From the Washington Times, the second-guessing begins: "Conservatives in and out of Congress say President Bush has been taking bad advice on Social Security, hurting his chance to win private investment accounts for younger workers."
Also note this passage from the same article ...
The senior Republican senator said privately that the only way to avoid a bad deal on Social Security may be "to pull the trigger on the nuclear option."This, he said, would mean changing Senate rules to force an end to Democratic filibusters and a vote on Mr. Bush's judicial nominees. The Democrats likely would retaliate by filibustering all Republican bills. Republicans then could blame Democrats for blocking Social Security reform.
Others say it is too early to abandon hope of passing the kind of Social Security plan that conservatives support.
"Once Americans understand the choices they have -- that they will own their personal retirement accounts and will be able to pass them on to loved ones, they will flock to personal retirement accounts," said Rep. Paul D. Ryan, Wisconsin Republican.
Some dreams die <$NoAd$>hard.
--Josh Marshall
NYT: "Under the Bush administration, the federal government has aggressively used a well-established tool of public relations: the prepackaged, ready-to-serve news report that major corporations have long distributed to TV stations to pitch everything from headache remedies to auto insurance. In all, at least 20 federal agencies, including the Defense Department and the Census Bureau, have made and distributed hundreds of television news segments in the past four years, records and interviews show. Many were subsequently broadcast on local stations across the country without any acknowledgement of the government's role in their production."
--Josh Marshall
I was remiss in not providing an update on whether Sen. Lugar (R) called for the hearing on John Bolton's nomination yesterday.
The State Department leaned on them heavily. But the calls made by concerned citizens from around the country made the difference. He didn't do it.
Steve Clemons has the details.
--Josh Marshall
I took a moment tonight to read former Bush economic advisor Gregory Mankiw's brief for Social Security privatization in this week's New Republic. It's a companion piece to Jon Chait's article making a principled case for Democratic obstruction. The title of Mankiw's piece, or the subtitle, is 'Why Democrats Oppose Bush.'
I planned to write about it. And then I didn't know quite where to start. Given Mankiw's background he's obviously an intelligent and sophisticated man. And yet the arguments he adduces are gimmicky and puerile and laced with minor dishonesties all the way through. Two thirds of opposition to the president's plan, he reasons, is due to Bush hatred and Democrats' latent marxism. The remaining third is the result of paternalism. And he deals with that by noting that the Harvard faculty (of which he is a member) has a 401k-style defined-contribution pension plan. And they seem to like it. So why do Democrats (and the idea is that the Harvard faculty is roughly synonomous with Democrats) want to prevent people from having their Social Security replaced by a 401k-style private accounts system?
If it's good enough for the Harvard folks, why isn't it good enough for everyone else.
At this late stage of the game, there's probably little point in again noting that the Harvard faculty and everyone who has a 401k also has Social Security. And there are a slew of other rather elementary arguments why this is a silly comparison. But, again, you've heard those arguments already by now. And you can agree with them or decide that Mankiw's reasoning is more sound.
After sitting for a while with Mankiw's critique, though, a more salient point came to me. Conservatives have any number of explanations why Democrats don't like the president's plan: latent Marxism, political opportunism, contempt for the common man, and on and on. Believe those arguments or don't.
But liberals make up less than a quarter of the population. Democrats, defined by party ID, perhaps a bit more than a third. Yet every poll that comes out shows that clear and, by some measures, decisive majorities don't like the president's plan.
What's their beef?
I can understand why Mankiw wants to pick on Democrats. Because that other question is far more troublesome and difficult to answer.
--Josh Marshall
You've probably seen already that former New Hampshire Republican party Executive Director, Chuck McGee was sentenced to seven months in prison yesterday for his role in the 2002 New Hampshire phone-jamming case.
Next up is Jim Tobin, former head of Bush-Cheney 2004 in New England, who TPM was first to report was a main conspirator in the case. He is now the only charged conspirator who has so far refused to cut a deal. He is scheduled to go on trial in June. McGee and fellow conspirator Allen Raymond are both expected to testify against him.
Keep an eye out, though, for what comes next. And whether it pulls in someone else with lofty ambitions in the next few years: Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R) of Tennessee.
When Tobin organized this election-tampering scam he was working as the Northeast field director for the NRSC (the campaign committee of the Senate GOP). That was the cycle that Frist chaired the committee.
We hear that those involved in the phone-jamming scam are now claiming that the plan was aired with NRSC personnel in Washington in advance. If any of the key players are willing to testify to that effect when Tobin goes on trial later this year it could quickly open up a Washington dimension to this story.
--Josh Marshall
Saving private accounts?
Or Saving Private W.?
Just, why is Karen Hughes coming back to the White House?
In his piece breaking the story today, Peter Baker notes sources who "said Hughes will not be a formal member of the White House staff but will take on a specific and particularly important assignment involving international affairs, but they would not identify it."
Color me skeptical.
Notwithstanding her communications assignment post-9/11, Hughes isn't a foreign affairs person. She's a politics and communications person. And a good one. Indeed, one who's always been in tension, if a collegial and productive one, with Karl Rove, as Dan Froomkin does a nice job explaining today.
And where does the president seem to need help right now? On the international front or the domestic politics front?
Right.
A new poll just out again puts the president's public approval on Social Security below 40%. This time 37% according to AP/IPSOS. The poll also shows that rather than cementing a new Republican governing majority, as Karl Rove has long argued for and planned, Social Security has split the current tenuous Republican majority right down the middle. The AP poll shows that the president is having problems with "independents, married women and Southerners."
--Josh Marshall
Will Sen. Lugar give us the bum's rush on John Bolton?
Opposition to John Bolton's nomination to be Ambassador to the United Nations is widespread, if latent, even among some of the more sensible Republicans in the senate (not that that means they won't vote for him, mind you). And awareness and opposition to his nomination is picking up speed quickly outside Congress too.
