MORE PEOPLE HAVE FAITH IN THEMSELVES THAN FAITH IN GOVERNMENT FOR THEIR RETIREMENT

From the Goldwater campaign, 1964, came a priceless story. The old lady in Appalachia was interviewed, saying no way would she vote for the Arizona senator "... 'cause he wants to take away my TV." "No ma'am," said her patient news media questioner, "Sen. Goldwater has proposed selling the T.V.A. the Tennessee Valley Authority." "Maybe," the old gal responded, "But I'm not taking any chances."

That same year, LBJ and a supportive national media mercilessly demonized Goldwater on Social Security. For 65 years, Social Security has been the "third rail" of American politics: Touch it and you die. How the world has changed since '64.

GOP presidential candidate Texas Gov. George W. Bush proposes a bold Social Security reform plan, featuring the chance to put 2 percent of your payroll taxes in a private account with your name on it and invest in the stock market and rises in the polls. Predictably, Vice President Al Gore attacked, demonizing Bush for yet another "risky scheme." This example confirms again a judgment previously ventured in this space: That Barry ahead-of-his-time Goldwater, his landslide defeat notwithstanding, is the most consequential loser in American history.

The Bush plan is really nothing that federal workers don't already enjoy. The feds have a thrift plan in which you can invest in precisely this fashion, whether you're a cabinet member, a United States senator or a janitor on Capitol Hill. In fact, then-Sen. Al Gore co-sponsored the plan in the 1980s and doubtless benefits himself from the very plan he now would deny to all the rest of us.

We know from extensive survey research that 30-something Gen Xers believe they're more likely to see a UFO than to receive Social Security benefits. This younger set overwhelmingly favors the Bush plan, with their only quibble being that it doesn't go far enough.

But what says the older set, those either already dependent on SS or who soon will be? As it happens, the American Association for the Advancement of Retired Persons met this month in Orlando with the vice president there in full demonization mode, said the Los Angeles Times. "To the chagrin of the most powerful lobby for older Americans," the Times reported, "Republican George W. Bush appears to have struck a vein of political gold with his call to allow workers to divert some of their Social Security payroll taxes into personal investment accounts in the stock market. At the AARP convention in Orlando, the appeal of the stock market as a partial substitute for SS received a surprisingly positive response among the very constituency that once feared any change in the program."

The sea-change in the political landscape is more evidence of another remarkable recent trend: The rise of the new Investor Class. When Ronald Reagan took office in 1981, only 19 percent of Americans owned shares of stock.

Today, by some measures, nearly 60 percent of American households are in the market, either directly or through a pension plan, a 401k or the like. Ask your friend, the line worker at our local Procter & Gamble plant, how many of them own a nice little chunk of P&G and how many favor a cut in the capital-gains tax.

The debate between Bush and the vice president yielded the following response from AARP convention attendee Stacey Miller. Said Mrs. Miller: "If they give me the money, I'm in charge of my own destiny. I have faith in me for my future. I have no faith in the government."

Welcome to the 21st century, Mr. vice president.

~Peter Kinder is assistant to the president of Rust Communications and a state senator from Cape Girardeau.