Paul C. Light: The Last Time We Fixed Social Security

Paul C. Light, in the NYT (3-5-05):

[Paul C. Light, a professor of public service at New York University and a fellow at the Brookings Institution, is the author of "The Four Pillars of High Performance."]

IT is almost 22 years to the month since Representative Barber Conable Jr. strode to the floor of the House to defend a carefully constructed plan to save Social Security. Mr. Conable, a moderate New York Republican with whom I then worked, spoke with characteristic understatement. "This is not a work of art," he told a packed chamber. "But it is artful work."