But from what I'm told, much of this is going to come down to whether Sen. Richard Lugar (R), Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, calls for hearings on the nomination today. Senate procedures come in to play here. But basically, if Lugar calls for the hearing today, there's a six day notification rule. And that pretty much means that a quick committee hearing can be held next week and the full senate can rush Bolton through before there's a chance for there to be any serious debate over his qualifications or appropriateness for the job. If he doesn't call for it today the whole thing will get pushed into April.
Steve Clemons reports that the State Department is leaning heavily on Lugar to rush the thing through to avoid precisely that open debate. (Steve's a former senate staffer. So he knows the ins-and-outs of the place as well as anyone.)
If this is something you care about, stop by Steve's site now to find out more and see what you can do.
--Josh Marshall
It sure would be a pity if Andrew Heyward's troubles turned CBS News into a White House mouthpiece on Social Security privatization. But this report on privatization in Chile from last night sure does make it seem that way. Compare CBS's report with this one from January 27th in the Times.
--Josh Marshall
House Appropriations all but kills US aid to Palestinian Authority. See the details here.
--Josh Marshall
Coming later today, the latest on the New Hampshire phone-jamming scandal, and whether it will end up singeing Sen. Bill Frist.
--Josh Marshall
One-time Faction Dean, Sen. Tom Carper (D) of Delaware, leaves the Fainthearted Faction!
Tells the Washington Post he won't support private accounts under any circumstances.
--Josh Marshall
It's almost funny. Sen. Pat Roberts (R) plays Sen. Rockefeller (D) and his staff for fools. Spencer Ackerman has the details.
--Josh Marshall
New pencil-neck line of attack: Social Security contributes to free love and the decline of marriage.
--Josh Marshall
It really is amazing that anyone takes Alan Greenspan seriously anymore. Sen. Reid was right when he called him one of Washington's biggest political hacks. Here's an article about a speech Chairman Greenspan just gave in which he said that our structural budget deficits are a far greater threat to the nation's economy than either the trade deficit or our low savings rate.
That's almost certainly so.
But without putting too fine a point on it, the deficits are his fault!
Not exclusively his fault, certainly. But by placing his seal of approval on the president's 2001 tax cut package (the primary cause of our rapidly escalating indebtedness) he probably played as a big a role as any single individual after the president himself in ensuring that those tax cuts (and those that followed them) became law. Anyone can be wrong. But the rationale he gave at that time was clearly disingenuous.
It's an elementary point. The man simply has no credibility on this issue. And even though criticism of Greenspan along these lines has become more vocal of late, he still remains close to sacrosanct in polite political debate.
Some day it will be an amazing history to tell, how this acolyte of a half-baked Russian emigre eccentric became the economic avatar of America's turn-of-the-century political class.
--Josh Marshall
Personal Accounts a safety net for the risks of Social Security? The latest free-form policy improvisation from our president.
--Josh Marshall
What the hell is Sen. Mary Landrieu (D) thinking? She's holding a townhall meeting on Social Security tomorrow in Baton Rouge, the same day President Bush is holding his Bamboozlepalooza event in Shreveport.
But Landrieu's event is open to the public, no tickets required. I'll bet her staff hasn't even put together a Landrieu-loyalty oath yet or done background checks on people who want to ask questions. Talk about wet behind the ears. They clearly don't know how these things are done.
--Josh Marshall
Your weekend Social Security must-read ...
'Blocking Move: A Principled Case for Obstruction' by Jon Chait and just out from TNR.
--Josh Marshall
President Bush takes his phase-out follies to Alabama today. And we're filing this nugget under Heading: Bamboozlepalooza, Subsection: Ouch!
Republicans hold seven of Alabama's nine congressional seats, but most won't be there when Bush speaks today. Rep. Mike Rogers of Anniston is the only congressman who has announced he will attend, and he has publicly expressed doubts about Bush's plan. Other congressmen cited committee meetings and congressional votes as reasons for their absence.
So the only guy who'll show up is the one who's got the guts to tell him 'no' to his face?
--Josh Marshall
The Bolton nomination gets put on the fast track. See the leak out of Foggy Bottom.
--Josh Marshall
Madison County (NY) Democrats pass their resolution opposing the privatization of Social Security.
--Josh Marshall
Robert Novak, of the money lobby, reveals the "thoughtful compromise" on Social Security.
--Josh Marshall
An interesting set of choices.
In USA Today, Susan Page has a list of "Six men who'll shape the future." These are "lesser-known figures [who] also have a lot to say about what will happen [in the Social Security debate]."
She has John Cogan, a pro-privatization Stanford Professor close to the president, who served on his Social Security Commission in 2001; Bill Novelli of AARP; Rep. Bill Thomas, Chairman of the Ways and Means Committee; Sen. Lindsey Graham; Rep. Harold Ford; and Derrick Max, head of the pro-phase-out group Alliance for Worker Retirement Security and Coalition for the Modernization and Protection of America's Social Security (COMPASS).
Now, Bill Novelli is a key player in the pro-Social Security constellation today. No question.
After that you've got the head of two of the key pro-privatization pressure groups allied with the White House, one of the president's privatization advisors from academia, two Republican members of Congress who support private accounts, and a Democrat who Page identifies as perhaps the one most likely to cut a deal with the White House to support privatization.
As it happens, I think Page's information is out of date on Ford. Despite being a former Dean of the Faction, I think Ford has set out a clear and what we might term enforceable position opposing privatization.
Still, all told, Page has one clear opponent of privatization, four clear proponents of privatization and the Democrat she thinks may be the member of his party closest to supporting privatization.
Articles like this shouldn't be forced into a narrow 3-for, 3-against mold. But I think there's a bit of imbalance here, no? That's especially so when you consider that by any reasonable measure, to date, the pro-Social Security forces have been winning this debate, not withstanding a near total exclusion from power in Washington. They're not doing it with committee chairmen or presidential advisors, certainly.
You really have to wonder if Page is following the folks on that side. With the debate moving in the direction it is, there must be someone pushing beside Bill Novelli, right? How about Roger Hickey, for example, the co-director of the Campaign for America's Future and one of the founders of Americans United to Protect Social Security, the organizational nexus of the pro-Social Security groups? Or Hans Riemer of Rock the Vote? Another obvious pick would be Tom Matzzie, the new Washington director for Moveon, the group that's played a big role in coordinating on-the-ground push-back against the various Republican townhalls and presidential visits.
Obviously, you could pick a bunch of other people. But reading Page's article makes me wonder and worry how much the city's most prominent reporters are in touch with who it is precisely who's heading up this fight on the pro-Social Security side.
--Josh Marshall
The 'In This Together Campaign' (ITT) is the group heading the anti-phase-out forces in New York state. And at the moment that largely means trying to get Republican members of Congress to come out of their hardened bunkers and answer constituents questions about President Bush's privatization plan.
To date, from what we understand, not one Republican member of the New York congressional delegation has held a townhall meeting about Social Security. ITT has been trying to muscle some of these folks into showing their faces in their districts. And one of them, Rep. John Sweeney has agreed to hold a meeting to answer constituent questions. So far, according to ITT press releases from March 9th, Reps. Boehlert, Reynolds, Kelly and King are all refusing to hold public meetings.
I can certainly understand where these folks might not want to attend meetings put together by ITT. But their unwillingness to hold any public forums on the issue is pretty telling. I mean, you'd think they could at least hold one of those Bush-style meetings with the animatronic citizens, right?
Then there's Rep. Vito Fossella (R) from Staten Island. A few weeks ago he told a local TV interviewer that Democrats were "irresponsible" for not going along with President Bush's phase-out plan and that failing to act now would lead to either tax hikes or benefit cuts for younger Americans.
That prompted Democratic state party chair Herman "Denny" Farrell, Jr. to send off a letter to Fossella. After pointing out that the Bush plan itself calls for steep benefit cuts, he wrote: "I am writing today to ask that you pledge to rule out cutting benefits for future retirees, as President Bush's plan would do. I am sure New Yorkers in your district are eager to hear you make such a pledge."
To date, apparently there's been no reply from Fossella. So presumably Fossella is a phase-out man but for the moment he's laying low hoping he won't have to tell constituents to their faces.
--Josh Marshall
Fainthearted Faction Dean Rep. Allen Boyd (D) of Florida does the playbook shuffle in his latest weekly email newsletter ...
Many who oppose reforming the Social Security program have falsely claimed that personal accounts would lead to the privatization of Social Security. I am not an advocate of privatizing Social Security, our nation's largest and most successful entitlement program. The Kolbe-Boyd bill does not privatize Social Security, but instead, allows every American the opportunity to control his or her own retirement through the creation of publicly-administered personal accounts.
Any progress on getting some to run against this joker?
--Josh Marshall
In our public discussion of Social Security, many take it for granted that time (in the sense of years, not months) favors Republicans because the young seem less resistant to privatization than their elders. But there is assumption at the root of this belief that I have never seen adequately examined in public opinion data.
Simply put: Are the young more favorable to privatization because they are currently young? Or does the current generation of Americans in their twenties and early thirties represent the leading edge of a wave of cultural change that will make future Americans less averse to risk and less trusting of government programs?
Perhaps twenty years from now, when these 25 year olds are 45, they'll think more like 45 year olds today. After all, the young tend to have a difficult time really getting their heads around the idea that they too will one day grow old and die. That doesn't mean we're moving toward an immortality society; it means they're young. They'll learn.
Now, I'm sure there must be available time series data that would provide some insight into this question. I'm just not familiar with it. But I came across some information a few days ago that at least suggests some of our assumptions may be wrong.
A few days ago, I noted how a lot of the recent polling information on Social Security is difficult to use because many of the questions are ones the pollsters have just started asking. So we have no point of reference to what people thought in January of this year or January 2004 or in January 2000.
But if you look at the data in the recent New York Times poll you can see a few of the questions were also asked in June 1981.
One of those questions, which the Times pollsters apparently hadn't asked in twenty-four years was: "Would you favor or oppose making the Social Security system voluntary, so that people can choose not to pay Social Security taxes and not to get benefits?"
Last month, 37% favored the idea and 59% opposed it. In late June of '81, 53% favored it and only 41% opposed.
Another question was: "Do you expect to get back more money than you've contributed to Social Security, less money than you contributed, or about the same amount of money?"
Last month, 12% said more, 39% less and 44% said the same. In 1981 it was 15%, 50% and 28%, respectively.
Clearly, in both cases, public opinion was significantly different and in both instances less favorable toward or less confident in Social Security than Americans are today.
On two other questions, there change was minimal. The one question for which the Times has regular data going back to 1981 was: "Do you think the Social Security system will have the money available to provide the benefits you expect for your retirement?"
Last month it was 34% yes and 49% no. In 1981 it was 30% yes and 54%.
Here, as noted, there's less change. But even that cuts against (though we'd have to see the break-out data) the idea that today's youth have less confidence in the system than earlier generations.
Now, one point that's fair to bear in mind is that 1981 was shortly before Social Security did require a major reform (the 1983 Greenspan Commission one) to maintain solvency. So perhaps that fact skews the numbers. But I'm not sure how much it should have affected the question about making Social Security voluntary. And on the 'Do you think Social Security will be there when you retire' question, the Times has fairly regular soundings going back two decades. And the numbers seem fairly stable over time. The 'worst' sample came from 1990 when 60% thought Social Security wouldn't be there for them when they retired. But in not one case did more people answer 'Yes' than 'No'.
