Are the Republicans stupid? Is the White House advocating policies that have been shown to be both useless and reckless simply because Republicans have no weapon in their economic arsenal other than ever larger tax cuts? For many on the left, it's tempting to think so, but that's probably not the case. There may be method to their madness: Since his campaign, Bush has been calling for a "restructuring" of Medicare and Social Security, and his idea of restructuring rests heavily on the private sector.

Bush wants to allow people to divert some of the money they pay to Social Security taxes into "private accounts" invested in the stock market. In the days of the market boom, this didn't seem like a terrible idea -- at the time, remember, betting your retirement on the fortunes of a high-flying firm like Enron was an eminently sensible thing to do. Well, we know how that story ended. Now, after the Wall Street scandals, voters may be more inclined to keep their money in old-fashioned, government-run Social Security. And so, pro-privatization Republicans find themselves with a problem: How do you get people to think that Enron is a better investment than Social Security? The answer is obvious: You make the government's finances worse than Enron's.

Many Republicans do actually believe, despite all evidence to the contrary, that supply-side tax cuts will result in national wealth like we've never seen. And the finances of the entitlement programs would have been shaky even without Bush's help. Still, there's reason to believe the White House wants to make the entitlements seem untenable, completely broken, and irreparable other than through privatization. The White House's 2004 budget, for example, includes a section called "The Real Fiscal Danger," in which the administration argues that while people are right to be concerned about Bush's current deficits, the shortfalls pale in comparison to the long-term financial problems we'll see in Social Security and Medicare. "Whatever judgment one reaches about the deficit of this year or even the next several years combined, these deficits are tiny compared to the far larger built-in deficits that will be generated by structural problems in our largest entitlement programs," the White House says. Translation: If you think this is bad, just wait.

The document concludes by calling for immediate changes in Social Security and Medicare. "We must not delay in enacting reforms to make these programs financially sustainable," it says. "Delay erodes the confidence of today's workers that Social Security and Medicare will be there for them when they retire. And delay increases the financial threat that we leave to our children and grandchildren."

But there are some liberal economists who don't believe Social Security faces any crisis at all, provided politicians have the will to suck it up and pay what they owe. The head of this group is Dean Baker, the co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research and the author, with Mark Weisbrot, of "Social Security: The Phony Crisis." Baker thinks that, with a few adjustments, Social Security can remain sound for the long term; he particularly objects to the notion that, come 2018, the Treasury is going to default on all the money it's been borrowing from Social Security. "These are government bonds we're talking about," he says. "You're talking about defaulting on bonds -- and if they do that, why would they default on Social Security bonds first? What about the bonds held by wealthy people? You're saying the government is not going to pay back the money it owes to old people?"

Baker says that Clinton made a strategic mistake when he began talking about "saving Social Security" in 1999. "That was a decision that came out of the focus groups," he says, because Clinton knew that Social Security is an enduringly popular program. But by saying that Social Security needed saving, Clinton was admitting that it was broken. And by admitting that it was broken, he let the Republicans come in with their privatization plans.

He also points to one idea for bolstering the finances of Social Security that could be an alternative to privatization: raising taxes. "I don't doubt at some point we will raise taxes. I'm sure we will," he says. "What is a little bizarre is that a lot of the discussion takes the position that we can't raise taxes, and I don't know what country they're living in."

But who will call for raising taxes? Certainly the Republicans won't, and therein lies the brilliance of their plan. If Bush is reelected, Social Security "reform" could be his main goal for his second term. John, who supports privatization, says, "I was in a meeting where one of the administration people came in directly from talking to the president. And the message from the president was: It's coming. We're going to talk about reform. It's coming soon." The Democrats, at that point, will face a choice. They can give in to Social Security reform. Or they can call for tax increases to "save" the program. Either one is a political victory for Bush.

Baker believes that Bush's package may become law. "After 2004, if they have control of the Congress, there's a better than 50-50 chance we'll see some form of private accounts," he say.

And John, who has been pushing for such a system for many years, is excited at its prospects. "I'm very optimistic, extremely optimistic," he says. "The thing is the alternatives are so much worse. If we do nothing, we see the debt climb."

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