Robert Pozen Opposes Bush Social Security Plan
Denounces carve-out accounts:
Think Progress: Robert Pozen, whose "Cprogressive indexing" plan was firmly endorsed by the president at a high-profile press conference last month, has said that Bush should drop his plans for private accounts. Just out from CQ...
[Pozen] said Wednesday that Bush should back away from the other half [of his Social Security plans] -- the insistence that individual investment accounts be created in the program.... "I would advise the president to say that carve-out accounts are no longer required," Pozen said in an interview after a debate at the American Enterprise Institute with Brookings Institution scholar Peter R. Orszag, a leading critic of Bush's proposal. Bush, Pozen said, should indicate that he is "willing to have a package that, if otherwise satisfactory, does not have carve-out accounts."...
Pozen challenged the wider theme that Bush has used to justify private accounts:
For many conservatives, the philosophical importance of creating accounts from the payroll tax cannot be understated. They believe it would turn many lower-income workers into investors, ushering in a new "ownership societ." Pozen disagrees. "Talk of an 'ownership society,' Pozen said Wednesday, is'a weak basis' for arguing for an overhaul."
