IF HIS PROPOSALS ARE SO MINOR, PASS THEM:

The Prompt and Nearly-Painless Path to the President's Ownership Society (Tom Giovanetti, 09/03/2004, Institute for Policy Innovation)

The President is right that Social Security must be transformed into an ownership system where workers actually own their accounts. Today the Social Security system has made promises to retirees that it cannot possibly fulfull. This is a real liability that must be dealt with somehow, and soon. With every year of inaction, the problem becomes bigger and the solution becomes more painful. Because bankruptcy of Social Security and the impoverishment of America's seniors is not an option, clearly some administration and some Congress will have to fundamentally reform Social Security.

Fortunately, there is an almost painless way to permanently fix Social Security and to create the Ownership Society that the President envisions. That way is IPI's Progressive Proposal for Social Security Personal Accounts, which has been introduced as legislation as the Ryan-Sununu bill. This plan gives all Americans the opportunity to put about half of their payroll taxes into personal accounts which they own and control. The transition to such personal accounts would be paid for through a combination of federal spending restraint and government borrowing.

Reasonable spending restraints coupled with federal borrowing is the least painful way to gain the enormous benefits of personal accounts. The only other options, massive tax increases and significant benefit cuts, would be much more painful to the economy and are political suicide to any politician who embraces them.

What Ownership Society? (Robert Reich, TomPaine.com)

You won’t be hearing much at the Republican Convention about jobs and wages, because job growth has stalled and wages are stagnant. But you will hear about something Republicans are now calling the "Ownership Society." The notion is to expand private ownership through more tax cuts on capital investments, tax credits for saving and privatized Social Security.

Sounds nice, but here’s the problem: The Republican rhetoric assumes most Americans can save and invest.

They pay Social Security taxes, don't they?

Posted by Orrin Judd at September 3, 2004 4:42 PM