Free Republic

The conventional wisdom since at least December has been that President Bush would fail to get Social Security reform through Congress. On this occasion, the conventional wisdom was right. Even the most die-hard advocates of reform know that it's extremely unlikely that Congress will enact anything. For a president to fail in his signature domestic initiative of his second term is no small thing. Yet the political impact of that failure may not be substantial. Democrats have hoped that they could make Republicans pay for broaching the issue, and Republicans that Democrats would pay for obstruction. But it's not clear...

A majority of likely voters (52-40%) favor proposals to allow younger workers the choice to invest a portion of their Social Security taxes in personal accounts, according to a new poll conducted by Zogby International for the Cato Institute. Younger voters support the chance to invest by an enormous majority (66-23% among voters under 30). The poll also found that Americans believe that opponents of President Bush's Social Security reform proposals have an obligation to put forward an alternative plan to solve the financial crisis that is about to engulf the current system. By an overwhelming 70-22% margin, voters said...

Yielding to my contrarian impulses, I decided to see if I could figure out a good reason for Republicans and other Conservatives to oppose the privatization of Social Security. And I did! Going to the Social Security Administration website and using the Quick Calculator there to estimate what I’m likely to receive when I retire, not too many years from now, I see that I will receive the maximum benefit, about $2,000 a month in 2005 dollars. Now, my other investments, including my PRAs (Private Retirement Accounts, but I call them my “401k” and my “Roth IRA”) will yield a...