Though President Bush named a Social Security commission Wednesday, his proposals to partly privatize the system have largely taken a back seat to tax cuts, and just as well.

        Polls show that support for putting some Social Security contributions in the stock market has fallen — albeit not as much as the stock market itself.

        “It's not a huge wane, but it's down a bit,” to just more than half, said Gary Langer, director of polling at ABC News. “I think it's fair to recognize that it still does have majority support.”

INTEREST WANES

Sixty-four percent of those in a Washington Post/ABC News poll in May 2000 said they supported a plan in which people who chose to could invest some of their Social Security contributions in the stock market.    Since then, the Standard & Poor's 500 Index has fallen about 12 percent, and the Nasdaq Composite Index is down about 41 percent.    Last month, the Post/ABC pollsters asked the same question. This time, 53 percent of those asked favored the plan.

        Mr. Langer said it's impossible to tell whether the market itself is the cause of the decreased support. Still, the correlation is no surprise to Henry J. Aaron, chairman of the National Academy of Social Insurance and open critic of the partial privatization plan.

        “A number of us critical of the approach have been saying for three or four years that as soon as there's a big drop in the market, there will be a drop in support,” Mr. Aaron said. “It was predictable.”

        But his problem with the plan has less to do with the stock market and more to do with its specific shortfalls.

        Social Security works as a pipeline instead of a savings program — payroll taxes from today's workers go to today's retirees. But under Mr. Bush's plan, a small amount of money is diverted from the Social Security pipeline into individual accounts, therefore less will be available for current and near-future payouts, Mr. Aaron says.

        The need to reform Social Security comes because a large number of baby boomers retiring in the next decades means more money will be leaving the system than going into it by 2016. And then by 2038, the trust funds will be exhausted and the program won't be able to afford its payouts. (A recent government report revised previous estimates and extended the system's solvency by one year.)

        Mr. Bush's plan would give Americans the choice to put 2 percentage points of their 15.3 percent total earnings tax (half of which is paid by the employer) into private accounts eligible for stock market investment. The idea is those funds would grow faster than the government rate, making those who invested less of a burden on future workers.

        That's appealing to Ron and Shannon Sweeney of Deerfield Township. The young couple supported Mr. Bush's plan last fall and continue to support it, despite the stock market fluctuations.

        “In no way, shape or form would that deter me” from supporting a partial Social Security privatization, Mr. Sweeney, 31, said. His wife is 30. They will reach full retirement age about the same time the Social Security trust fund is estimated to run out.

        Throughout the 11 months the pollsters have been asking the question, such 18- to 44-year-olds have shown the highest level of support for the Social Security stock market plan. Even last September, after the market already had stumbled considerably, 76 percent of those aged 18 to 30 supported investing some Social Security in the stock market.

        That fell by 13 points to 63 percent approval last week. But the over-61 crowd also saw their support fall by 13 points, from 43 percent in September to 30 percent in April. And the younger set still had the highest approval rate. (Age breakdowns for the May 2000 poll are not available.)

        Mr. Sweeney thinks that the market will rebound and will suit him better in the long run. “The bottom line is that it will continue to go up,” he said. “It's a better model than the 3 to 5 percent the government guarantees.”

        Craig Copeland, senior research fellow at the Employee Benefits Research Institute, also said younger Americans have the time to weather any market upheaval. (EBRI is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization for policy research and education on economic security and employee benefits.)

        “The ones that believe in the individual accounts say it doesn't matter,” Mr. Copeland said of the recent bear markets. “In the long run the stock market outperforms anything else.”

        Republicans say these numbers — and the roller-coaster on Wall Street — are not the reason for the delayed action on Social Security reform. In fact, Mr. Bush reintroduced the plans as part of his sweeping budget proposals in February.

        Also that month, he announced a commission to study the idea of allowing Americans to invest some of their payroll taxes in private retirement accounts. That commission was appointed this week, co-chaired by former Democratic New York Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan and Richard Parsons, AOL Time Warner's co-chief operating officer.

        Mr. Aaron said the success of the commission will depend on its members. Too many like-minded Republicans would jeopardize the group's legitimacy; too much diversity would jeopardize any hope for a consensus. A similar commission chartered by President Clinton ended with three vastly different proposals on fixing Social Security.

        Legislators and the president will first address his promised $1.6 trillion 10-year tax cut.

        Rep. Rob Portman, a Republican from Terrace Park and the House liaison to the White House, said Mr. Bush's priorities have always put Social Security reform after education and taxes.

        “The issue of Social Security is a very sensitive political issue, so even if the market had stayed strong it would have been difficult to deal with it in the first few months of the year,” Mr. Portman said. “Frankly, there's just not time to do it all right now. ... it's not being ignored, but it's just not on the front burner right now.”

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