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Reagan's vision for Social Security reform April 13th, 2005 It has been over sixteen years since President Ronald Reagan saluted us from the steps of Marine One and left the world stage. Yet the power of his vision is still being felt. While it was not the centerpiece of his Presidency, Ronald Reagan was an early advocate of personal accounts for Social Security. Through his leadership he was able to achieve what many believed was unthinkable: defeating the Soviet Union, revitalizing the economy and pulling the spirit of the American people out of the malaise inflicted by the Carter presidency....

The Associated Press blares the headline that all conservatives have been dreading: “GOP Considers Dropping Personal Accounts.” The story begins, “Senate Republican leaders are considering whether to seek Democratic support for Social Security legislation without the personal accounts.” The story continues, “top Republicans discussed an approach under which they would effectively acquiesce in an attempt to test the waters for bipartisan legislation without personal accounts.” What would be included in such legislation? The story cites “extending the payroll tax beyond the current $90,000 in income” and “raising the retirement age.” It also refers to a proposal advanced by Sen. Robert...

A powerful but phony argument against creating personal accounts within Social Security is that the retirement program cannot afford it. The so-called transition cost to go to a partially private system is often estimated to be $2 trillion. Per person, that's about $6,700, not counting babies and others who don't pay tax. But instead of getting angry, taxpayers should be wondering why it costs so much to get some folks partially off Social Security and how much more it's going to cost for everyone to stay aboard. They'll find that letting a younger worker own a tax-funded retirement account is...

The chairman of a conservative group supporting private retirement accounts within Social Security has challenged the AARP to a debate on the issue, but the Goliath AARP won't bite at the jabs put out by the political David of USA Next. Charlie Jarvis, chairman of USA Next -- which styles itself as a conservative alternative to the 35-million-member AARP -- has called out the powerful lobbying group to hold a public debate on Social Security, preferably on a college campus. "Our two organizations have been at the forefront of a number of key issues that are critical to our members,...

It was Day 35 of President Bush's 60-day Social Security sales blitz, and Radio America talk show host G. Gordon Liddy was worrying aloud. Now that Bush had convinced many people that Social Security was a Ponzi scheme headed for collapse, Liddy wondered, why was he was having such a hard time selling his proposal to let younger workers open personal investment accounts? "We've only been at this for two months," said Allan Hubbard, the president's chief economic advisor and one of 28 administration officials who hit the airwaves this week to talk up restructuring. "It takes time." Yet as...

Senate Republicans are considering temporarily sidetracking President Bush's plan for personal investment accounts under Social Security, hoping Democrats will then join compromise talks on legislation to restore the program's solvency. Several GOP officials said Republican leaders discussed the possibility privately this week, recognizing that unified Democratic opposition to the accounts has stalled efforts to advance Bush's top domestic priority. At the same time, these officials said GOP leaders were wary of leaving the impression that they intend to abandon the president's proposal to allow younger workers to invest a portion of their payroll taxes independently. Any shift in tactics has...

If the President and Republicans in Congress are going to be successful on Social Security reform, they need to advance legislation that focuses on personal retirement accounts, without tax increases or benefit cuts. The problem with the message coming from Washington is that all the proposed "solutions" to fix Social Security solve Washington's problems not the workers'. The focus needs to be on solving the workers' problem, which is that Social Security pays too little, not too much. The average worker is hearing that the politicians in Washington think Social Security pays too much and, therefore, benefits must be cut....

Sens. Rick Santorum, John Cornyn and Rep. Adam Putnam spent the last Congressional recess talking to voters in their communities about Social Security reform. I was invited to dial into a conference call with these gentlemen today to hear their feedback. Sen. Santorum has encountered huge crowds out at his town hall meetings and reports an enormous amount of interest in this issue. The big difference between these most recent meetings and similar town hall meetings he attended a few weeks ago is that folks have a whole lot more knowledge and are more ready to acknowledge the existence of...

More young Americans believe in the existence of UFOs than the future existence of Social Security. But in spite of our generation's deep skepticism, we've been left out of the national debate. Ostensible concern for our generation is invoked incessantly under the hackneyed banner of "for our children and grandchildren," but the opinions of these very people are nowhere to be seen on the national stage. Students for Saving Social Security is beginning to fill this void. Social Security reform concerns our generation more than any other, and it concerns us now: When we graduate, our jobs and salaries will...

