Greenspan Fails to Follow the Dem Line

Alan Greenspan testified today before a Senate committee whose Democratic members desperately wanted him to condemn the private Social Security accounts proposed by Bush. Greenspan declined to follow their wishes despite repeated attempts by Chuckie Schumer to trip him up.

Squaring off against Democratic critics of President Bush’s proposal to allow younger workers to put some of their Social Security tax payments into private retirement accounts, Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan gave his cautious but emphatic endorsement to private accounts Wednesday.

He called personal accounts within Social Security “a good thing to do over the longer run.”

What was striking about Greenspan’s three hours of testimony to the Senate Banking Committee was not his caution — that, after all, is the temperament of the Fed chairman — but his tenacity.

Chuckie must be very disappointed.