Some skeptical as Bush sells Social Security plan

Correction: Because of incorrect information from the Associated Press, a Page One story yesterday about President Bush's Social Security meeting in New Hampshire misstated the political resume of US Representative Jeb Bradley. He was first elected in 2002.

PORTSMOUTH, N.H. -- Just a few miles from the cavernous airplane hangar where President Bush told 1,000 cheering supporters about his plan to save Social Security yesterday, Pamela Cawley, working at a sub shop downtown, said she cannot imagine handing over a portion of her retirement into a private investment account.

"With the stock market, it's up and down, up and down," said Cawley, 31, who was fixing lunches at Doreen's Sub & Pizza Shoppe on Islington Street. "I don't see how investing our futures in something that's got that much risk could be beneficial."

All along Islington Street, the main drag in this middle-class city of 21,000, a handful of workers echoed Cawley's skepticism about the president's plan to partly privatize Social Security, the centerpiece of his second-term domestic agenda. Their reservations suggested the long, hard road Bush is likely to face as he barnstorms the country selling his plan to the American public and Congress.

Although several leading US senators say the plan is unlikely to win passage this year, the outcome will ripple through New England's economic and social fabric. About 2.4 million people in the six states receive more than $2 billion a month in benefits, the latest figures show.

Bush spoke for about an hour before a nodding, applauding audience of supporters invited by local Republican officeholders to the event at Pease International Tradeport. Sitting on a stool on stage, the president explained his plan to a hand-picked panel -- a retired Air Force member, a fourth-generation dairy farmer, a single mother -- all of whom praised his efforts as a way to strengthen the 70-year-old Social Security system.

The town hall-style meeting was the type of carefully managed event the president used to great effect on the campaign trail, and he vowed to lobby until his message takes hold in coffee shops, corporate offices, and legislative hallways across the country. New Hampshire was his eighth such stop since pitching the plan in his State of the Union address earlier this month.

"I will continue traveling over and over and over again, making it clear to the American people that there's a problem," Bush said, as he outlined a dire forecast for one of the nation's most sacrosanct entitlement programs, which he acknowledged is often called the third rail of American politics.

"In 2018, the system goes into the red, and every year thereafter the situation gets worse," Bush told the audience. "2027 will cost the federal government $200 billion above and beyond payroll taxes to make the promises. And in 2042, the system goes broke. Those are facts. Thirteen years isn't very far down the road."

In an interview published yesterday in several newspapers, Bush said he has not ruled out raising taxes on those who earn more than $90,000 a year to help bolster Social Security's finances. Under the current system, payroll taxes are paid only on the first $90,000 in wages.

In yesterday's speech, he cast his plan in populist terms. Workers would be allowed to invest up to a third of their payroll taxes in individual retirement accounts that government-hired managers would invest on their behalf. Workers age 55 and older would see no change in their Social Security benefits, the president said, while younger workers who earn $35,000 a year could retire with $250,000 and a foothold in what he called the ownership society.

"The investor class -- when you think about that, it means only certain people are capable of investing," Bush said. "I disagree. . . . I believe the so-called investor class ought to be every American, regardless of his [or] her background."

With that, the crowd, which included National Guard troops in uniform, young technology workers, and retirees, applauded enthusiastically. "Absolutely awesome," said Pauline St. Amand, 60, an office manager from North Hampton, N.H., who was beaming after the rally. "I just like his plan. He's doing a good job. He has to do something about Social Security."

As the president thanked US Senators Judd Gregg and John E. Sununu, both New Hampshire Republicans, for their support and ribbed them about their eagerness to ride Air Force One back to Washington, he left one name unmentioned: Jeb Bradley, a first-term Republican representative from Wolfeboro.

Bradley said during his unsuccessful run for the US House in 2002 that "privatization is not the answer" to Social Security's problems. That slight on Bradley's home turf made clear the president is willing to use his political prestige to turn up the pressure on recalcitrant legislators.

"You don't have to worry about your senators," Bush told the crowd. "They're people who understand we have got to address the problem."

Six workers who were not invited to Bush's speech shared the president's view that Social Security is in trouble. Cawley, for example, said she believes there is "no chance of my Social Security being there when I'm ready to retire."

But many interviewed said the president's prescription missed the mark, calling it either too risky or not flexible enough to allow workers to make their own investment decisions.

"What I don't like is the government is still going to decide where the investment goes," said Avis Jones, 56, co-owner of the Portsmouth Breadbox, a sandwich shop on Islington Street. "We should have the choice to decide where to invest our own money."

Jones said she is not comforted by the president's promise that recipients in her age group would not see benefits cut. As it is, Social Security is not generous enough, she said.

"As we all know, I'd have to go live at the poor farm if I lived off Social Security," she said.

At NorthEast Casket Co., general manager Richard J. LaPierre, 54, said he does not see the need for big changes. "I would just leave it the way it is," Pierre said. "It's one of those things where it's been doing what it's been doing for all these years, and it's been doing it well, so why try to fix something that's running smoothly?"

Material from the Associated Press was used in this report.