If you were in your early 30s in 1981 and you were one of the 54% who said, no, well, you were just wrong. Heck, even the chief phase-out man himself, President Bush, says he'll give you a flat guarantee.
Certainly, there must be more information and analysis available on this question. And I'd be curious to see it. But this limited glimpse increases my skepticism about the prevailing assumptions about youth attitudes toward Social Security and what it foretells for the program's future.
--Josh Marshall
I'm not sure sure whether this counts as a trick question. But what does it mean precisely to have the likes of Rep. Jim McCrery say you're 'unserious'?
McCrery, you'll remember, is the congressman from Shreveport, Lousiana, who first supported phase-out, then rejected it, then recanted his rejection after a trip to the White House where he apparently did a spell in The Chamber. And all in about a week and a half.
More recently, after again embracing privatization, he had his lawyer threaten the Campaign for America's Future and a local cable system with a lawsuit for running an which claimed he supported privatization.
But today, at the first Ways and Means Committee hearing on Social Security, Rep. McCrery told Democrats: "If you want to be serious players, then you will stop this nonsense of saying, 'We won't (accept) personal accounts.'"
That's the best he can do.
It's amazing how many Republicans (and how much of Washington, or at least the titled caste) can't get their collective heads around the idea that Democrats won't vote to replace a portion of Social Security with private accounts.
--Josh Marshall
"Private Social Security Accounts Popular with Wealthy, Golfers."
Satire, admittedly. But too true, too true.
--Josh Marshall
Sen. Dick Durbin (D) of Illinois: "We're taking this head on. We're prepared to debate the president on this issue. We think his position [on Social Security] is wrong and weak, and if we keep telling the American people our side of the story, we will prevail."
Link.
--Josh Marshall
Charlie Jarvis's "test" runs into a hitch: USA Next sued for $25 million for using photo of gay couple's nuptials without permission.
--Josh Marshall
Today Atrios rightly notes the column in this morning's WSJ by Social Security Trustee Thomas Saving. As he points out, the deceptive budgetary calculations and arguments Saving advances are about on the caliber you might expect from a third-rate talk radio yakker. But Atrios's main point is that the Journal, in identifying Saving, somehow left off the part that this Saving is a Trustee. (He does note it in the column itself.)
But there's more.
This morning Saving is a lead panelist at the House Ways and Means Committee's first hearing on Social Security. There of course he's identified as a Trustee.
What they don't say -- and I'll be very curious to hear whether it comes up in the testimony -- is that Saving recently signed on to be the Social Security spokesman for Progress for America, one of the two main money-fronts the White House has pushing privatization.
Late Update: TPM Reader JN points out this highly relevant passage in the Trustees 2004 report: "As Public Trustees we strive to work in a nonpartisan way to ensure the integrity of the process by which these reports are prepared and the credibility of the information they contain."
--Josh Marshall
Headlines that say it all. This one from Bloomberg: "Bush Turns to Cheney to Sell Private Social Security Accounts"
This one comes in a close second: "Bush has mandate for Social Security plan, Cheney says"
--Josh Marshall
In what was a sad story, a happy new chapter.
Doris Matsui, widow of longtime California Congressman Robert Matsui, who died on New Year's day after a brief illness, has tonight won a special election to fill his seat. She took just under 72% of the vote.
Matsui, you'll remember, was to have been the House Democrats' point-man in the fight against privatizing Social Security. So far they've honored his memory.
--Josh Marshall
AP: "The heart of President Bush's plan for Social Security, allowing younger workers to create personal accounts in exchange for a lower guaranteed government benefit, is among the least popular elements with the public, Republican pollsters told House GOP leaders Tuesday."
--Josh Marshall
I've always thought of Jack Kemp as sort of a sad figure. As I wrote a few years ago, "Most Republicans know that enterprise zones and other nostrums presented as alternatives to "failed" liberal social policy are window dressing. Kemp's problem is that he takes the window dressing seriously, but none of his GOP colleagues have the heart to tell him."
Now, he's telling the president to put privatization to a party-line vote. Let the Democrats block it. And then take it to the voters in 2006 ...
If the alternative is tax increases, cutting benefits or making people work longer, the country would be much better off if the Democrats filibuster the president's personal-accounts proposal to death this year than if he gives in to their pigheadedness and takes personal accounts off the table. Let the Democrats obstruct passage of personal accounts, if they have the courage, and then let's go to the American people on the matter in the 2006 elections. That's the way democracy works, and we know that whatever the people decide will be right.
This is part of what I mean by no one having the heart to tell him. The alternative is cutting benefits? Private accounts equal cutting benefits. Any fool realizes that. No less a bamboozler than Rep. Allen Boyd says in his own defense today that "[p]ersonal accounts are a way to let <$Ad$> these workers recoup those [benefit cuts] and likely earn even more for retirement than they could under today's system."
In other words, private accounts are a sort of generational consolation prize for having the social compact broken during your lifetime. Heck, if you're lucky, you might even make it all back.
But on the main point, Kemp is right. Take it to the voters. Yes, I think Republicans will regret it. But you can never really know how an election is going to come off or what the results will be. We should take this to voters because that is what Democracy is about. And as much as the president likes to pretend otherwise, this issue never got a serious airing in 2004. This is an issue, if there ever was one, on which the Democrats should have the courage of their convictions.
Two or three months ago, when Democrats set about trying to thwart the president's plan, there was little assurance they'd be successful. As much as the aim was to win, it was to lose well rather than lose badly -- divided, double-crossed and having caved on principle -- if losing it had to be.
With apologies, let me refer back to what I wrote on December 20th ...
