The Coming Dem Screw Job
I hate to be a spoilsport, just when it seems that Bush’s Social Security Destruction plan is fizzling.
But, if the Democrats aren’t careful, Bush and the Republicans will come out of this potential debacle smelling like roses.
Here’s what I mean.
Apparently, Bush has said that the supporters of private accounts have a six-week window of opportunity to turn around public opinion. This jibes with Mickey Kaus’ theory that Karl Rove wants either a win on this issue, or a quick failure that will not have an impact on the midterm elections next year. A theory I agree with.
BUT….
Even if the Democrats and their allies manage to skuttle the dreaded private accounts, Bush has set it up that major Social Security reforms such as increasing the retirement age or eliminating the income cap on FICA are now palatable alternatives. [In fact, Bush has already been hinting he’d support the latter.]
In a vacuum, both proposals were political death. But when compared to private accounts that destroy the fundamental soundness of the Social Security system, they seem like reasonable alternatives.
So here is what will likely happen. Bush will eventually abandon the private accounts idea, and embrace one of the aforementioned alternative “fixes” for Social Security. He will almost certainly get Democratic support for those fixes.
That, in turn, will give many Republicans who are in marginal districts or in Blue States political cover to “save” Social Security by endorsing and voting for, say, removing the income cap on FICA.
Then, VIOLA! — George W. Bush and the Republicans go into the 2006 midterms as the party that “saved Social Security!” Erasing for a generation the inherent advantage Democrats have had on the issue for decades.
To be sure, conservatives will fume. [And some are already getting desperate] But Bush doesn’t NEED conservative votes in Congress to win support for a Social Security Fix. He only needs moderate Republicans, and Democrats.
It would be similar to Bill Clinton’s passage of NAFTA in his first term. Get a few sympathetic Democrats on board, and rely upon Republicans for the votes to get the thing passed. Only in Bush’s case, it will be the reverse.
In fact, I predict that even a lot of conservatives will jump on the bandwagon once they realize that the proposal will pass. It will be popular, after all.
Naturally, Bush will be hailed as a political titan, and Rove a genius (again) for doing the politically impossible: fixing Social Security!
The whole thing will be portrayed as Bush’s plan from the beginning. And, who knows, it may well be. But whatever the truth of the matter, the Democrats are about to get screwed.
And here’s the worst part. There isn’t much the Democrats can do to stave off this outcome. If they go along with Bush to fix Social Security, they will simply be following his lead, and will get no credit for it.
If they fight it, they will be hammered by the President and Republicans as obstructionists who only opposed fixing Social Security for partisan political reasons. Which, incidentally, will be true.
The only hope the Democrats have is that Bush really is stupid enough to try and force private accounts through. He may be, but Karl Rove isn’t. So, I suspect that private accounts are dead, dead, dead. But so are the Democrats about to be.
March 2nd, 2005 at 6:41 am
Hesiod, your argument is very plausible (as you tend to be in all your analyses), but in this case I think you miss one very important thing: you vastly underestimate how much the Republicans in charge want to destroy Social Security, not save it. For Rove to do what you suggest flies in the face of his entire political life, and of the obvious intent of the current privatization campaign. I don’t think they can pivot that quickly, because basically they don’t want to.
Charles
March 2nd, 2005 at 7:07 am
Excellent analysis and, unfortunately, right on target. Indulge me in a little pedantry, though:
Voila.
Viola.
March 2nd, 2005 at 7:40 am
Charles: I think the radical right is more patient than you think. This year is about softening the ground for the destruction of SocSec, not about getting anything done. This year is about the Barriers to Bankruptcy Bill (which will pass after years of opposition) and BushCo’s War on Law and the Consumer. And he’s about to be 2 for 2 on that front.
March 2nd, 2005 at 7:58 am
I’d point out that Democrats should be working framing this as a victory for themselves. Democratic leaders should come out right now and demand these solutions at the top of their lungs, so if Bush does go that route, it will appear he caved in to the Democrats who are the real stewards of social security.
March 2nd, 2005 at 8:12 am
Damn, you smartypants are rockin’ over here today!
Hesiod nails the situation.
eRobin nails the GOP’s objective.
And Susan nails the solution.
Charles, I don’t think you’re far off the mark, either, with the exception of your characterization of Rove and the GOP response. The Bush GOP is very much capable of pivoting that quickly - even if they don’t want to - when doing so allows them the good fortune of saving face.
He who fights
and runs away
lives to fight
another day.
