Feldstein increases it by promising that workers will receive current-law benefits plus some fraction of personal account assets above and beyond what's clawed back. Here the Feldstein plan is likely to do better. The Gore plan's claimed savings depend entirely on the willingness of future Congresses to refrain from spending trust-fund surpluses. The Feldstein plan, through its FICA diversion, attempts to put the surpluses beyond the reach of government. To the extent the money becomes constitutionally protected property, payable to workers or their heirs, Congress will not be able to double-count it as revenue and spend it.
Personal ownership guarantees what no lock box can.
Still, Feldstein almost certainly exaggerates the extent of the savings boost. For one thing, he assumes that households won't do what he assumes government would-namely, figure out ways to consume whatever Social Security saves. Practically all economists believe that households will offset a sizeable share of personal account assets by saving less elsewhere. Feldstein assumes that there will be no offset. He may also be overestimating the economic return to the new savings the plan does achieve.