Peter Ferrara, J.D., is a senior fellow at The Heartland Institute and an advisor for entitlement reform and budget policy at the National Tax Limitation Foundation.
Lewis K. “Lew” Uhler is founder and president of the National Tax Limitation Committee, one of the nation’s leading grass roots taxpayer lobbies.
