Bad news, good news: (from
Washington Post)
A strong majority of respondents, 63 percent, do not think Social Security will have enough money to pay the benefits they are entitled to, and 74 percent think the system faces either major problems or is in crisis -- as Bush has asserted. The president also has at least general support from 53 percent of the public for the concept of letting people control some of their contributions to invest in the market.
However...
Support dropped to an even split when people were told that the cost of the transition to a new program could reach $2 trillion over time, as some forecasts project.
But above all....
And 62 percent said they would not participate in such a program if it meant their retirement income would go up or down depending on the performance of their stock picks -- which is the essence of Bush's plan.
Here's where we jump in with framing memes like "Risk Accounts", "Stock Crash", "Cutting guaranteed benefits", etc.
The WaPo report mentions Democrats split between a "Yes, but" versus a "Hell, no", with some Congressmen, such as Rahm Emanuel, proposing personal accounts as a supplement, leaving the existing benefits intact.
As Gene Sperling, President Clinton's economic advisor is quoted,
"All the president has shown is that you can vaguely talk about a free-lunch privatization proposal and not have that be decisively detrimental to your electoral outcome. There's a big difference between that and having a mandate to carve up Social Security by cutting guaranteed benefits and adding significant market risk."