Night of the Living Policy Proposal
As you may have read yesterday, the corpse of Social Security reform, thought dead, has been reanimated and is now shambling over to congress as a provision of the President's budget proposal. One is inclined to dismiss this as a substantive matter -- Social Security is not, in fact, going to be privatized this year. Politically, though, it would be a mistake for Democrats to be blasé about this. Social Security is potentially a great political issue for the Democrats, but it's not going to work very well if the public is convinced that the proposal is dead.
And the reality is that it isn't dead. No, it won't happen this year or probably even next, but the point needs to be made that this is still a top-tier policy priority of the conservative movement. If the GOP regains the sort of political strength they thought they had in early 2005, it will be rolled out again. The only way to really kill off this zombie is with a headshot -- Social Security will never be truly safe as long as the Republican majority continues to exist in anything like its current form. For the moment, privatization isn't alive and isn't dead -- it's undead, stalking the earth, being nurtured in the hearts of the right, and even popping up sub rosa in budget proposals (doesn't this violate the Byrd Rule governing the reconciliation process?). That basic reality is a big deal, and Democrats shouldn't shy away from saying so.
"The only way to really kill off this zombie is with a headshot -- Social Security will never be truly safe as long as the Republican majority continues to exist in anything like its current form."
It's not just about killing off the GOP majority.
It's also about a very public punishment for attempting to privative Social Security.
Democrats should campaign this fall on their opposition to what the GOP tried to do to SS, not just to win seats - although it will help in that respect - but also to put the fear of god into Republicans in the future.
The GOP seems to have forgotten the whole 'SS as third rail' message, and so it's time to reinforce that message.
February 9, 2006 7:36 AM | Reply | Permalink
I think this would be an excellent time to have another conversation about privatization. If they refuse to learn from their defeats, and choose to engage us on probably our strongest issue, we should welcome that conflict.
February 9, 2006 7:45 AM | Reply | Permalink
"doesn't this violate the Byrd Rule governing the reconciliation process?"
Flagrantly so. Modifications to Social Security are expressly not allowed in a budget reconciliation.
One wonders if the idea here is to alow Mike DeWine to invoke the Byrd rule, then let DeWine, Santorum, Burns, and Chafee cast "deciding" votes to "Save Social Security". Because beyond that, I can't understand why the President included it in the budget.
February 9, 2006 7:54 AM | Reply | Permalink
I think Democrats should view this for what it is: a political gift.
After all, those corrupt corporate bagmen won't rest until they've finally thrown grandpa onto the street.
I'm stunned that Bush was dumb enough to include in his proposal during an election year. Dems need to take advantage on an issue in which they have much support for their position.
February 9, 2006 11:02 AM | Reply | Permalink
Dems need to sit down with paper, pencil (and a functioning brain) and, assuming the system is supposed to go broke by 2065, figure what would happen should there be another baby boom between now and then. Not an impossibility, in fact, judging by my neighborhood a probability. Say it begins tomorrow. Twenty some odd years down the road, 2026, 39 years to go? Then, of course, no economist with his head on face-front ever predicts anything more than 6 months ahead. But they're not working in the Bush brain.
February 9, 2006 12:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
We hamstring future party viability by simply opposing versus presenting some debatable plan. Sure, we have to overcome the Right's bellicosity, but the public PERCEPTION is that we don't know what to do to fix a looming implosion, so we just refuse to do business with the Republicans to appear proactive.
I think we need to co-opt the R's by formulating incremental changes to SS, using small combinations of Republican policies. They may be able to paint our efforts as vindications of their ideas, but so what. We need to present viable action plans to not only change public perception of our party, but to plant the seeds for party growth. We have been bludgeoned into marginal relevance and fractured by intraparty differences. Regaining national prominence requires proactive politics; not reactive politics.
February 9, 2006 1:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
Rock the Vote: Don't get Played on Social Security
No, no, no Primob. Social Security is not broke. At all. And reported 2005 productivity puts paid to any notion that it is.
Petey is on the right track here. Although few people have realized it yet we have grabbed the club of Social Security out of the hands of Cato and turned it over to people like Barkley Rosser who know the real score. I have now dubbed it 'Rosser's Reality Stick' because Barkley is the most prominant, fully credentialled economist out there willing and fully able to make the case.
We don't need "incremental changes" and 'