Is Social Security solvent? If not, what can be done about it? What is chained CPI? Retirement assistance, be it Social Security and Medicare, remains a constant battle when Congress debates the budget.

Lately, social security has made the news quite a bit as various budget proposals have varied on how they would answer those very questions.

In his latest budget proposal, President Obama included the adoption of chained-CPI to calculate future social security needs and payouts to retirees. The budget the Senate passed did not. The Republican budget that Paul Ryan issued didn’t, but included other cuts.

Host Carmen Russell-Sluchansky spoke with Mark Rom, director of the Master’s Program in American Government at Georgetown University, and Max Richtman, president and CEO of the National Committee to Preserve Social Security, to discuss the state of social security.