Posted on: Thursday, February 3, 2005

EDITORIAL
Bush has chance to serve the country well

President Bush used the emotional uptick of the successful elections in Iraq as the backdrop for his ambitious agenda for his second term during his State of the Union address last night.

But the real subject of this speech was Social Security. While Bush spoke of compromise and a willingness to listen to ideas to fix Social Security's solvency problems, his focus was clearly on his plan to privatize portions of the system.

He made a strong case, but last night's speech was not even close to convincing on one central point:

Will allowing younger Americans to invest portions of their Social Security payments in private investment accounts do anything to "save" Social Security?

Bush likes to argue that Social Security is going "broke." That's a grand overstatement of what the system faces in the next 20 to 40 years.

There is agreement that in time some adjustments will have to be made so that the fund remains capable of paying full benefits to all participants.

And it was encouraging that Bush assured Democrats in Congress that he was willing to listen to all ideas on this front, from scaling back benefits to increasing payments to boosting the retirement age.

But in the end, Bush returned to his core idea: allowing people to set aside some of their Social Security payments into private investment accounts they can control.

More details, obviously, will emerge in the days and weeks ahead. But last night's speech failed to answer key questions about this ambitious and potentially history-making proposal:

First, how much will this plan add to the federal debt over the next several decades? When the nation was running a surplus, it might have been possible to argue that the extra money would cover the costs. No more.

Second, how much will average workers see their currently guaranteed benefits cut under this plan? And further, will those cuts apply to those workers who choose to opt out?

On foreign affairs, Bush stepped away from the saber-rattling tone of previous speeches. There was no "Axis of Evil" this time, although he made it clear that his administration had a close eye on the activities of such nations as Syria and Iran. Again, there was no recognition of the obvious security threats to the United States and the world simmering in Asia, including tensions on the Korean peninsula, across the Taiwan Straits and in South Asia.

But clearly, Bush enters his second and last term confident and determined to make his mark at home and abroad.

If he can make a success of Iraq and agree to a compromise solution to the problems of Social Security, he will have served this country well.