The GOP has the White House and solid majorities in both chambers. If they can hold their troops together, they can write the bill, pass it, and sign it into law before anyone gets another chance at the ballot box. But, as important as winning is in this case (and I'm a good deal more optimistic than many of my friends and colleagues seem to be), winning isn't everything.If Democrats have to lose this, they must be sure to lose well.
Do they spin and shuffle and whine and sputter on about how bad the whole thing is? Or do they make this into a clear choice -- where Democrats support Social Security for a clear set of reasons rooted in values and policy, and Republicans oppose it?
If the lies about the program's unviability are volubly refuted, the party division made clear, and the reasons why Social Security is good for America are ably argued, then let the chips fall where they may. But if it's all tactics, the outmoded bag of tricks and risk-aversion, playing at the margins and wringing of hands, that will truly be unforgivable.
The same goes for 2006. Don't fret. Take it to the people.
--Josh Marshall
From Adriel Bettelheim of CQ Weekly comes this ...
[T]wo months into his second term, Bush is in one of the toughest political binds of his presidency. He has vowed to use the power of his office to upend a cornerstone of the New Deal and adapt it for his “ownership society” to foster a savings culture. Yet he is standing alone on the construction site, forcing opponents and allies alike to wonder if he’s started something he simply can’t finish.The situation has essentially left Bush with two options: cut a deal quickly to strengthen the system’s finances, but concede some his philosophical principles; or continue to take the flak but slowly build his case for a more far-reaching overhaul, then dare his opponents to resist as the midterm elections of 2006 approach.
The next few weeks will tell which tack the White House will take, and whether Republicans in Congress will go along.
...
Despite the potential for compromise, there are other signs that Bush and Republican leaders are preparing for a lengthy fight that could spill over into the 2006 election season.
So 2006 it <$NoAd$>is.
--Josh Marshall
Please tell me this isn't a hemorrhoid commercial.
In Rep. Allen Boyd's OpEd piece in today's Tallahassee Democrat, the Dean of the Fainthearted Faction says that private accounts are "preparation, not privatization (emphasis added)."
--Josh Marshall
Two new Social Security plans from Senators Hagel and Bennett, reports the Associated Press. So now there is Tangerine and Strawberry phase-out to be added to plum version the president has already put on the table.
Each raids Social Security to set up private accounts.
Each includes steep cuts in benefits.
Each kicks off phasing out Social Security and replacing it with private accounts.
This is just an intra-Republican conversation about how to best structure phase-out. It can't be of any particular concern or interest to those who don't believe phase-out should happen at all.
--Josh Marshall
Simple Point: Social Security is an insurance program. And the point is not a semantic one. In conventional insurance, the more people participate, the lower the premiums and the more secure the plan. This is particularly so since those who have the least immediate need for the insurance are the most likely to opt out. Just so in Social Security. The more people opt out of the system with private accounts, the greater the costs for those who choose to hold on to their Social Security with its guaranteed benefits. And in this case that translates into either higher taxes or reduced benefits and most likely both. Social Security can only work with near-universal participation.
That is what the push for private accounts is all about. It means the end of Social Security by stages.
(Private health insurance carriers, of course, try to get as many healthy people as possible and as few sick ones, a tactic policy wonks call 'creaming'. But it's the same difference since that only means forcing the costs of the ill off on to government programs like Medicaid or emergency rooms and the like.)
Private Accounts = Ending Social Security. The advocates of private accounts know that. Which Democrats and Republicans will sign on?
--Josh Marshall
David Winston, Republican pollster, Roll Call, March 8th: "Bush, in his State of the Union address, began to lay the predicate for the Social Security discussion. Polling data nearly across the board shows that Bush’s Social Security blitz in the past few weeks has convinced the majority of Americans that Social Security needs fixing now."
CNN/USAToday poll analysis, USAToday, March 2nd: "In early January, Americans divided evenly when asked whether Social Security needs major changes in the next year or two. Now 59% say it doesn't need to be changed right away."
--Josh Marshall
Are Democrats pursuing a shortsighted policy by simply opposing the president's drive to phase out Social Security, as a few are now suggesting?
I feel confident that the answer to that question is, no.
Only I don't think the Democrats are just saying, no. They're staking out a clear position in support of preserving Social Security and its guaranteed benefits rather than phasing it out and replacing it with private accounts.
But inside that question are a host of different subsidiary questions and assumptions. And they're worth discussing. So let me start discussing a few of them now.
First, some suggest that without having a clear counter-proposal on the table, Democrats risk having President Bush outflank them by dropping privatization and claiming a victory with some more limited reform.
But consider what this means and what the objectives are of people who are opposing the president's effort to phase out Social Security.
To my thinking, the prime objective of preventing the president from phasing out Social Security is preventing the president from phasing out Social Security.
The potential opportunities for the Democrats are immense, no doubt. And I hope they materialize as much as anyone. But they are, at the end of the day, secondary. If President Bush were somehow able to abandon privatization and wholesale benefit cuts, embrace a sensible reform package that would enhance the longterm solvency of Social Security and somehow frame this as a political victory, that would be a bummer for Democrats, as Democrats. If he were really successful at spinning this as a success, it would also be unfortunate in that it would give him a renewed ability to pursue other parts of his legislative agenda. But the aim here I think is to prevent the president from phasing out Social Security. So if he chooses to embrace the program and say that's what he wanted all along, I can only say that there are simply worse scenarios I can imagine than that.
On a more concrete level, I don't think the comparison between this debate and the president's turnabout on the Department of Homeland Security is a particularly compelling one. Neither conservatives nor Republicans had any ideological or principled investment in 'Homeland Security' being an office in the White House rather than a cabinet department. Nor did any Republican constituency have a vested interest in his initial stand. This was purely a decision made within the White House, for a series of contigent reasons, but principally to limit congressional oversight and enhance executive branch power. Once the president changed his tune, all the Republicans changed their tunes, because their only agenda all along had been supporting their president on a partisan basis.
