I'm glad you broke your rule here. Of course Bayh's statement is a wonderful gem; I just hope the Democrats will use it well and use it often.

On the topic of "insurance": of course the traditional informal old age insurance was having a bunch of kids. Obviously Americans aren't doing that anymore. I don't know the figures, but most people who have kids only have 1-2 these days (not the typical 2-3-4 of our childhood) and of course the number of childless adults has increased dramatically.

In 20-30 years the needy elderly will be even more needy. The chances that they'll have a pension won't be great, and there won't be that many younger relatives to help them out.

I watched that interview. Bayh is interesting; he's going to have to plus up his charisma, though, if he wants to be the nominee in '08.

I though this from Josh was funny:

How can you brand it with something that is already the established term for it? The term proponents of privatization themselves always chose? It's like branding me 'Josh'.

See also the new, more aqua Professor DeLong:

I think that the outlines of a potential deal on Social Security that would be good for the country are becoming clear:

1. Shift responsibility for maintaining actuarial balance off of the Congress and onto the Social Security Administration--have it gradually raise (and lower) the retirement age or the benefit-rule bend points in order to keep the system in projected balance.

2. Uncap FICA and apply it to all wage income in order to top-off private add-on accounts for the poor and boost benefits for widows.

3. Make enrollment in private accounts automatic (it's done automatically on your 1040) but voluntary (you can fill in an extra form to get the money the IRS earmarks for your account back as part of your refund).

4. Use the government's existing Thrift Savings Plan as a vehicle for managing private add-on accounts--and keep its choices restricted: churning and extra administrative costs caused by asset shuffling are not your friend.

5. Mandate that in fifteen years a commission consider and recommend whether or not two percentage points of FICA should be diverted and added to the add-on accounts as a forced savings program.

The problem is that the GOP leaders in Congress have shown time and again that they can't be trusted. I could see the Dems agreeing to some kind of responsible compromise and the GOP pulling a fast one in conference committee. Maybe SS is too big and scary of an issue for that to happen, but I would have thought the same thing about Medicare. There's plenty of arcana that can fly below the average Joe's radar screen.

You're all too right about the dangers. On top of it, you can't even predict what might be done in the back room, because there's no principled policy agreement around which the GOP is likely to coalesce. They've got lots more divergent underlying agendas on this one that the Dems do.

This is one case where the sausage machine should be shown in action live on C-SPAN. But if they won't even let Dem Members of Congress into the committee room...

There may be a good policy in there somewhere. But if someone is going to play the "let's get a good deal" game they'd better define their package soonest.First, so they're the party of the future and are defining a la Bayh what that should entail.

And this should be an opportunity to deal with some of the procedural problems. Say any final will simply not get their vote unless there principles are met, sign up AARP et al on the key principles list, and insist they won't be steamrolled with 11th hour changes. At least a week for the pubilc to be able to review the proposed legislation. Or something. Use this to force some "party of the peoples' goverment" platform as well.

Yes, I linked to DeLong's post this morning. As I wrote there, that's a policy I could support (especially since I've been saying nearly all those things for thirty years).

I thought Bayh's appearance on ABC was very interesting especially in light of his vote in opposition to Rice's confirmation last week. My conclusion at the time was that he was running for the Presidency. What better way for a moderate to gain some cred with the Left wing of his own party (which he'd need to do to secure the nomination). Very interesting.