NEW YORK (CNN/Money) -
Heads of most financial firms have yet to openly support private Social Security accounts, even as President Bush prepares to disclose the details of his plan to let younger investors funnel billions of dollars of future payments into privately held investment accounts, a newspaper said Tuesday.
But their muted lobbying campaign doesn't mean they aren't supporting the plan, the New York Times report said, adding the firms are finding more subtle ways to support the president's plan to avoid seeming too eager to embrace a private account system.
"Our sense is there is a lot of activity behind the curtain," Bill Patterson, director of the office of investment at the AFL-CIO, told the Times.
"There is a dangerous confluence between the industry and the ideologues of the right. These groups can't do it by themselves -- they need the covert and overt support of the financial services industry," Patterson added.
Faced with such criticism, the newspaper said Wall Street has become sensitive about how it approaches the issue of allowing individuals to invest their Social Security contributions.
Top executives are worried that visible lobbying on their part could hurt, rather than help, public perception of President Bush's plan, the Times said.
"I think the backlash occurred at two levels," Sylvester Scheiber of Watson Wyatt, a corporate benefits and financial consulting firm, told the Times. "There was pressure from clients and the press ha been negative... These folks are very image conscious and they don't want to be branded as 'make a buck at any price.' "
Even though heads of major investment houses were conspicuously absent from the Social Security panel at last week's White House economic meeting, the report said they have found other ways to bend ears on Capitol Hill.
The industry is pushing for private accounts through a loose assemblage of trade associations, business coalitions and conservative research centers, the newspaper said.
These groups are raising money to gather support in Washington, while deflecting criticism that Wall Street supports the Social Security plan because it could reap tremendous profits for administering the accounts, said the Times.
For example, the Securities Industry Association recently issued a research report arguing that he private accounts would not be a financial bonanza for Wall Street, according to the report.
The newspaper also cites the Alliance for Worker Retirement Security as another example of the financial industry's quieter campaign.
Behind the scenes, the business coalition advocating private accounts has begun meeting with Congressional and White House staff members to promote the idea that private accounts are good for the country and good for business, the newspaper said.
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