The situation with Social Security is very, very different. And the president's room for maneuver is not that great. Any substantial move on the president's part should expose deep fissures within his governing coalition -- a number of which have already appeared.
More globally, I think these 'political' questions (like 'why has the president not been damaged more' or 'how can the Democrats be sure not to be outmaneuvered') are premature. In the past I've written about how Democrats have been weakened politically in recent decades (particularly on national security issues) by placing too much focus on political outcomes and not enough on policy goals. My point here isn't really one of idealism. It is merely to note that an over-emphasis on political outcomes -- and the policy shiftiness required for trimming to secure good ones -- reaches a point of diminishing returns and can become self-defeating. (Pace Mr. Klein, this is not an issue of ideological purity, regardless of what may immediately spring to your mind. It is a matter of deciding on your goal, choosing policies that will acheive it, and then pursuing those policies.)
The truth is that Democrats do have a goal here. There very much is something they stand for. And for those who don't, they should. That is, protecting and enhancing the retirement security of all Americans. Everything that advances that goal should be seen as a victory and everything that diminishes it should be seen as a defeat. At present, through their unity and advocacy, Democrats have significantly reduced the chances of a phase-out bill passing in the 109th Congress. Even at this early stage, that's a big victory.
Again, I am not so naive to say that Democrats should pursue a policy agenda and leave the politics to take care of itself. But consider the following. The hook for some of this second-guessing about Democratic strategy is a memo out a few days ago from James Carville and Stan Greenberg of Democracy Corps. And in that memo they argue that the deeper vulnerability for Democrats (and why they are yet to derive greater political returns on Social Security) is what they call "voters' deeper feelings about the Democrats who appear to lack direction, conviction, values, advocacy or a larger public purpose."
Well, here's the deal. Spin has its limits. You show voters that you have direction and conviction and values principally by having them. And for all the short- and medium-term political handicapping, I believe that's what they are doing right now.
What the Democrats need to do now is think seriously and creatively among themselves about why a program like Social Security is so important and what the principles and priorities gleaned from that examination suggest in terms of other policies they should be advocating and pursuing. As for what they're doing in the political arena right now, I think it's just right.
Later, we'll discuss what the Dems can learn for stage two of the Social Security fight from how they dealt with stage one.
--Josh Marshall
Rep. Gene Taylor (D) of Mississippi on the president's reckless fiscal policies: "We are now over $2 trillion deeper in debt than we were four years ago. The interest payment, alone, on the debt is $1 billion every day. People talk about morals; well, it's immoral to take people's money and it's immoral to stick our children with the bill."
--Josh Marshall
Another Democrat leaves the Fainthearted Faction: Rep. Ike Skelton (D) of Missouri.
In a letter now going out to constituents he says that Social Security "is a guaranteed insurance policy that must never be weakened by risky privatization plans like the one supported by the Bush Administration ... While the proposal is touted as a way to 'save' Social Security, private accounts would worsen the program's fiscal challenges."
--Josh Marshall
According to the Times, the <$NoAd$> Social Security Trust Fund is a bit of an afterthought.
The US Treasury bonds held in the Trust Fund may be give Social Security a better claim on federal revenues than other priorities. But maybe not.
As Timesman David Rosenbaum puts it ...
But trust fund or no trust fund, bonds or no bonds, Social Security is only one program with a claim on the federal budget.There will be highways to build and, perhaps, wars to fight. There will be expenses for education and health care and many other government activities. And there will be citizens - voters - who do not want their taxes to be raised.
Maybe because of the trust fund, the politicians will decide that Social Security has the strongest claim.
But if so, that will be a political decision, not a legal one.
In other words, it's all a big misunderstanding.
--Josh Marshall
Another financial services firm -- Waddell & Reed -- backs out of Derrick Max's Alliance for Workers' Retirement Security rather than have the AFL-CIO publicize their financial support for phasing out Social Security.
More to follow ...
--Josh Marshall
We're hoping someone can help us with this. Following up on yesterday evening's post on Joe Klein's comments yesterday on Meet the Press, we are hoping some TPM Reader can provide us with an example from Klein's writing (columns, magazine articles, even public comments) in which he explains his contention that whereas Social Security was suited to the 'industrial age' it is not well suited to the 'information age', whereas a private accounts system is.
To refresh memories on the key passage ...
I agree with Paul in that private accounts have nothing to do with solvency and solvency is the issue. I disagree with Paul because I think private accounts a terrific policy and that in the information age, you're going to need different kinds of structures in the entitlement area than you had in the industrial age. But it is very hard to do that kind of change under these political circumstances where you have the parties at such loggerheads.
If anyone knows of an example where <$NoAd$> he explains this argument, please send it along.
--Josh Marshall
And then there were four!
Sen. Mary Landrieu (D) of <$NoAd$>Louisiana has been hanging on by a thread in the Fainthearted Faction for weeks, largely on the basis of an early refusal to rule out private accounts categorically.
But she signed the recent letter the Dems sent to the president. And she put out this press release on Friday which settles the matter. The key points read ...
I agree with Treasury Secretary Snow on one very important point: We do need to strengthen retirement security in our nation. All Americans deserve the confidence that their retirement will be secure -- that Social Security will be there as promised, their 401(k) plans won't be raided through unscrupulous practices, and their pensions won't be squandered by reckless corporate management.The President's plan doesn't seek to address any of these concerns. It is too narrowly focused and creates too much risk by betting hard-earned savings on an ever-changing stock market when we should be working to add certainty and stability to the system. I agree that we must expand opportunities for retirement saving, but we must not undermine this worthy effort with a flawed privatization scheme that takes the 'security' out of 'Social Security.'
