I'm Pete du Pont with the National Center for Policy Analysis. Yesterday we talked about George W. Bush's plan for your money: He wants to give it back in a tax cut. So what are Al Gore's plans?
Gore's plans involve Social Security reform; he would match contribution to individual retirement accounts. One estimate has the tax increase to pay for it as high as 40 percent, because Gore promises to subsidize anybody making less that $100,000 a year for contributions to the retirement accounts.
The Wall Street Journal reports, if everybody eligible participated the plan would cost the government $160 billion a year, not the $35 billion Gore claims. For Gore's plan to work, only half of middle and upper-income could participate.
Gore's other plan, to use the Social Security surplus to pay down the debt, will cost about $34 trillion for Social Security's unfunded liabilities, meaning a 25 percent tax hike or benefits cut.
That's not the government's money he's talking about, it's yours.
Those are my ideas, and at the NCPA we know ideas can change the world. I'm Pete du Pont. Next time, Reich's right on vouchers.