Most conservatives fail to grasp this political maxim because they believe limiting government must go hand in hand with pain and austerity. To the contrary, limiting growth of the public sphere can only come about as a byproduct of increasing the breadth and growth of the private sphere. By restoring the link between efforts and rewards, economic growth and jobs are created, thus reducing the demand for government programs and government spending.
Shrinking the relative size of government entails limiting the overall growth of government spending while the private sector forges ahead with solutions that leave everyone better off. That requires reforming programs as we did with welfare reform, which both limited future government spending growth and provided private solutions to replace failed government programs. Americans instinctively distrust government, and they invariably will choose private solutions to problems whenever one is available. It is the job of conservatives to devise those private solutions that will raise prosperity, expand private ownership, increase personal freedom and help shrink the relative size of government.
That is the genius of the Social Security reform plan put forward by Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., and Sen. John Sununu, R-N.H. It illustrates that by restricting overall federal spending growth just a few percentage points, over time Social Security can be made solvent and the safety net made more secure by allowing workers to save about half the payroll tax in personal retirement accounts without raising taxes, cutting promised future benefits or hiking the retirement age.
As Ed Crane wrote in a recent Wall Street Journal op-ed piece, "In addition to more control over your life through personal accounts, all the ancillary benefits of ownership should be enthusiastically played up by the president: the pride one has in having provided for his or her own retirement, as opposed to being a supplicant of the state; the security of knowing the government can't take the money away (which they do whenever they raise the payroll tax or push back the retirement age); and perhaps most of all, the knowledge that your loved ones may benefit from your labor. Inheritability is a hugely underexploited benefit of personal accounts."
The Social Security surplus now being squandered on pork and special-interest payoffs should be saved as Congress originally intended. As Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan said, "We need, in effect, to make the phantom 'lockboxes' around the trust fund real" by allowing workers to place their share of the surpluses into personal retirement accounts. By allowing workers to save their share of the surpluses in their own personal-account "lockbox," Congress could make a dramatic down payment on solvency this year without changing Social Security one iota - without cutting anyone's promised future benefits, without raising anyone's taxes, without making anyone work longer.
It's an idea whose time has come. It is an idea sufficient Senate Democrats could embrace. Let's stop the raid and start the personal retirement accounts.