President Bush has highlighted Social
Security reform as a top priority during his
second term. The President has not presented
a detailed plan for reform. Rather, he has put
forth guidelines for Congress to consider in
the development of legislation to create personal accounts within a program in need of
“wise and effective reform.” The President
has acknowledged that other changes would
be needed to address the system’s projected
long-range funding shortfall. In recent years,
reform ideas have ranged from relatively
minor changes to the current pay-as-you-go
social insurance system to a redesigned program based on personal savings and
investments modeled after IRAs and 401(k)s
