Another key part of the Social Security equation is slowing the rate of growth of benefits to ensure the system's solvency. The administration has floated the idea of changing how Social Security benefits are adjusted over time, pegging their indexation to inflation instead of wage growth. This would create substantial savings. Republican Sen. Robert Bennett from Utah has a proposal to keep the more generous wage indexing for lower-income workers and slowly phase in the stingier inflation indexing for the wealthy (in keeping with this priority, survivor benefits should be made more generous, and Social Security's disability benefits left untouched). The burden of the savings would therefore fall only on those who can most afford it. What is this if not "shared sacrifice"?
More controversial in GOP circles is Sen. Lindsey Graham's proposal to deal with solvency by raising the cap on payroll taxes from its current $90,000, thus subjecting more of the income of the wealthy to the tax. This is both a tax increase and one solely on the better-off -- in other words, ideal liberal policy.
All these ideas could be part of a reform deal. But Democratic opposition to personal accounts could prevent it, as well as the parties' contrasting theories of the welfare state. Liberals generally want it to cover as many non-poor people as possible, so that there is a big, powerful political constituency for government. Republicans should want to limit governmental dependence to those who can't fend for themselves. GOP proposals on Social Security are drifting in the right direction -- toward maintaining the program as social insurance for the poor, offering uplift in the form of personal accounts and squeezing the governmental dependence of the fat and happy.
So, stick it to Ken Lay. Pursue economic justice. Level the playing field. Stiff George W. Bush's rich friends. Apply any demagogic slogan you like. And do it all while making Social Security better and stronger.