Republicans embrace Obama’s offer to trim Social Security benefits

[dreamnightwind]

90. Thanks I had never seen that article

It's an excellent read. Some choice cuts:

http://www.counterpunch.org/2004/10/30/how-monica-lewinsky-saved-social-security/

Participants at the Harvard conference conceded that severe technical problems beset efforts to introduce commercial practices. The existing program has low administration costs whereas running tens of millions of small investment accounts would be expensive. The secret White House team sought to finesse the problem by pooling individual funds and stripping down the element of choice or customer service. But Summers was unhappy: as one Team member now recalls it, "Deputy Secretary Summers was fond of saying that we had to guard against the risk of setting up the Post Office when people were used to dealing with Federal Express". And pooled funds were also to be avoided because they would risk government control of business.

...

Clinton was so desperate for an approach that would prove popular that he was even prepared to disappoint Wall Street.

...

Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan was willing to see the budget surplus pledged to Social Security but he denounced the plan to invest the trust fund in equities on the grounds that it would lead to government interference in business. A writer in the New York Times, January 25, 1999, warned that if the trust fund was allowed to invest in stocks and shares it would be impossible to prevent the politicization of investment: "The danger is that Congress will meddle, for example, steering funds into environmentally-friendly companies rather than, say, tobacco companies."