Kerry and Bush: Who is heading in the right direction?

"Senator Kerry's idea of reform always involves bigger and more intrusive government, and his health care proposal proves my point."- Bush, campaigning Thursday in &to=http:// english.pravda.ru/usa/2001/09/12/14939.html ' target=_blank>Pennsylvania.

"You really get this feeling that if . . . &to=http:// english.pravda.ru/mailbox/ 22/101/399/14426_Afghanistan.html ' target=_blank>Bush had been president during other periods in American history,he would have sided with the candle lobby against electricity, he would have been with the buggy-makers against the cars, and the typewriter companies against the computers." - Kerry, campaigning Thursday in Ohio, reports Newsday.

According to the San Francisco Chronicle, seizing on a report that a plan to privatize Social Security includes raising the retirement age for full benefits to 72, vice presidential candidate John Edwards on Saturday renewed a promise that the Democrats would never raise the retirement age.

"How many factory and mill workers, like the ones I grew up with, would now have to work more before they get their retirement benefits?" Edwards asked during a rally of union members in Orlando. "We need the answers to these questions before election day, not after."

Fortune magazine was reporting that the Social Security Administration is considering an idea that calls for early retirement accounts that begin paying at age 62 by setting aside one-sixth of the money that employees and employers pay to Social Security. To make up for the lost revenue, the magazine reported, the full retirement age would be pushed back from 67 to 72.