eorge W. Bush was planning to talk about reforming Social Security on Thursday, but now we hear that it has been pushed back two weeks while details are worked out. In our latest issue, NR editorialized that the best way to advance the debate would be for Bush to lay out some principles: "He should stress that current recipients will not see their benefits reduced; that anyone may remain in the present system if he wishes; but that workers will also have the option to put some of their payroll taxes in private markets. A detailed plan is not necessary at this stage, and it is probably unwise to give Gore a convenient target for demagoguery. What is important is that the Republicans, for once, take the offensive on Social Security."

Lawrence Kudlow has written on the website that Bush also needs to draw a connection between Social Security reform and tax cuts. Gore is arguing that Bush's tax cuts threaten the program. Bush should respond that tax cuts will increase economic growth, thus pushing back the day of reckoning. He should also explain that reform of Social Security, by freeing up capital, offers benefits for the economy as well as for individuals. Reform should be put in the context of the transition from a paycheck economy to a wealth economy.

Any proposal to let individuals invest Social Security funds will have to take account of the recent turmoil in the markets. Gore surrogates will doubtless say that that turmoil shows the riskiness of private investment. Bush should pre-empt the attack. The fact that the new investors have not panicked — have instead, by and large, seen market declines as buying opportunities — shows that the public's financial sophistication is growing and that individuals can be trusted to manage their money. The last month, in other words, is an argument for privatization, not against it.

Once Bush gives this speech, by the way, can his critics please knock it off with the line that he dodges all the issues?

Zoo Logic
Shortly after six people were shot at the National Zoo on Monday evening, here's what Al Gore had to say in response at a New York fundraiser: "We really have to have mandatory child safety trigger locks." Police said the zoo shooting, which left one boy brain dead, may have been gang related. Apparently Gore thinks gang members won't be able to nut their way through "mandatory child safety trigger locks."

On The Site
John J. Miller reports from the Supreme Court on today's partial-birth abortion case, and the Heritage Foundation's Todd Gaziano asks whether the Supreme Court meant what it said in 1992 about the regulation of abortion.