Bush: Personal Accounts Do Not Solve the Issue

As everyone's noted, President Bush said today that "Personal accounts do not solve the issue [of Social Security solvency]." This is true, but it's not what he's been saying.

In North Carolina:

I like the idea of having an account where people say, I own this, and are able to look at a quarterly statement to watch their own asset base grow. And I like people being able to say, I've got an account that the government cannot take away; it's mine. (Applause.)

Some people say, well, you can't afford to do this. My answer is you can't afford not to do it -- if you look at the chart.

[The chart shows the increasing disparity between payroll taxes and SS payments. Earlier in the speech, regarding the chart, Bush said:] And so step one of my strategy is to continue saying to the American people, we have got a serious problem. In other words, sometimes they say, is it serious, is it a crisis -- look, whatever you want to call it, just look at the chart and you come up with the conclusions. It is serious because if Congress says no to the President, we're not going the move forward on this, imagine what the solutions will be when the $200 billion hits, or the $210 billion a year, or the $300 billion. I mean, you're looking at either major tax increases, major cuts in benefits, major cuts in other government programs or massive debt. And so now is the time to move. And that's what I'm saying to the Congress.

In Pennsylvania:

Now, once people see there's a problem, the next question is going to be, what are you going to do about it? And I have an obligation to participate in the process. As Rick mentioned, my predecessor, President Clinton, addressed this issue. And there was a lot of interesting ideas that were floated about how to permanently fix Social Security....

Now, I've got some ideas myself. And one of the ideas is to allow younger workers to take some of their own money and set up a personal retirement account. (Applause.) The idea is to allow a younger worker to be able to earn a better rate of return on his or her money than that which is being earned as a result of the Social Security money going through the federal government. It's called the compounding rate of interest.

...

Personal accounts alone will not solve the problem. But personal accounts coupled with other reforms that fix the problem will make it more likely a younger worker is going to get the benefits that the government has promised -- closer to the benefits the government has promised.

Note the shift from "personal accounts alone" to "personal accounts do not."

In the President's Feb. 12 Radio Address:

Social Security will go broke when some of our younger workers get ready to retire, and that is a fact. [Actually, it's not, but nevermind.]

And as we fix Social Security permanently, we must make it a better deal for younger workers by allowing them to set aside part of their payroll taxes in personal retirement accounts. ...it would replace the empty promises of the current system with real assets of ownership.

The President may not have explicitly asserted that his plan would make Social Security solvent, but he implied it, just like he implied that Al Qaeda and Saddam were in cahoots. The context makes it clear.