The president leads.(SOCIAL SECURITY)(Social Security reform)

IN a press conference, President Bush provided more details on his Social Security reform. He continued to express support for personal investment accounts. He also came out, for the first time, for reductions in the growth of benefits for middle-income and upper-income workers. His proposal drew strong protests from the left, and scattered protests from the right.

John Kerry argued that Social Security benefits could be maintained if Bush's tax cuts were repealed. But he is engaging in some sleight of hand. The casual observer might have thought that Kerry was saying that all promised benefits could be paid for if we just reverted to the average tax rate of 2000. In truth, Kerry envisions an average tax rate that creeps steadily upward--well above any level that America has suffered before. And why should middle-income and upper-income workers pay higher taxes in order to finance higher benefits for themselves? Surely most of them would prefer to keep that money rather than hand it over to the government for not-so-safe keeping.

Many liberals worry that a reduction in benefits for higher-income workers will undermine Social Security politically. The program has always been built on a kind of deceit. It has a strong redistributive component. But the redistribution is hidden. Everyone pays taxes to Social Security and gets benefits from it, and so everyone thinks that he is getting back what he paid in. Affluent voters do not complain about paying for the retirement of low-income workers because they do not notice that they are. The program would be much smaller and more manageable if it stopped robbing Peter to pay Peter. The liberal fear is that a more openly welfarist program that robbed Peter to pay Paul would forfeit Peter's enthusiasm.

But this fear is highly speculative. Most voters will not want to see large numbers of people face penury in retirement. The Democratic solutions on offer--raising taxes on the successful--would not be likely to make them any more supportive of the program. And the country should not have to put up with higher taxes and reduced investment opportunities because the consequences might be adverse to liberals' political interests somewhere down the line.

The change in benefits ...