The Galveston County Daily News

With President Bush coming to town, Galveston County’s alternate plan to Social Security will get a lot of attention.

As the hometown newspaper, we’re sometimes asked what we think of this plan. We’re open to changes in Social Security but don’t think the Galveston Plan is the best model for change. The plan has two problems.

The first is that it benefits workers at the top of the pay scale more than it benefits those at the bottom. We’ll admit that’s a hotly contested conclusion. We’ve followed the debate. We’ve studied the arguments on both sides.

The conclusions that make the most sense are those drawn from a study conducted by the Government Accounting Office in 1999. In general, the study found that the alternate plan benefited higher-paid employees. The study found that low-income workers would fare better under Social Security.

Obviously, that’s a problem that any attempt at reform should avoid.

The people who most need an adequate guaranteed income are those at the bottom of the pay scale. Any effort to reform Social Security must take that truth as a starting point.

The second problem with the Galveston Plan is that a worker can opt out of the deal. Some county workers have done so. Over the years, we’ve talked to some who cashed in their chips, bought a new car and started looking for work elsewhere.

What do they have to show for their time with the county? Nothing. No Galveston Plan. No Social Security.

What happens when those workers retire? The burden of caring for them probably will fall back on the public. That burden is one of the things Social Security was designed to alleviate.

If you think about the analogy between Bush’s proposal to reform Social Security and the Galveston Plan you’ll come to one conclusion. The analogy is awfully superficial.

Bush wants to let workers invest some fraction of their contributions in the stock market. The county’s alternate plan invests all of an employee’s withholdings and county’s contributions into conservative investments such as insurance annuities.

People who are looking at the Galveston Plan in hopes that it will shed light the President’s proposal should look elsewhere for illumination.

None of this is to say that it’s not time to make changes in Social Security. Social Security was a bold change when it was proposed in the heart of the Depression. People forget now how controversial that idea was. They forget the many changes have been made along the way to keep the program solvent.

More changes will have to be made if the program is to continue to guarantee people an adequate income after their working days are done.

We favor change. We’re just not convinced that the Galveston Plan is the blueprint.