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I suppose there are no ideological rivalries as intense as those between people who basically agree. And so it is with Social Security reform, the controversial political battle the White House engaged unsuccessfully in 2005, and now says it intends to engage again. Some reformers are characterizing the White House's current efforts as a complete sell-out, the worst combination of higher taxes, lower benefits and no personal accounts. Here's reform advocate Peter Ferrara:

President Bush plans to try to revive his Social Security reform effort by offering the Democrats tax increases to get them to go along with a package of long term cuts in future promised benefits. White House minions have been on the Hill for most of this year trying to sell this plan to Republicans. Personal accounts are gone from the reform effort, or will receive only token support to be given up to close the final deal with the Democrats.

Based on my conversations with White House sources, Ferrara's claims are basically lies. In order to make a dialog with Democrats possible, the White House has announced repeatedly that it will at least consider all possible solutions, as indeed it should. That's not to say that the White House has already pre-agreed to the worst possible Democratic solution. Of course Ferrara is spreading these lies in order to make the White House deny them, to get the White House on record as endorsing only pro-growth solutions. So in that sense, it's a good thing. But at the same time Ferrara is promoting an agenda of too-good-to-be-true solutions -- such as the budget-busting fantasy of funding personal accounts from general revenues. By promoting fantasies like that at the same time as he accuses the White House of selling out, Ferrara makes realistic solutions difficult to achieve.

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