I remember Bush got a lot of flak in the press over his attempts at partial privatization of Social Security, with a payroll tax going into named accounts inves

I remember Bush got a lot of flak in the press over his attempts at partial privatization of Social Security, with a payroll tax going into named accounts invested in broad-based equity indexes. (The details differ substantially, but it was somewhat like making 401(k) contributions mandatory and deducted from every paycheck.) Increasing the size of the investing class and putting names and yearly balance statements on accounts (so voters will call bloody murder if the legislature raids the funds like they currently do with Social Security) both seem extremely useful to me. Though, increased transparency would likely force reductions in benefits for current retirees, with current workers being the beneficiaries. Also flooding so much money into the major indexes would likely bring down investment returns, but likely resulting in a slight narrowing of income inequality.