Gorton: Democrats seem adamantly opposed to any Social Security reform. Presidential success is possible in the House, highly unlikely in the Senate.

Singer: By the forecasts of the SSA, the Social Security trust fund will run out in 2041, but the Medicare trust fund will run out by the end of the next decade. Is Congress dealing with the right issue right now?

Gorton: Medicare is an even greater threat to our fiscal situation, but I see no present willingness to take it on.

Singer: Tax reform is another ticket in the President's domestic platform. You were in the Senate during the passage of the last major tax reform in 1986, which flattened the tax rates and got rid of a number of loopholes. Should Congress follow the model of 1986? What lessons can be taken from that piece of legislation?

Gorton: The President's tax reform task force will report soon; there is, I hope, a somewhat greater chance of at least some changes for the better there, changes that will at least modestly simplify and make more fair what is now a real mess.

Singer: The Senate seems primed to invoke the nuclear or constitutional option. As someone who spent time in the Senate as both a member of the majority and the minority, what's your feeling on the possible move?

Gorton: I regret the necessity of changing Senate rules on extended debate. I hope for a compromise that will retain those rights and allow votes on all Presidential nominees. But in the absence of such an agreement, it would be disastrous to change the processes of two hundred years and begin a system in which confirmation requires sixty votes. The "nuclear option" is a bad idea, but the present position of the Democrats is far worse.