We in Louisiana understand strong retirement security, and have about 350,000 state and municipal workers enrolled in a public pension plan that encourages savings and financial stability. I will oppose any federal proposal which changes or undermines this program, just as I intend reject any proposal which cuts Social Security benefits or adds to our already rising and troubling deficit.
I look forward to my meeting next month with Secretary Snow, and hope for a productive discussion on Social Security and the mounting national debt.
From the totality of evidence, for us, that takes Landrieu out of the Fainthearted Faction.
--Josh Marshall
ABC's The Note does love the Washington establishment's CW when it comes to phasing out Social Security. Take a look at their read of the state of play today.
This is a topic I haven't discussed or dug much into in the last year or more -- the right-leaning dinner-party centrism of establishment Washington -- but it really oozes from this update linked above.
--Josh Marshall
Because of where I was staying this morning I was able to catch only one brief bit of the Sunday shows. And that was the roundtable on Meet the Press.
It was a good panel, including one of my favorite reporters, Mike Allen of the Post. But what caught my eye were two exchanges. One was between Joe Klein and Paul Krugman on the Clinton legacy. Here's the key exchange ...
MR. KRUGMAN: I think it's just wildly up in the air. I mean, you know, there's enormous turmoil on the Democratic side trying to figure out--there's a lot of unity but there's a lot of turmoil about what the party stands for. And I just don't know. I mean, I can't--I dread the prospect of a Clinton run just because I think that would be--it would be an attempt to recreate the politics of the '90s when you had Bill Clinton, who was a president who managed to sort of triangulate. And I think we ought to have an election that's really about what what kind of country we're going to be and we won't have that if it's Hillary Clinton running....
MR. KLEIN: Paul, I have a question for you: What was it about the peace and prosperity of the eight years of the Clinton administration that you didn't like?
MR. KRUGMAN: No, I liked the way the country ran.
MR. KLEIN: I think that he had a real governing philosophy. It wasn't triangulation. It was moving us from the industrial age to the information age, and that's where the Democratic Party is going to have to move...
MR. KRUGMAN: There's a radical right...
MR. KLEIN: ...if it wants to have any role in American politics.
MR. KRUGMAN: There's a radical right challenge to America as we know it that's under way, and I think the Democrats--I mean, maybe Hillary Clinton can do this. I'm actually not opposed to her, right? But they need to make clear that they are going to turn back that tide, not blur it.
MR. KLEIN: The answer to a radical right challenge isn't a reactionary left response.
Marshall Wittman unequivocally gives the prize to Joe Klein on this one. But I'd like to offer what is not so much a disagreement as a different interpretation of just what was <$Ad$>being talked about here.
I won't assume I know precisely what Paul meant. But my reaction on watching this was that the two were basically talking past each other, or perhaps that Klein was attacking an argument that Paul really hadn't made.
Again, I won't presume to speak for Paul. But here's my sense of this.
I was a big fan of Bill Clinton while he was president. Still am. And that doesn't just mean I liked him in some general sense as a political fan. On most policy issues, foreign and domestic, I was in line with his administration.
But I too think Clintonism is best left in the 1990s. And that's not because I've changed my view of his presidency or his policies. I simply think we were are operating in a profoundly different political moment and that the strategies and tactics that really did make sense then do not make sense now. The key point for me is that the difference is really not at heart an ideological one. And thus, to me, Klein's reference to a 'reactionary left' I think mistakes the point Krugman was making.
I want to leave the longer discussion of this issue to another post. But just to briefly describe what I'm getting at. First, we are now involved in political contests that cut to the very heart of the kind of polity we live in. Many are simply not compromisable. And I don't mean that merely or mainly in the sense that they involve points of principle that can't be compromised. I mean many are literally uncompromisable. They involve basic decisions over which way our society will go. Decisions must be made. When the boat is leaving the dock, at one point you've got to decide: stay on the dock or hop on the boat. It can't be compromised. There has to be a choice.
Second, and of course on a related level, the Democrats' position is profoundly different than it was in the 1990s, even given the fact that they lost control of Congress mid-decade. I often think that one of the blinders of folks who cut their teeth in the Clinton White House is an inability to grasp just how many of the strategies that worked for them then were tied to the overwhelming fact of holding the White House.
I know they know that at some level. But I sometimes wonder how deeply the point has sunk in because I've seen more than a few of them using similar approaches in opposition when they have little hope of success. It's sort of like in the childhood game 'King of the Hill'. Imagine if you'd perfected tactics for when you're on the top of the hill knocking off challengers and then tried to use those same approaches when you're one of the guys down at the bottom. It makes no sense.
The other exchange came earlier in the roundtable when Klein let us know that he is still every bit a private accounts man. (One would imagine the only Woody Guthrie biographer to embrace such an unfortunate stance..) But I was struck by his rationale ...
Well, it's kind of amazing and somewhat amusing to see the Republicans so much on the defensive on this issue right now. It's an unusual circumstance. I agree with Paul in that private accounts have nothing to do with solvency and solvency is the issue. I disagree with Paul because I think private accounts a terrific policy and that in the information age, you're going to need different kinds of structures in the entitlement area than you had in the industrial age. But it is very hard to do that kind of change under these political circumstances where you have the parties at such loggerheads.
This has always struck me as the weakest of arguments for privatization and frankly it seems beneath someone like Klein.
I would like to ask Klein what it is exactly about Social Security that makes it appropriate to the industrial age but not the information age. If it is phased out in the next few years that would be one objective sign that it couldn't withstand the politics of this new economic era. But that would be a circular argument.
If anything I would think there's a much stronger argument that Social Security with its guaranteed benefits is more suited to this age than the last one, given how the increasingly transitory nature of work and the pressures of globalization are undermining the basis of defined benefit private sector pensions.
