Gore Presses for Details of Bush Social Security Plan

Vice President Al Gore challenged what he said Wednesday was George W. Bush’s “smug assumption” that he need not share his Social Security plan with the voters, and said the Republican was waiting “to spring it on you after the election.”

As the exchange between the presumptive Democratic and Republican presidential nominees over the retirement program grew increasingly aggressive, Gore repeatedly accused Bush of holding a “secret plan,” warning union officials meeting in this gambling capital to be wary of a Social Security privatization that would “risk your retirement savings in a game of stock market roulette.”

Bush and his advisors have indicated he favors stepping away from the traditional operation of Social Security, built around a 12.4% payroll tax paid equally by employers and workers and placed in a trust fund. Rather, they have suggested that individuals may invest some of their retirement money in stocks and bonds.

Bush, however, has not spelled out what changes he would make, if any, in the retirement plan, saying he would sketch the broad outlines in coming months. Details will come after the election, he has said.

The Clinton administration flirted with such a private investment plan over the last two years, but decided it was unnecessary and too risky.

At issue is how to build up the retirement fund to meet the dramatically increased demands that the aging baby boom generation will place on it beginning in the next decade.

The Bush camp argues that nearly half of all Americans hold stocks and bonds and moving some of the Social Security funds into those investments will take advantage of its long-term potential to gain value.

Gore counters that this would undermine the integrity of the government’s retirement program. Gore aides maintain that if a person retires when the market is down, the retiree’s Social Security nest egg would also fall.

“While Social Security may be 65 years old this year, we’re not ready to retire it, no matter what George Bush and his advisors say,” the vice president said.

Gore once again criticized Bush’s overall economic plan, built around what the Texas governor says is a $483-billion, five-year tax cut and what the vice president says would amount to a $2.1-trillion cut over 10 years.

Gore specifically predicted that any Bush plan to shift money in the payroll tax trust fund would bankrupt Social Security.

“How does the Bush plan propose to deal with the bankruptcy of Social Security that his privatization scheme would cause?” Gore said to a convention of the New Jersey AFL-CIO. “He doesn’t even bother to provide an answer. He just smiles and goes on with the smug assumption that there’s no need to share with you the details of what he wants to do.

“He wants to spring it on you after the election,” the vice president said. “He may be underestimating the capacity of the American people to figure out for ourselves what the details would mean for each and every American. I call on him to tell us what is in his secret plan to privatize Social Security.”

In various interviews and public statements, Bush advisors have suggested that the Republican candidate is leaning toward shifting one-sixth of the payroll tax collections to investments in the market.

Dan Bartlett, a spokesman for Bush in Austin, Texas, said the governor would, within a few weeks, present a “framework” for a plan that would allow younger workers to shift some of their Social Security savings into private accounts. But he said details would wait until after the election when a plan could be fleshed out with Congress, which would have to approve any such changes.

“Gov. Bush does not believe it is risky to let a younger generation of workers divert a small portion of their Social Security benefit into an account that has shown over time to result in a higher rate of return,” Bartlett said.

In an already edgy campaign, the candidates’ Social Security prescriptions represent some of their sharpest differences, with both men seeking to raise voters’ concerns that the other would threaten the bedrock of the American retirement system.

Gore said Wednesday that the most commonly cited privatization plan would shift to private investment 2% of income that is taxed under Social Security withholding--or one-sixth of the 12.4% tax. Under it, he said, “the Social Security trust fund [would] go broke by the year 2024, if no additional money was put into the trust fund and benefits were not cut.”

Bartlett responded that without some sort of reform, bankruptcy was inevitable. He accused Gore of advocating a plan that will “just push the date out.”

Describing Social Security as “a solemn compact between the generations,” the vice president said Bush has “left the door wide open to raising the retirement age.”

So far, in spelling out his proposals, Gore has said he opposes raising the retirement age beyond the current plan to increase it over a number of years from 65 to 67.

He has also proposed changes that would allow mothers who stay home with young children to receive larger retirement benefits by crediting their Social Security account as if they had remained in the work force during those years. The provision would cost about $100 billion over the next decade. He would also increase payments to widows and widowers, whose benefits can be reduced when their spouse dies.