Mr. President, Let's Share the Wealth By DAVID BROOKS

[papau]

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/08/opinion/08brooks.html

Mr. President, Let's Share the Wealth
By DAVID BROOKS

resident Bush said he was open to other people's ideas on how to fix Social Security, so I hope he'll listen to mine.

My idea starts with a blunt political observation. Personal accounts - as they are currently envisioned - are going to be hard to pass. Every important Democrat opposes them. Jim McCrery, the Republican who is chairman of the House Social Security subcommittee, says the president's plan will have to fundamentally change if it is to have a chance.

So my idea is this: If the president's current version of personal accounts stalls, he should consider another version - one that is more likely to win broad support, and that achieves all the goals of an "ownership society."

The personal accounts I'm thinking of would be inspired by a proposal called KidSave, which was floating around in the late 1990's. KidSave was championed by Bob Kerrey when he was a Democratic senator from Nebraska, but in its different iterations it attracted support from a range of Democrats (Lieberman, Moynihan and Breaux) and Republicans (Gregg, Grassley and Santorum).

Under one version of KidSave, the government would open tax-deferred savings accounts for each American child, making a $1,000 deposit at birth, and $500 deposits in each of the next five years. That money could be invested in a limited number of mutual funds, but it couldn't be withdrawn until retirement.<snip>

They would be the first step in a broader ownership agenda. They would pave the way for education accounts and expanded medical savings accounts. They might pave the way for other asset-based programs designed to give young people a better start in life, not just secure their retirement. They would cut across left-right polarities and prove an irresistible political force.

Even in this age of political deadlock, I can't believe that too many would be against a plan to give savings accounts to poor kids.

[Wright Patman]

1. No "means test"

means the children of billionaires will get the same payments as orphans. So, right, no one is against "poor" children receiving this. We just know it won't work that way in practice.

This lack of means testing is also a flaw in Social Security, but at least you can make the argument there that the ultrarich did pay in over the years.

[papau]

3. Indeed via SS progressive design -the ultrarich lower the rate for the

rest of us - the middle class and poor pay a lower payroll tax than would result from a SS that excluded the rich.

And if you tax and do not give benefit to the rich via a "means test" you no longer have a program supported by everyone paying in and everyone getting a benefit - you instead have a WELFARE program.

[Wright Patman]

8. It looks to me as if

the grand design to retain the support of the ultrarich or even the plain rich by allowing them to receive Social Security isn't working out too well.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

6. Let's run the numbers

and see how big a "problem" that is. Suppose there are 560 billionaires in the US, and the population of the US is 280 million. Billionaires would then be 0.0002% of the US population, while non-billionaires made up the other 99.9998%. So is this really an issue?

Check my math. I think I got that right.

[asjr]

2. ANY idea Brooks has is certainly suspect. He must have

an ulterior motive.

[papau]

4. true - this sucks because it is not the Clinton add-on account that Monyih

signed onto in 1999.

Bob Kerry/Brook Plan was an early variation of getting income at retirement to the very poor - and not a very effective way to do that.

[stray cat]

5. The idea is to pave the way to demolish S.S. by using a good thing,

It is clever because the program in and of itself would be good. However, it depends on a post-Bush republican administration to perform the elimination of social security because it is "no longer needed" because of these investments.

[MISSDem]

7. This sounds good to me. Even if it meant the end of Social

Security, if every person (someday) would have a substantial amount at retirement time, that would be a good thing, IMHO, no matter what political party puts it in place.

[Cocoa]

9. as Brooks well knows

Bush's rhetoric about the ownership society is bogus.

Bush, the right wing, and Brooks himself, simply want to dismantle Social Security and other government programs, and all talk of compassionate agendas is just a bunch of hoo-hah. "Sharing the wealth" is anathema to these people, including Brooks.

[MISSDem]

10. I agree with you that their plan is to have smaller

government. And would that in and of itself be bad? No.

[Cocoa]

11. it would be bad

dismantling Social Security, Medicare, public education, that would be bad.