This summer, bold ideas are returning to the American political debate. President Bush is defining a policy vision for America built

around ownership and individual independence. Word is, Mr. Bush is going to lay out his “ownership society” concept in further detail at the Republican Convention, which begins on August 30.

This idea will be at the center of the clash of ideas this election. In practical terms, the ownership society means letting workers keep more of the money they earn, letting businesses compete without trial lawyers or bureaucrats picking winners and losers, and letting workers build personal wealth with their Social Security taxes.

That’s why the president’s vision will probably include passing fundamental tax reform, protecting the economy from the tidal wave of frivolous lawsuits, and creating Personal Retirement Accounts for Social Security.

Ownership is the key to understanding America and the key to full participation in the American Dream. At the heart of our system, after all, is the role of personal property and the freedom to use it in the pursuit of life, liberty, and happiness.

The more people that are involved as stakeholders in the great American system, the healthier it will become, resulting in more innovation, more growth, more wealth creation, and more political support for the free-enterprise system.

No wonder, then, liberals like economist Paul Krugman are already attacking the concept of an “ownership society.”

Mr. Krugman wrote recently that the president’s ownership theme simply “provide[s] pseudo-populist cover to policies that are, in reality, highly elitist.”

Not surprisingly, Mr. Krugman is completely wrong. After all, how can it be “highly elitist” to let workers control their own retirement destiny with personal accounts?

What Mr. Krugman and other liberals like Senator Kerry really want is for workers to continue to send their Social Security payroll taxes to Washington, D.C., where Congress and federal bureaucrats can squander them on various government programs. That’s the truly “elitist” approach, where Washington gets to make all the decisions and workers’ retirement security is put last.

That’s also why this debate matters. Mr. Kerry fears what an ownership society can truly mean: an America where all individuals can stand on their own two feet – independent of government programs and the whims of politicians for their retirement security.

Indeed, the opposite of the ownership society is the dependency society favored by the left.

They celebrate economic “equality” over economic growth; they celebrate arbitrary awards of billions of dollars in resources to trial lawyers and random “victims” over a court system that is efficient and fair to all; they celebrate a Social Security system that funds their nanny-state instead of saving for the retirements of millions of hardworking Americans. The stakes could not be greater. While we won’t know the full details of the president’s agenda, we believe that it should contain the following elements:

Social Security Reform – America’s Social Security program is collapsing in a financial crisis. To save the system, we want to create large Personal Retirement Accounts, which individual workers own and control, similar to a retirement 401(k). Large PRAs are the best way to let all Americans build wealth because they maximize the impact of compound interest and contain real assets.

Fundamental Tax Reform – Today’s tax code is an affront to the average American. It is so complex and chock-full of special interest breaks and exceptions that the only way to proceed is to scrap the code completely and redesign the tax system from the ground up.

Welfare Reform – Congress made major progress in ending welfare dependency when we reformed the program in 1996, but we must guard against backsliding and should continue to push for a welfare system that rewards and encourages work and personal responsibility.

Tort Reform – There’s something wrong with our legal system when it is easier to sue a doctor than it is to see a doctor. The courts are clogged with frivolous lawsuits in a kind of lawsuit lottery that is damaging American economic growth and job creation. It’s time to end lawsuit abuse and return the court system to decent, honest Americans with real grievances.

School Choice – Today, too many students are dependent on public school monopolies that fail to provide a safe and functional learning environment. As an alternative, we believe that parents and students should “own” and control their education, and the best way to do that is to create individual scholarships that let students attend the public or private school of their choice. This will return students to the center and bring more competition and innovation to America’s schools.

The ownership society is an optimistic vision built on the best of America, and Mr. Bush would be right to embrace this agenda fully next week at the Republican National Convention.