Taking on Social Security

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    Bush has promised to give G.O.P. lawmakers the cover they need by spelling out the specifics of his plan and then generating so much public support that opposing it will be the risky position. "I have an obligation to lead on this issue," the President told the Wall Street Journal last week. The President had better be prepared to offer additional reassurance when House and Senate Republicans hold a retreat in West Virginia next weekend, says House G.O.P. conference chairwoman Deborah Pryce. "That is his best opportunity to sell his plan to us. We in leadership have impressed on him [that] the members of Congress are his most important audience right now. It's not an easy lift." Republican lawmakers have also told their leaders that the best cover would be a respectable number of Democrats willing to join with them as they jump off the cliff.

    That would take nothing short of a public ground swell, which is why Bush plans to return to many of the techniques that got him re-elected. The Republican National Committee is putting together a war room on the issue, organizing workshops and town halls around the country, placing advocates on regional radio and deploying a rapid-response team in Washington. Bush is also counting on outside organizations. Moore, for instance, is starting a new one called the Free Enterprise Fund, with backing from conservatives on Wall Street and in business. A group called Progress for America, which has close ties to Bush political guru Karl Rove, went on the air last week with its first television ad, comparing Bush to F.D.R. Democrats quickly circulated a blistering demand by Roosevelt's grandson James Roosevelt Jr. that the group quit using his grandfather's image: "To compare the courage it took to provide a guaranteed insurance program for our seniors and the disabled to the courage it will take to dismantle the most successful social program in history is simply unconscionable."

    One of the most crucial interest groups will be Wall Street. But where, precisely, is its interest? The general assumption has been that investment firms stand to gain a windfall from money that would flow into the new accounts. At the other end of the Street, the bond market could turn thumbs down on the grounds that trillions in new government borrowing would hurt the economy, raise interest rates and make the dollar suffer. But both assumptions may be overblown, financial experts say. Though University of Chicago economist Austan Goolsbee has estimated that the financial-services industry could reap $940 billion in fees over the next 75 years from private accounts—real money, even by Wall Street standards—some firms say the accounts look more like a headache than a bonanza. "Wall Street is at best ambivalent. The size of the accounts is nothing big," says Robert Pozen, chairman of MFS Investment Management. "How many Wall Street firms do you know that are running after people with $5,000 accounts?"

    At the same time, the bond market may not be an obstacle. Snow heard caution but little naysaying when he made a pilgrimage to Wall Street last week. In a meeting on Tuesday with bond traders, he explained that the government might have to borrow $100 billion to $150 billion a year for 10 years to finance the new private accounts. Participants say the traders told Snow that the markets could easily absorb that much. As a bond executive said, "Mr. Secretary, that's a rounding error in our business."

    The most ardent Republican supporters of private savings accounts say that Bush, having decided to take the plunge, should go all the way.

    He's expected to propose allowing workers to put one-third of the 6.2% payroll tax that is deducted from their paychecks into individual accounts. But advocates like Gingrich and antitax activist Grover Norquist want to know, Why not more? "It's going to take exactly the same amount of energy," Gingrich says. "You are better off trying to get the largest possible account." However big the plan, Bush recognizes that the politics inside his party are daunting. "Part of my effort," he told TIME last month, "is going to have to be to convince [Republicans] that taking it on is the right thing to do." But that might be easy for Bush to say. He doesn't have to run again.

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