March 2nd, 2005 at 8:12 am
Re increasing the income cap: But wouldn’t that be (booga booga) raising taxes? And haven’t the majority of the Republicans signed the pledge (Norquist’s or the Club for Growth’s, I forget which) to never, ever vote to raise taxes under any circumstances? Can they risk doing this? They’re not all Arlen Specter, well enough established that they can fight off a primary challenge from the tax-absolutist right. So would they dare?
March 2nd, 2005 at 8:42 am
So it seems like an accepted part of the liberals’ conventional wisdom that, as I see here, that,”…the Republicans in charge want to destroy Social Security, not save it… This year is about softening the ground for the destruction of SocSec…” but I’ve never seen any rationale for WHY the Republicans would want to totally destroy Social Security. What would they gain?
March 2nd, 2005 at 8:45 am
Hesiod is rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic, just like Kerry wanted to prove how ferocious a fighter he was. Don€™t let Rove frame the debate! The central problem is the military/industrial/petroleum complex. We have a state of perpetual war and constant fear of terrorist attacks. The public will always vote more money on Homeland Security, that cesspool of corruption, and less for schools, healthcare and social security. Until we cut the chains of petroleum addiction/missile defense/welfare for Halliburton and its like, there can€™t be enough money for human needs. If we can block the constant borrowing- i.e. reforms to SS which don€™t involve borrowing or benefit cuts are OK, we will have made a big start.
Whatever Congress does, Buove will claim victory- they claim that they have little influence over what Congress (€œthe criminal class€ according to Twain) does. The answer to this is not tortured rhetoric and wringing of the hands. It is to ridicule the Buove Potemkin planet- the town meetings, the visits to other countries involve screened audiences. Buove can€™t deal with hostile audiences- that€™s why they felt it necessary to put the box on GWB€™s back in the first Presidential debate. No, the mainstream media weren€™t interested in that box and never will be.
We who want a better world must constantly harp on this idea- why must Bush, Santorum and other loonies avoid honest debate? Why do they speak only to their supporters? The box shows their fear. That concept can get through, if repeated in the language of the low and high brows..
March 2nd, 2005 at 8:49 am
tomaig: what would they gain? When Charles II was restored to the throne, one of the first acts of the royal government was to dig up the corpse of Oliver Cromwell, and post his head on a spike overlooking Whitehall. Destroying Social Security would be the 21st century equivalent gesture towards the legacy of FDR. If they could have done it sooner, they would have.
March 2nd, 2005 at 8:52 am
Hesiod’s analysis and what follows is about real world political strategy, not coffee shop philosophy.
Well done.
The rest of the fascist trolls should be here any minute.
March 2nd, 2005 at 9:24 am
Tomaig, the destruction of Social Security is a conservative holy grail. An end in itself, not a means to an end.
Not one they are willing to self-destruct over, but also not something they are doing to advance any other cause.
The very existance of Social Security says things about the role of the Federal govornment that they vehemently disagree with.
March 2nd, 2005 at 11:25 am
So…any links to any quotes from ANY Republicans anywhere at any time who have espoused these beliefs you’ve fancifully attributed to them?
And they would do all this - the ceremonial “head on the pike” slaying of the New Deal at the cost of political suicide just to make a point? To try and “prove” that those who opposed FDR’s policies almost 70 years ago were right?
Gotta say - these scenarios rank pretty LOW on the plausibility scale.
March 2nd, 2005 at 3:58 pm
tomaig: don’t sound so indignant, it’s no one’s fault but your own that you haven’t been paying attention.
March 2nd, 2005 at 4:55 pm
Once again the Dems position is not clear.
If this is Roves plan, it’s easily defeated by taking these two things as our own, loud and clear.
All I seem to hear from the Dems is There is no crisis, and Minor Ajustments will keep SS solvent for years. Well what are those adjustments?
Raising the cap, instead of eliminating it, posed as something long overdue, would negate the raising taxes objection. A modest increase in the age of full eligibility would not be very objectionable to most.
Put these forward first as the Dems position and we win.
.
March 2nd, 2005 at 7:34 pm
Tomaig–if you paid attention closely to the last election, you might have noticed that Bush’s former Harvard business school professor Yoshihiro Tsurumi revealed Bush’s true views on social security: ‘’In my class, he (Bush) declared that ‘people are poor because they are lazy.’ He was opposed to labor unions, social security, environmental protection, Medicare and public schools. To him, Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal was ’socialism,”’ Tsurumi said.”
So there you have it, Tomaig–Bush hates social security because to him, it’s “socialism.” Bush wants to destroy the social safety net to create a modern day aristocratic class and a weak plantaion class by destroying social and economic equality.
March 3rd, 2005 at 1:06 am
Hesiod, you’re wearing your “not only can it get worse, it will and there’s no hope” hat again.
