The future of research is interdisciplinary, and will quickly take us into areas that today we cannot even foresee, ... This building gives us the space and the flexibility to go where the imagination of our faculty takes us.

Individual accounts offset some of the benefit reduction you'd otherwise see.

[Some analysts think next year's Congressional elections already pushed reform to the 2003 agenda.] I don't actually think Sept. 11 will have any long-term impact on the Social Security debate, ... 2002 is an election year, so I always thought Congress would take up the issue in 2003.

The Social Security surplus is always being spent. Now it's going to defense and rebuilding rather than paying down debt. From a psychological standpoint, spending it may even be good for privatization. Opponents might use that surplus as a hedge, saying we've got money in a lock-box and don't need to privatize.

That surplus is being spent on everything the government does from rutabaga research to the war in Iraq. If Congress is going to spend like a drunken sailor, take the bottle away from them.

I don't think either one of them is really telling the whole story. What Bush is saying is that if you eat your spinach, you'll be able to have some ice cream for dessert. Al Gore, on the other hand, just wants to pretend that the spinach doesn't exist.

You have no legal right to those benefits at all. There is nothing in the world that is less guaranteed than a politician's promise.

I think you'll see the beginning of a renewed push.

This is an exhausted administration. It's going to be very hard for [them] to come out with a big new initiative.