President Obama’s deficit commission is a mess. Just for example, former Sen. Alan Simpson, the body’s 78 year-old co-chair, infamously compared Social Security to a cow with too many teats last week. Some of those sucking the cow dry need to get kicked out, he implied. That’s just for example.

Simpson’s remarks spurred an uproar on the left, and among Social Security’s defenders against Bush-style privatization and cutback. But sadly, his sentiments might as well be expected from a commission stacked with a whole bunch of old white men (angry ones, it seems). Of the 18 people on the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, there are only two people of color. Just three members are women.

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Wilhelmina Leigh, a senior researcher at the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, explains, “there are many ways to fix the system that are relatively painless overall.” For example, she says, “The current wage cap is $106,000, and all of the wages that people make above that line are not taxed for Social Security. But if wages above that are taxed, it would result in more than enough to pay for the program in the future.”

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