The only way the Democrats can fail to “stave off this outcome” is sheer incompetence. (Okay, then, maybe it is inevitable after all.)
Seriously, the Dems can declare with confidence “There is no crisis! A system that might face a problem in 40 years or so is not in crisis! Why is the GOP trying so hard to stampede us into performing a risky, untested experiment on a system that has worked well for 70 years? What are they really after?”
Then advocate eliminating the ceiling on income for paying SS taxes, noting that according to the Trustees’ own figures, that would cover all projected future benefits through at least 2079, as far out as current projections reach - and does it without taking a single extra penny out of the pockets of the hard-working families of the great American middle class. After all, aren’t those the people whose interests the GOP says it wants to protect?
And if the Dems get called “obstructionists,” don’t dispute it: Embrace it!
“They call me obstructionist? Damn straight! When they try to destroy rather than build, I will obstruct them! When they try to undermine rather than support, I will obstruct them! When they try to steal your future with deceptions and distortions, I will obstruct them! There is no crisis in Social Security - Social Security is not going to go bankrupt, it is not going to disappear - and make no mistake about it, they are lying to you - they are lying to you - when they tell you otherwise.
“Does Social Security need some minor adjustments to protect it far, far into the future? Probably. But I say again, there is no crisis! And whether you are 60-something or 20-something, Social Security will be there for you when you need it. That is, unless they get their hands on it. Because they are like people who will look at a house with a few broken windows and propose burning it to the ground. And if someone stands in front of that house and says ‘Why not just fix the windows?’ they will cry ‘Obstructionist!’ Well, I say that in a case like this, in a situation like this, faced with their deceit, ‘obstructionist’ is a label I will wear with pride - because I would rather be an obstructionist than a destroyer.”
March 3rd, 2005 at 4:30 am
“Bush wants to destroy the social safety net to create a modern day aristocratic class and a weak plantaion class by destroying social and economic equality”
A near-perfect encapsulation of liberal bizzarro-land paranoia. You’re serious , aren’t you? A “weak plantation class”? A New Aristocracy? It’s hard to imagine any grown-up, living-in-the-real-world-and-not-the-halls-of-academe person actually saying, much less beleiving, some fairy-tale crap like that.
Wow…
Do you believe tha ,too, Hesiod? That GWB wants to apparently return to the feudal system?
March 3rd, 2005 at 5:19 am
tomaig sez: “Do you believe tha ,too, Hesiod? That GWB wants to apparently return to the feudal system?”
Well, he’s been doin’ it since about 1992, exactly how much flockin’ data you need mon???
March 3rd, 2005 at 5:52 am
Tomaig-It’s no so much a feudal system as social darwinism. Bush said recently that it’s the duty of the strong to help the weak–but he was talking to an anti-abortion rally on the Mall via telephone. In other words, Bush believes in helping the weak–but only if they are not yet born. Once you’re born, in Bush’s view, you’re on your own, unless you happen to be a corporation, in which case he’ll try to give you welfare. In other words, Bush is a social darwinist, and he believes that those who are strong (rich) are virtuous, while those who are poor are weak and deserve to be poor, even though Bush himself was born with a silver spoon in his mouth and never ran a successful business in his life and took handouts from his family and his father’s friends for years.
But tell me this, Tomaig, what do you think of this quote by Bush’s former Harvard professor Yoshihiro Tsurumi: €˜€™In my class, he (Bush) declared that €˜people are poor because they are lazy.€™ He was opposed to labor unions, social security, environmental protection, Medicare and public schools. To him, Franklin D. Roosevelt€™s New Deal was €™socialism,€€™ Tsurumi said.€
Assuming for the sake of argument Bush actually said this to his professor in the 70s, what do you say to this quote, which you can verify by a simple google search? I am curious what you make of this particular quote in light of this thread. Please respond to this quote. I am genuinely curious what you think.
March 3rd, 2005 at 6:55 am
Since 1992? Since 8 years before he ever ran for president, GWB has been trying to return this society to feudalism?
???
March 3rd, 2005 at 8:05 am
Full blog reply here:
But Hesiod, this is called WINNING, when the opposition party endorses your policy in order to stay in power. If Bush starts out trying to destroy social security and instead is forced to make the social security tax system more equitable, that’s a good thing. In fact, it’s a change in Social Security that might have been unattainable if Kerry was in office, since the GOP would have blocked it, just as they would have blocked any form of prescription drug benefit for seniors if Gore had been in office.
Being in office is not always to the advantage of a party, precisely because they are held responsible for all policies. An adroit opposition, if they seize this advantage, can actually force through political changes that would be impossible if they were initially in power, although they can build on the policy achieved in opposition to rally support for later changes when they do win office.
