Don Marron, the PaineWebber CEO, is not shy about declaring his support for Social Security privatization. Citing the steady stream of members of Congress who make the pilgrimage up to New York to see him, Marron says, "We have someone in here almost every week." According to PaineWebber, recently those visitors have included Democratic Senator Robert Kerrey of Nebraska, a leading advocate of privatization; Senate majority leader Trent Lott of Mississippi; Republican Senators Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania and Chuck Hagel of Nebraska; Republican Representative John Kasich of Ohio; and Democratic Representative Martin Frost of Texas.

And the company is not afraid to make the connection between policy and campaign contributions. "You know, New York City is the place they all come to raise money," says a PaineWebber official. And when they do, they're lobbied by the company before the check is handed over. "We see them when they come in with some fundraising project in mind. It's a two-pronged thing--money and public policy. We'll help with some dinner or some other event they are hosting." On a typical New York trip, members of Congress will make a series of such visits. "There are six or eight companies involved," says the PaineWebber official.

In 1997-98, PaineWebber's PAC delivered more than $50,000 to Congressional candidates, including Breaux, Gregg and Stenholm. PaineWebber executives also gave $352,000 to federal candidates during the '96 election cycle ('98 totals are not available yet), earning the company seventh place on a list of the Top 50 Individual Contributors compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics. Joining PaineWebber near the top were Merrill Lynch ($600,000, second place), Goldman, Sachs ($519,000, fourth place) and Bear, Stearns ($320,000, eighth place), with several top accounting firms, an insurance company and a leading lobbying firm rounding out the Top 10.

Marron of PaineWebber is especially concerned about moderate Democrats, since the GOP is solidly lined up in favor of individual accounts, called PSAs in the jargon of Washington, for "personal savings accounts" or "personal security accounts," or PRAs, for "personal retirement accounts." Not long ago, Al From, the head of the centrist Democratic Leadership Council, had lunch with Marron and another PaineWebber official. The DLC, whose purpose is to realign the Democratic Party away from its traditional alliance with the AFL-CIO, is strongly leaning toward NCRP-style privatization. The November/December 1998 issue of The New Democrat, the DLC's bimonthly magazine, is filled with a series of pro-privatization stories under the heading "Less Than Secure: Rebuilding Social Security for the 21st Century"; it includes a piece by Senator Breaux outlining the commission's proposals.

Even more forthright than Marron in lobbying for Social Security privatization is a brand-new coalition in Washington called the Alliance for Worker Retirement Security, which is expressly dedicated to free-market reform of Social Security. Launched last September with the backing of the National Association of Manufacturers, the alliance unites most of the business community in the nation's capital, including the US Chamber of Commerce, the Business Roundtable, the National Federation of Independent Business and the National Retail Federation.

Like the NCRP, the alliance is a second-generation conceptual offspring of the Cato Institute, headed by former Cato staffer Leanne Abdnor. The chairman of its advisory board is former Congressman Tim Penny, a Democrat with close ties to the DLC who is also a member of Cato's Social Security project. With a relatively small budget for '99--just $500,000--the alliance is a pure lobbying organization, designed to coordinate pro-privatization forces on Capitol Hill and vis-à-vis the White House. Though members of the alliance take somewhat varying approaches, all are agreed on the need to privatize at least some portion of the 12.4 percent FICA contribution taken out of wages.

For the most part, the financial and investment industry has largely stayed out of the alliance. "I have not made a big push to get them on board because I've been told they're not getting out front on this," says Abdnor, though lately the powerful SIA opted to join. In December the alliance assembled an even broader group of associations, corporations, organizations and lobbyists into a coalition called "Campaign to Save and Strengthen Social Security." Virtually the entire conservative movement showed up at a press conference organized by the alliance, from the National Taxpayers Union to Grover Norquist's Americans for Tax Reform, and including a handful of ersatz senior citizens' groups opposed to the AARP. A key participant is the American Legislative Exchange Council, a conservative group pushing privatization measures in state legislatures around the nation.

The interest of the National Association of Manufacturers in Social Security reform has dual origins, Abdnor says. One is quite prosaic: Big businesses simply dislike taxes and fear that, left unchecked, the Social Security system could command higher payroll taxes, including a bigger employer share. The other reason, she says, is more philosophical: By being compelled to acquire an investment portfolio, workers will find themselves with a vested interest in what happens on Wall Street. "Construction workers in Chile are reading the financial pages now," she says. "There'll be less of a mentality of us versus them."

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