The Free Enterprise Fund has issued their latest memo, authored by Steve Moore and chief Economist Larry Hunter.

The memo opens:

“The campaign to allow workers to invest part of their payroll tax contributions in real private assets through personal retirement accounts has been hijacked.”

Moore and Hunter warn the debate has shifted from personal ownership to a “tax-increasing, benefit-cutting, retirement-age-raising monster, devouring the very idea of an ownership society.”

More:

“We fear that in recent weeks President Bush and the Republicans in Congress have been suckered into a debate about shoring up the finances of Social Security, and have put on the table a series of unattractive options that voters will ultimately reject.”

The memo pushes hard the idea of preventing Congress from taking Social Security surplus cash ($90 billion this year alone) and diverting it into pork programs. If the Moore/Hunter proposal was adopted, that surplus money could be used to start a modest 2-3% personal account investment that would leave the door open for greater future investments out of the Social Security payroll tax.