Have you every played a round of golf at Augusta National?

Flown first class on a trip to Europe?

Paid cash for a new car?

Owned a home without carrying a mortgage?

Most people haven’t. Or, if they have, it was an event that was the result of many years of efforts and dreams.

The best most of us can hope for economically is to hold onto a good job that we like, have good health and have a few years of retirement when the knees and the mind hold up well enough to duff around an occasional nine holes and visit the grandkids in whatever far-off place their parents have taken them.

That’s the reality. And, compared to much of the world, it ain’t bad.

But Republican Party efforts illustrated by President Bush’s desire to change Social Security and continued in his budget plans want to add new levels of risk to life for lower- and middle-income families.

In the “ownership society” of the president’s dreams, there’s opportunity for great reward – if you’re already wealthy, very fortunate or particularly smart or innovative. For the rest, it’s more risk, less certainty, more years working and less of a government safety net.

The president’s budget contains major cuts in programs designed to help families break free from the cycle of poverty. And the latest proposal floundering out of the White House on Social Security – “progressive indexing” – would cut benefits for the majority of future Social Security recipients. By changing the way benefits are calculated, the changes would lock retirees into a declining standard of living and declining security in old age. At least in this plan, low-income workers are protected, but the middle gets it socked to them.

Government has the ability to reduce risk by spreading it across a broad society. As it stands, the president and his allies don’t mind risk – as long as big business and big money don’t have to face it.