The only really good question asked during two days of desultory testimony came from Representative Barney Frank: Would Greenspan have supported Social Security when FDR advanced it 70 years ago? His answer was he wasn,t sure.

One of the things Frank said Bush overlooks with regard to Social Security is that the "money pays disability benefits and survivor benefits."

"A lot of widows and children are living on Social Security," Frank said. "Social Security provides a safety net for people in case there is a death with minor people left behind. If you try to buy a life insurance policy with the same protection it would be impossible."

"It is true that people who invested both wisely and luckily in 1935 could well be very wealthy today. But anyone who understands the stock market knows that the gains in the stock market are averages for all stocks. Some of the stocks in which people would have invested in 1935 have in the interim gone completely bust. What about the individuals who invested either unwisely or unluckily?

"The fact that the stock market on average has gone up very significantly in 70 years does not by any stretch of even the most partisan imagination mean that all of those who invested would now be well off. Millions of those who would have invested their money in stock funds in lieu of receiving Social Security funds would have found themselves completely without any income in their retirement years, and that is why Franklin Roosevelt was right…to choose as he did in 1935."

In response to a question from Representative Barney Frank, Democrat of Massachusetts, Mr. Greenspan said he could not say whether he would have voted to create Social Security if he had been a member of Congress in 1935, when the retirement system was established.