Look at the supply-siders under Carter– they pushed through the early tax cuts in 1978 that paved the way for political triumph with Reaganism. The conservative movement did not build strength purely through obstructionism in the 1970s, but through arguing for their principles and extracting whatever favorable policy they could as an opposition, then arguing they could do even more of it if they were given full power. That was Reagan’s message in 1980 and it was quite effective. If progressives just play defense and engage in obstructionism as their only message, they are doomed to be seen as only the party of opposition, useful as a check on abuse by reigning conservatives but not a serious option for governance. Of course, Democrats should filibuster all bad policy, but they should be maneuvering for good policies they can share credit for as well.
March 3rd, 2005 at 11:20 am
I’m deeply worried about the framing of Social Security. So far the Democratic reaction is in the negative; While that is the correct reaction to more deficit spending, it still means that Democrats are reacting to a Neo-con agenda. The political facts of life are that you frame an issue by picking a fight. You don’t frame an issue by reacting.
Like it or not, Bush and the Neo-Cons have presented an initiative to “reform” Social security and in doing so have framed the issue. It doesn’t matter whether their initiative is fraudulent or not. It’s like gravity–If you pick a fight, you have framed an issue.
I submit that progressives and Democrats must pick a fight, must present an initiative to balance the budget. Picking a fight about the budget deficit frames the Bush budget as irresponsible deficit spending. That is something people in blue and red states can understand. And if we want to be responsible about Social Security, fiscal integrity is at the top of the list.
I’m tired of waiting for someone else to figure this out.
Regular working people in New York and Florida are going to run some issue ads on conservative talk radio. We’re trying to call attention to the staggering deficits being written by the Bush administration, deficits that our children will have to re-pay
here’s the link–http://www.buzzflash.com/contributors/05/02/con05063.html
Robert Millman
Glenville, NY
March 3rd, 2005 at 11:58 am
To Robert–the Democrats apparently believe that only a president can set an agenda, even though the Rethuglicans led by Newt Gingrich felt bound by no such limitations, although they did control the House. The Dems have tried to get some initiatives, such as the lame attempt at voter reform by Clinton, Boxer, Kerry, and Tubbs, which got no coverage, and Kerry’s attempt to get every kid insured. If the media won’t cover democratic efforts, and if the dems are feeble in their attempts at agenda setting, there’s just not much hope here. I like your idea of appealing to conservatives, but good luck. Conservatives don’t think, they just hate.
March 3rd, 2005 at 12:02 pm
to Tomaig–what do you make of Bush’s Harvard Business School Professor’s quote: “€˜€™In my class, he (Bush) declared that €˜people are poor because they are lazy.€™ He was opposed to labor unions, social security, environmental protection, Medicare and public schools. To him, Franklin D. Roosevelt€™s New Deal was €™socialism,€€™ Tsurumi said.€ What is your take on this quote, which you can verify with a google search? Please respond to this quote if you can.
March 3rd, 2005 at 3:05 pm
I think that this whole assault on Social Security was nothing more than a Sun Tzu feint aimed at destroying Medicare and Medicaid while the enemy is focused on the big noise elsewhere.
Rove isn’t stupid enough to risk losing the entire whacko fringe of the republican party by compromising on anything. Bush might be, but Rove isn’t. I guarantee you that two of the people involved in the whole plot to overthrow FDR werer Prescott Bush and Bush SR’s uncle Herbert Walker. This family is genetically opposed to anything that helps the “little people” just as they are genetically attracted to sucking on the public teat and calling it free enterprise.
March 3rd, 2005 at 3:36 pm
Bush and Rove have but one plan…….another “Wedgie” like “Moral Values”, only this time it’s “Young vs Old”. I can just hear Bush in 6 weeks making his pitch to the under 40 group….”The older generation just doesn’t understand the need for private…whoops! ‘personal’ accounts.” Its the ultimate divider of another two factions. Remember, this is still only an ‘idea’, the GOP does not have any written bill or definate legislation to take to Congress-nothing,nada. Bush is traveling throughout the US with ‘an idea’ - no concrete facts. So what is that all about? Anyone smell a setup?
March 3rd, 2005 at 4:03 pm
Why don’t the Democrats make the point that the Bush cannot be trusted to keep his promise not to change benefits for 55 and over. In 2000 he promised never to spend the Social Security Trust Fund and to put it in a “Lock Box”. Instead he has spent it all on his tax cuts for the rich. This new promise is just as reliable as that one was.
March 9th, 2005 at 10:18 am
Brett, geez, let it go about that silly Harvard quote. College-age quotes aren’t relevant.