THE REVOLUTIONARY:

Ownership society, anyone? (Michael Barone, May 17, 2004, Townhall.com)

It is an economy in which the ordinary citizen over the course of a lifetime accumulates significant wealth, well into six figures today for 55- to 65-year-olds, mostly in the form of residential real estate and financial investments. It is wealth they can tap by credit card borrowing and mortgage refinancing.

In the 1940s and 1950s, the FHA and VA home mortgage guarantee programs helped convert America from a nation of renters to a nation of homeowners. In the 1980s and 1990s, 401(k) plans and similar tax-free vehicles have helped convert America from a nation of noninvestors to a nation of investors. In 2002, about 60 percent of Americans were investors. And many of the young, who have not yet accumulated any net worth, expect to be, and will.

Government programs helped most Americans accumulate wealth in the form of real estate. For today's economy, George W. Bush has proposed government programs that would help most Americans accumulate more wealth in the form of financial investments. The most important of these is inclusion of personal retirement accounts in Social Security, which Bush campaigned on in 2000 but has not pushed in Congress. They also include deferred savings plans in his budget this year, programs to increase homeownership and expansion of health savings accounts, a form of which were included in the 2003 Medicare bill. On occasion, Bush has referred to them together as programs designed to create an "ownership society," to help people accumulate wealth and economic independence.

But he hasn't sounded that theme much lately. He missed occasions like his 2004 State of the Union Address and other speeches on economic themes. Word is that the White House has had trouble making the numbers for these programs add up.

Whatever the case, Bush risks missing the chance to be as consequential a domestic president in a second term as he has been a foreign-policy president in his first. Unless he campaigns hard for personal retirement accounts in Social Security, he will not have the political capital to get Congress to pass them in 2005 or 2006.

Who cares if the numbers add up? This kind of transformation has to be the centerpiece of the second Bush term and he'll need 60 Senate seats to achieve it. He had a mandate to privatize Social Security in 2001 but Senate Democrats fobade it.

Posted by Orrin Judd at May 17, 2004 8:55 AM