Hmm. That Retirement Plan Sounds Familiar...

What do presidential candidates do when presented with a gift horse? They dismember it and sell the pieces for votes. And that's exactly what Al Gore plans to do Tuesday, when — hot on the heels of Republican rival George W. Bush, who has publicized a strikingly similar plan — he jumps on brand-new government "surplus" estimates and announces an ambitious retirement investment plan. According to the Washington Post, the spectacularly expensive savings-investment plan would help participants save up to $2,000 per year, while (here's the kicker) draining government coffers of roughly $200 billion over 10 years. The scheme would provide government grants to families who contribute to individual retirement accounts (at a rate of up to three government dollars to one individual dollar, depending on income level).

Gore, hoping to throw a preemptive elbow at any Republican encroachment on the Democrats' voting base, will tout the plan to middle- and lower-income families as a safer alternative to Bush's proposal to bolster Social Security funds using private investments in the stock market. Both plans, say economists, have the same essential goal — easing the government's burden of providing retirement resources for a burgeoning older population. That said, analysts add, both plans also leave something to be desired: Neither presents a plausible explanation for who will pay for the inevitable cash shortfall down the road, and both seem to stick future generations with the bulk of the bill. But all that hard truth hardly matters in an election year. These plans, for the moment, anyway, are about immediacy — and about capitalizing on a bountiful economy and a much-discussed "surplus." As the Democrats learned in the 1980s, talking about impending "hard choices" is the fastest way to lose an election. Lesson learned, Gore and Bush came up with these new, vaguely problematic blueprints, which are much less about financial realities than about winning the presidency.