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Friday, May 20, 2005

Even the rats tried to get off the Titanic
Posted by Jill | 10:22 AM

And Robert C. Pozen, whose ideas about Social Security evolved into George W. Bush's plan to eviscerate Social Security and replace it over time with private accounts, has had just about enough of being associated with Bush's plan:

Robert C. Pozen, the business executive who developed the theory behind Mr. Bush's plan to trim Social Security benefits in the future, urged the president today to drop his insistence on using a portion of workers' taxes to pay for individual investment accounts.

This was one of two blows during the day to Mr. Bush's policies on Social Security and retirement saving. In the House, Representative Bill Thomas, the Republican chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, disregarded the methods favored by the president to encourage workers to save for retirement - mostly tax incentives for the affluent - and offered completely different proposals of his own.

The president's Social Security and retirement measures have faced trouble in Congress all year, and the developments today raised further doubt about their prospects.

On the question of Mr. Pozen's defection, Trent Duffy, a White House spokesman, said, "The president is committed to a voluntary personal account as part of a comprehensive Social Security modernization plan."

On Mr. Thomas's stance on retirement saving, Mr. Duffy said Mr. Bush "understands and welcomes the chairman's ideas."

Mr. Pozen, a member of Mr. Bush's advisory commission on Social Security in 2001, said at a forum at the Treasury Department that the president's approach to investment accounts would destroy the chances for a Social Security bill in Congress and would make it more difficult to resolve the long-term financial problems facing the system.

He developed the technique known as progressive indexing that Mr. Bush embraced last month as the way to reduce the long-term cost of Social Security and get closer to the goal of permanent solvency for the system.

Under the technique, the promised retirement benefits of workers earning less than about $20,000 would be fully protected, but other workers' promised benefits would be reduced on a sliding scale as their income increased. In all cases, benefits would at least keep pace with inflation.

Unlike Democratic lawmakers who oppose on principle including investment accounts as part of Social Security, Mr. Pozen believes some form of private accounts could be useful.

But explaining his position in an interview after the forum at the Treasury, he said the president's plan to let workers divert up to 4 percent of their payroll taxes to private accounts would reduce tax revenues and lower guaranteed retirement benefits too much.

"The accounts are just too large," Mr. Pozen said.

He suggested Mr. Bush consider a surcharge on payroll taxes for people who earn more than $90,000 a year, currently the ceiling on which Social Security taxes are paid, and the possibility of using some of that added revenue for private investment accounts.

"I believe some new revenue in the system is probably necessary for a legislative solution," Mr. Pozen said at the Treasury Department forum, which was called to generate enthusiasm for the Bush administration's approach to Social Security.


This is because Pozen still has at least a marginal toehold in the reality-based community, unlike the snake oil salesman who has repeatedly invoked his name.
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