Caesars Entertainment CEO Gary Loveman was one of the more than 170 corporate chiefs who urged the government to adopt tax increases, entitlement reform and spending cuts.
Now that the tax hikes have been implemented as part of the fiscal cliff agreement, Loveman says it’s time to focus on the other two areas.
“The fiscal cliff has been averted, preventing immediate economic calamity,” he writes in The Wall Street Journal. “But for long-term economic growth, we must get serious about entitlement reform and government spending.”
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As for entitlements, Loveman says the eligibility age should be raised gradually for both Medicare and Social Security. There should be means-testing for each program too, he maintains.
The approximately 25 percent of state and local government workers who are exempt from Social Security payroll taxes should lose that exemption, Loveman writes.
These steps would spark new investment that, in turn, would boost economic growth and create jobs, he says.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce also wants to see entitlement reform.
"The entitlement programs written and designed for an earlier era must be revised," Chamber President Tom Donohue said in a speech last week, according to U.S. News & World Report.
"We're not talking about cuts in absolute terms. We're simply talking about slowing the rate of increase."
Donohue also advocates using an alternate inflation measure – chained Consumer Price Index – to control cost-of-living increases, which Loveman advocates too.
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