What's The Difference?

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None of this satisfied Cohen and Wyss. Both worried that Gore and Bush were committing the whole non-Social Security surplus to being given away in tax cuts or spending programs. Wyss in particular asserted that Standard & Poor's long-range forecasts show that when "we get out 25 years we have a real problem making this economy function" because of the enormous strain that baby-boomer retirements will continue to put on Social Security, Medicare and other entitlement programs. He fears that neither the Bush nor the Gore program would save enough of the surpluses to begin building reserves adequate to deal with this threat.

"OFF TRACK" ON TAXES Reischauer too is not wholly satisfied with either program. Both candidates are "off base" on taxes, he says. He would prefer a tax plan that would move back toward the low-rate, broad-based, simplified reform that Congress enacted in 1986 and then began pulling apart again.

But Reischauer adds a more cheering thought: "If three years ago we could have looked at the conversation we are having now, we would have said, 'What are these people complaining about?'" He and Feldstein are especially cheered by the prospect of paying down the national debt by at least $2.4 trillion over the next 10 years. Feldstein calculates that would reduce the debt to less than 10% of gross domestic product--a ratio that "hasn't been seen in any of our lifetimes."

In other words, neither the Bush nor the Gore program may be ideal--but even the most intense partisans cannot call either a prescription for disaster.