SEN. HARRY REID (D-NV) VS. SEN. HARRY REID (D-NV)_______________________________________________________   ON MONDAY, REID SAID WE NEED TO SAVE SOCIAL SECURITY Reid: "After All, There Is No More Positive Agenda Than Saving Social Security." (Sen. Harry Reid, Op-Ed, "First, Put Aside GOP Plan," USA Today, 3/21/05) BUT ON WEDNESDAY, REID SAID SOCIAL SECURITY CRISIS IS IN "THE MINDS OF REPUBLICANS"  Reid: "Today's Report Confirms That The So-Called Social Security Crisis Exists In Only One Place: The Minds Of Republicans. In Reality, The Program Is On Solid Ground For Decades To Come." ("Social Security Outlook Unchanged: Trustees," Reuters, 3/23/05) 

IS THAT SO, MR. MINORITY WHIP? "The government isn't obligated to keep paying what it currently pays out." Democrats Have Half a Game Plan on Social Security House Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer dropped by our offices yesterday, so we put him in the hot seat on Social Security. It was fun, if heated at times, and what we learned is just how much this issue is still turning on politics, not the merits of reform. He also told us the current Democratic thinking behind the party's decision not to offer a plan of its own. To do so now, he...

ALBUQUERQUE, March 22 -- President Bush (news - web sites) concluded a three-state swing to sell his plan to restructure Social Security (news - web sites), warning Democratic opponents Tuesday that they will suffer political consequences if they continue to oppose his proposal without providing one of their own.Flanked by Republican Sens. Pete V. Domenici (N.M.) and John McCain (Ariz.), Bush invited Democrats "to come to the table" to help devise a solution to shore up Social Security's finances. "I believe there will be bad political consequences for people who are unwilling to sit down and talk about the issue,"...

Labor unions opposed to personal accounts in Social Security have been pressuring the financial firms handling their pension funds to stop supporting President Bush's plan. It's working: Much of the financial community has been thoroughly intimidated, and that's too bad. As with many anti-reform groups, unions give flawed, hypocritical and misleading reasons for opposing personal accounts in Social Security, a key aspect of Bush's reform package. Unions compare investing to gambling — yet their pension funds are chock-full of stocks. They portray Bush's personal-accounts plan as a boondoggle for Wall Street, when in fact — as the nonpartisan group Factcheck.org...

WHO WOULD benefit from Social Security reform? Opponents like to talk about a windfall for Wall Street fat cats, but that’s just a red herring to divert our attention from the real issue. The real beneficiaries would be working-class and middle-class Americans. Right now about half of working Americans are participating in the growth of the American economy through investments in stocks, bonds and mutual funds. But about half are not. And it’s the latter half — mostly those who make less than the median income — who would benefit from Social Security personal accounts. At last they would be...

Union leaders have been among the most vocal opponentsof privatizing Social Security. Their opposition is some-thing of a mystery, because union workers would be amongthose who would gain the most if Social Security were trans-formed to a system of individually owned, privately investedaccounts. Because a privatized Social Security system wouldprovide a higher rate of return, union workers would receivefar greater benefits than they would under the currentSocial Security system. In contrast, traditional SocialSecurity fixes, such as raising payroll taxes, would severe-ly harm union workers.

As part of a stepped up White House effort to reclaim the debate over Social Security, Vice President Dick Cheney headed west to campaign alongside a Congressional leader whose support will be crucial in selling the controversial overhaul plan to wary lawmakers. Cheney was set to appear Monday with Rep. Bill Thomas, the powerful chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, in Thomas' central California congressional district. Since the committee controls Social Security and tax legislation, the White House is counting on Thomas to steer the plan once lawmakers have negotiated a bill. Over 66 percent of voters in...

by Stephen Moore and Lawrence Hunter President Bush has been heroic in pushing personal investment accounts for Social Security. But he's still got the wrong marketing strategy. At his press briefing Wednesday, Bush again stated that personal retirement accounts are insufficient to make Social Security permanently solvent. With all due respect, Mr. President, you're wrong. The chief actuary of Social Security has scored four separate personal-accounts plans as achieving full solvency without tax increases or benefit cuts. The President makes this mistake because he is receiving bad economic and political advice. The misconception that personal accounts are inadequate not only...

WASHINGTON Mar 16, 2005 — Democrats forced the House's first vote of the year on Social Security Wednesday, but wary Republicans declined to take a stand on the personal accounts at the core of President Bush's plan for revamping the Depression-era program.

According to a just-released poll, three-fifths of voters age 55 and older believe that offering personal retirement accounts to younger workers is a good idea, so long as nothing changes in their own Social Security benefits, with AARP members slightly more likely to say personal accounts are a good idea than non-AARP members, according to a new poll released today. The survey found that a commanding majority of senior voters want Congress to act now to shore up Social Security for future generations. Sixty five percent of AARP members and 66 percent of non-AARP senior voters believe significant changes are...

One of the tactics frequently employed by left-leaning politicos and activists (including Teddy Kennedy, Barbara Boxer, and Harry Reid, who represent the phalanx of the left wing of the Democrat Party in the U.S. Congress) is to introduce into the public debate a "MacGuffin," to use film director Alfred Hitchcock's term for a plot device that diverts viewers' attention from the real issues at hand. Under Hitchcock's not infrequently perverse direction, the MacGuffin became a means of manipulating the audience away from discovering in advance the ultimate resolution of a film's conflict. The Democrat Party has most recently employed this...