Private Accounts, Public Accountability

By MARTIN MAYER

SO few specifics of President Bush's Social Security proposal have been made public that it is difficult to say which will make trouble. But one person who should be seriously concerned about the details is Alan Greenspan, chairman of the Federal Reserve.

According to many reports, the Bush plan would require retirees who have chosen "personal accounts" to use most or all of the money in those accounts to purchase annuities to supplement the payments that will remain after the government recalculates their Social Security benefits. How large an annuity that retirees can buy - and thus what standard of living they may expect - will be determined largely by interest rates set by the Federal Reserve. That's a lot of power to concentrate in one conference room on Constitution Avenue.