Bush must accept addon accounts if he wants a Rose Garden moment

[papau]

No one - including Democrats - is against improving the nations saving rate and helping workers accumulate assets. Suggestions for automatic 401k enrollment unless opted out, and for tax credits rather than deductions so as to make saving more valuable for the lower paid workers, are all on the table.

Addon accounts - as proposed by Clinton and Monyihan - encourage workers to save more for their retirement, without making any major changes to Social Security itself.

Rudolph G. Penner, Urban Institute senior fellow, said "If I could get a pure add-on account while benefit growth, I'd grab that deal in a minute." and of course the suggested slight modification in the wage index - namely to go from pre-tax wage index to after-tax wage index - does get our Urban Institute friend his reduced benefit growth rate.

To force additional savings, add-on accounts could obviously be funded with tax hikes, which also has the advantage of avoiding the Bush borrowing. Or FIT Taxes could be used to fund a government grant of $2000 into each under age 18 child's account (to the extent this funded with additional deficit/borrowing there is obviously no additional net savings in the United States!).

Are conservatives only interested in saving workers from big government - meaning they want cuts in the Social Security program's guaranteed benefit to future generations.

Or do Bush and the conservatives actually want a bill that is signed in the Rose Garden.

[REACTIVATED IN CT]

1. Automatic enrollment in 401k is already.....

an option. Don't recall when that was added (?EGGTRA) - but am quite sure it is allowed if a plan sponsor decides to do so.