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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: LindyBill who wrote (94866)	1/12/2005 7:35:31 AM
From: LindyBill	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793846

Tell That to Your Children Try denying Social Security choice to a coffee drinker who orders a venti decaf nonfat extra-hot no foam with whip three-pump vanilla latte By George Will Newsweek Jan. 17 issue - If you are 62 (old enough to begin drawing Social Security benefits) or even if you are a spring chicken of 50 (old enough to be a member of the second largest secular organization in the nation, AARP, second to the American Automobile Association), try to remember the way it was when you were, say, 15 and you wanted to listen to the popular music of the day. You would fidget around the radio dial, flitting from one to another of the—if you were fortunate—three or four stations that played the kind of music you fancied. And you could just hope that the disc jockeys would choose to play a few of the songs you especially wanted to hear. Now, try to explain that bit of ancient history to your children. Before you can bend their ears, you will have to remove the earphones that connect them to their iPods, in which they can store as many as 10,000 songs of their choosing, which they can hear whenever they choose. Then try to explain to them why they should not be allowed to choose to put a portion of their Social Security taxes in tax-personal retirement accounts. Good luck. The argument about Social Security reform has highly technical facets, but it also has this easily comprehended dimension: The age cohort that is least receptive to reform that enlarges individual choice is the elderly—a cohort composed of people who, all their lives, when they wanted coffee they ordered a cup of ... coffee. The cohort most receptive to reform, those ages 18 to 29, is composed of people who, when they want coffee, take a deep breath and order something like this: a venti decaf nonfat extra-hot no foam with whip [whipped cream] three-pump vanilla [three shots of vanilla syrup] latte. Long ago—two years now seems that way—some Democrats were at least tepidly receptive to Social Security reform along the lines President Bush favors. At a Dec. 3, 2002, conference of the centrist Democratic Leadership Council, Bill Clinton said: "If you don't like privatizing Social Security, and I don't like it very much, but you want to do something to try to increase the rate of return [on Social Security assets], what are your options? Well, one thing you could do is to give people 1 or 2 percent of the payroll tax, with the same options the federal employees have with their retirement accounts, where you have three mutual funds that almost always perform as well or better than the market"—which means much better than the return on Social Security revenues that buy government bonds as I.O.U.s—"and a fourth option to buy government bonds, so you get the guaranteed Social Security return and a hundred percent safety just like you have with Social Security." Which leaves unclear why Clinton does not very much like what he calls "privatization" but which might more accurately be called a limited menu of voluntary choices. Or it could be called the common denominator of the three rival recommendations that were issued in 1997 by factions on the commission on Social Security reform appointed by ... the Clinton administration. Be that as it may, last week Ron Brownstein of the Los Angeles Times reported that the DLC, and Third Way, a new group of centrist Democrats, will oppose any plan to permit the diversion of a portion of payroll taxes into personal accounts. Congressional Democrats seem almost solidly opposed to allowing Americans the choice of personal accounts. These Democrats are putting themselves in opposition to the high value that contemporary Americans, and especially young people, place on "autonomy." So Democrats are on a collision course with the constituency that is the vessel of their hopes: voters 18 to 29 are the only age cohort John Kerry carried. So beyond their desire to deny the president any substantial victory, what are Democrats thinking? If Democrats are thinking that people are more interested in security than choice, they still have to convince young people that unreformed Social Security is secure. Are Democrats thinking that there is no political price to be paid for being completely negative, offering no idea except the status quo? If Democrats are thinking that proposing changes in Social Security is politically dangerous, they should stop licking their wounds and consider how they got them. George W. Bush has twice won while promising reform. But if 9/11 had not happened, he might have begun his push for reform in 2002. Sen. John Sununu, the freshman Republican from New Hampshire, won in 2002 while endorsing reform (as did Elizabeth Dole and others), and he says "there is a positive correlation between support for personal accounts and political success." The public—particularly the iPod-using cohort, which is a steadily increasing portion of the public—has figured something out. In the words of a much "misunderestimated" president, "Where the people are the government they do not get rid of their burdens by attempting to unload them on the government." So said the sainted Calvin Coolidge, 12 years before Social Security was born. © 2005 Newsweek, Inc. URL: msnbc.msn.com