The real point, though, is that when you set aside all the practical matters of debt and transition costs, this is an ideological debate -- or to put it less antiseptically, a debate over different sets of values.
The idea behind private accounts is that people should rely on themselves alone and bear the consequences of their successes and their failures and random chance on their own shoulders. If things don't pan out for you in retirement, that's something to take up with your children.
The concept behind Social Security is fundamentally different. The first premise is that if you put in a lifetime's work there is simply a level of destitution below which society will not let you fall. Maybe you made so little during your working years that there wasn't enough to save. Or maybe you just didn't plan ahead well enough. Or maybe you suffered some misfortune. Whatever. If you worked you won't be destitute when you retire. People who made big bucks through their lives don't get a particularly good 'deal' from Social Security, if you insist on seeing it in investment terms. But that's a distorting prism, sort of like thinking you got a rotten deal on your medical insurance if you never have a catastrophic illness.
I like to think of this as the moral equality of work. In our society, we allow the market to assign all manner of different cash values to different sorts of work or even the same sorts of work under different circumstances. And by and large, within some very small limitations like the minimum wage or certain non-discrimination laws, most of us think this is how it should be. I certainly do. (In this sense, I think collective bargaining amounts to another competitive arrangement within a market economy -- though doctrinaire free market folks have always seen it in contrary terms.)
But the cash value of work isn't the same as its moral value. And if you look at the values imbedded in all those Social Security actuarial tables, you see this principle: whether you were a janitor or a fast-food worker or a doctor or a tycoon, if you worked during your working years you shouldn't be left destitute when your working years are over (retirement) or when, through no fault of your own, you can't work anymore (disability). No matter what. The common denominator is a life of work -- skilled or unskilled, impressive or unimpressive, remembered or forgotten. It doesn't matter.
In any case, that's only one way to look at it. More prosaically, you might just say that there are certain risks we choose to share across society. And this is one of them.
These are basic disagreements about how much we owe each other, how interconnected we are. And they're real disagreements with smart folks on either side. They existed in the 1930s; they exist today; and they'll exist in 2030s. The Internet and floating currencies and total quality management -- none of them settle the question. Klein should have the courage of his values and not pass this off on gizmos and gadgets.
--Josh Marshall
The following is an experiment. But one with very real and important issues on the line.
As you have perhaps noticed, in the last couple months TPM has devoted the great majority of its resources to following the crucial debate over the future of Social Security. But from time to time some TPM readers have noted that this has left other issues before Congress all but ignored -- the recent class-action bill, the bankruptcy bill and many others.
A few -- more than a few, actually -- believe that Social Security privatization is actually nothing more than a stalking horse to throw Democrats off the scent while President Bush pushes through a host of terrible bills all but unnoticed. That is a profoundly misguided view. Both sides, I think, recognize the centrality and importance of the debate over Social Security -- both in terms of policy and politics. And if the White House isn't doing well right now -- believe me, they did not expect to find themselves in this position.
But just because Social Security deserves all the attention its getting doesn't mean a lot of other important issues aren't getting eclipsed -- especially on this site.
Now, in some other post I will discuss my reasons and thinking behind TPM's focus on Social Security. But for the moment there's one other piece of legislation getting rushed through Congress that really deserves a closer look and much more scrutiny than it's getting: the Bankruptcy bill.
I'm not knowledgable enough about the subject to discuss it intelligently or usefully. And even if I did, my focus on Social Security would give it short shrift. So back to our experiment ...
Professor Elizabeth Warren is an expert in bankruptcy law at Harvard Law School. And I've agreed to set her and three of her students at the law school up with a limited-duration blog here at TPM to follow the bankruptcy bill much as I am tracking the Social Security debate.
The four of them probably won't approach the task just as I might. And I should point out that I've given them complete editorial freedom to express their views of the on-going debate. So while it's quite fair to infer my general agreement with their position, they may very well state particular views or positions that I don't agree with -- which is absolutely fine and just as I'd want it.
A bit later in the spring, if all goes according to plan, we're going to be rolling out an expanded version of TPM -- or actually an adjunct site -- that will make it possible to comment on posts, for readers to have a place to meet and post their own views and to have experiments along the lines of this one we're starting tonight. But in this case the resources (Professor Warren and her students) and the need (the little-discussed Bankruptcy bill) came together in a way that I thought it made sense not to wait.
As I said earlier, I'm no expert on this topic. And I'm looking forward to learning more from what these folks have to say. The relatively little I do know makes me pretty sure there's at least a lot in this legislation that doesn't serve the public interest. And people whose opinions I trust all think it is a classic gift to a powerful special interest at the expense of ordinary Americans. There are many things I've treasured about this site in the almost four and a half years I've been producing it. One thing it allows me to do is to give others a platform to make a case that needs to be heard. So that's what I'm doing here.
Click here to see what they're doing.
--Josh Marshall
So there you have it.
Private accounts, at best, do nothing to make Social Security solvent. Yet, according to his Treasury Secretary John Snow, President Bush considers private accounts "an absolutely essential part" of the changes he wants to make.
He's committed to phase-out; not solvency.
Yes, I know it sounds stark and dramatic. But it's true.
Listen...
"The president's committed to these personal accounts. I'm committed to them. They've got to be part of any solution, because without them, we can't offer the promise of fixing and preserving Social Security and the purpose of Social Security for younger people."
He won't even consider a plan to extend and assure solvency; it has to be phase-out. So what is there to talk about?
But let's go beyond that. The president is traveling all across the county, hitting every marginal Republican district he can find, to sell his plan.
But what plan?
Before anyone takes him seriously, doesn't he have to disclose the size of the benefit cuts he wants?
He's like Nixon; he's got a secret plan to end Social Security.
--Josh Marshall
