To the editor:

In his Feb. 8 column, George Will argued that giving President Bush another four-year term would release the administration from “election pressures” and free them up to make “tough” decisions. One of the “reforms” Will writes about concerns the administration plan to let workers invest part of their Social Security taxes in private retirement accounts. On its face this looks great: let workers invest their own money and hopefully make a decent return on their money.

The trouble with the plan is that Bush has promised the same money to two different groups of people! Today’s Social Security taxes support today’s retirees. If Bush’s plan were to be implemented, the FICA taxes that the government would be collecting from workers would drop dramatically (the money would instead be going to private retirement accounts). The scandalous part of Bush’s plan is that he doesn’t say where he would come up with the money to pay current retirees.

Does he assume we won’t miss the hundreds of billions of dollars not coming into the federal treasury any longer? Does he plan to cut benefits to current retirees? Does he plan to pull out the government’s credit card again?

Will’s portrayal of himself as a serious, fiscal conservative does not square with his support for the administration’s smoke-and-mirrors budget shenanigans. If this is the sort of “reform” we can look forward to in a second Bush term, we’re all in trouble.

Doug Nickel,

Baldwin