SOCIAL SECURITY

摘要

Free-market crusader stephen moore learned over the years that the quickest way to bring an abrupt end to a conversation was to mention two words: Social Security. He remembers a White House meeting in the mid-1980s at which he raised the idea of overhauling the program as a way to cut the deficit—and a top Reagan Administration official pretended to have suddenly gone deaf. Years later, Moore brought it up as Newt Gingrich and his wrecking crew were drafting the Contract with America, which would be their manifesto for taking over the House. Again, no sale. "It was one thing every Republican said was off the table—even these revolutionary Republicans," Moore recalls. So he was more than a little shocked when he went to Austin in 1999 to meet the Texas Governor, who was putting together a presidential campaign, and George Bush himself brought up Social Security—not just tinkering with the program but making the most radical change of all. "I just want you to know," Bush told Moore, "that I'm really committed to these private investment accounts."