[Mill John Stuart]

Yes, but wouldn't it be better to actually hurry SS on to it's well-deserved demise? If there is not enough SS tax income to cover SS obligations to retirees around 2018, then encouraging people to put their SS taxes into private accounts, rather than into the SS trust fund, would make the shortfall worse. The worse the shortfall, the sooner this socialistic transfer of wealth from the lucky rich to the unlucky poor can be put behind us. President Bush is a lot smarter than liberals give him credit for being.

[Jaysun]

Yes, but wouldn't it be better to actually hurry SS on to it's well-deserved demise? If there is not enough SS tax income to cover SS obligations to retirees around 2018, then encouraging people to put their SS taxes into private accounts, rather than into the SS trust fund, would make the shortfall worse. The worse the shortfall, the sooner this socialistic transfer of wealth from the lucky rich to the unlucky poor can be put behind us. President Bush is a lot smarter than liberals give him credit for being.

I agree, I was just making an off the cuff"remark. Private accounts are brilliant. However, I don't think it'll work quite like you say. The shortfall would be covered by the so called transition cost ($2 Trillion?) so the demise of the traditional SS system would still be delayed. The thing about private accounts is that they end the "rob Peter to pay Paul" Ponzi scheme cycle. Once that door is opened, we can eventually move to stop forcing people to participate.