"The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them."
-Albert Einstein

The Social Security reforms that Dubya's been talking up seems to be getting more and more mired in the DC quagmire, according the news reports.

To me, that's no surprise. While the thinking behind Bush's plan is reasonably sound, the specifics come into the public square with a distinctly elitist twinge, of the supply side variety. While the Bush team recognizes that "personal accounts" are the cornerstone to transforming our society in a more voluntary, "ownership" direction, they have not, IMO, paid enough heed to Einstein.

Private accounts start to feel to me like the (thankfully) ill-fated HillaryCare idea from the early 90s...complicated, and missing the point.

Rather than create yet another "government program," why hasn't Bush called to expand IRAs? Right now, vast subsets of the population can't use them. And why not make them more beneficial to the lower end of the economic strata, by excluding IRA contributions from federal taxes?

At the same time, why not allay (or at least neutralize) the Democrats class-warfare counter attacks? Many Social Security benefits go to seniors who are doing quite well, financially, reaping what are in effect windfall rates of return. Go to a golf course mid week and you can see them everywhere. Fully tax SS benefits for those who are doing OK financially.

And, yes, raise either the early-retirement or full-retirement age, to ensure that the looming SS shortfalls are avoided.

Expanding the existing IRA plan implies a long term irrelevancy of SS. As more and more of the population builds its own retirement nest egg, it becomes far more plausible to transition SS to a safety-net program vs. an intergenerational Ponzi-scheme, which it is now.

Such an approach begins to "transcend politics," in an Einsteinian way.

-Robert Capozzi