SSA Models.

[ridgeway <riridgew@nyx.net>]

I would first like to thank those members of Congress that
responded to the questions I asked last week.  I would
especially like to thank Senators Gregg and Santorum for their
responses.

In the past couple of weeks we have had a discussion, sometimes
a heated debate, with Robert Reischauer (of the Brookings
Institution) and Carolyn Weaver (the American Enterprise 
Institute and member of the 1994-1996 Advisory Council on Social 
Security) on various reform ideas.  When questions came up about 
models used to study varying reform proposals Ms. Weaver indicated 
that "...to date, SSA has been unwilling to make its model(s) 
generally available to the public, even with all the specs, 
qualifications,and disclaimers that may be necessary or appropriate.  
The public loses out and so does SSA, which loses the benefit of 
learning from the comments that would be forthcoming from the people 
who use and evaluate their models."  

I personally believe that we need to move from the current
system that most agree needs to be reformed to fully funded
privately owned Social Security accounts; however, whatever each
of us might think, more open access to the models the SSA uses
would be a great benefit.  I can understand how we need to 
keep computer models that simulate nuclear weapons top secret 
for reasons of national security, however, I see no such need
to keep secret computer models related to Social Security.  

Thus, based on the above, I would like to ask the members 
of Congress if they would direct the SSA to provide experts 
like Mr. Reischauer and Ms. Weaver (and other experts) with 
greater information on SSA computer models.  Perhaps a rider 
on the SSA appropriations directing the SSA to produce a 
collection of CDs simply consisting of their model's code and 
the datasets used would be of great help in this public 
policy debate (note: the direct cost of making these CDs 
could be paid for by charging a fee to those that would want
to purchase them --- that seems only fair).

Thanks for your time.
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