Hope springs eternal among policy makers in Europe’s beleaguered periphery. At five minutes to midnight in Athens, and with a bank run having started in Madrid, these policy makers cling to the forlorn hope that somehow Germany is going to relent on its strong opposition to euro bonds.

To establish Social Security as a sustainable, solvent program, changes are necessary. A wide range of reforms have been proposed in recent years, and many of those proposals include changes both to future benefits and to payroll taxes.

At this AEI event, Sweden's minister of finance, Anders Borg, will explain Sweden's consolidation efforts, which were based on a mixture of expenditure cuts and tax increases.

Greece's economic and political unraveling could not be coming at a worse moment for President Obama. The crisis has the potential to send shock waves not simply through Europe but also through global financial markets on the very eve of the U.S. presidential election.

Congress must reform Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, but reform will require a conversation on how the two organizations contributed to the fiscal crisis.

Elizabeth Warren is again at the center of a political controversy. Despite her insistence that she is part Cherokee, based upon “family lore” and her observation that some in her family had “high cheekbones like all the Indians do,” she has failed to produce any concrete evidence to substantiate her claim.

The annual Social Security Trustees Report, released on Monday, confirms that the program is significantly underfunded. After decades of delay, Congress and the next president will need to take steps to restore Social Security's finances and improve Americans' retirement income security. Although it might seem counterintuitive, one positive step toward...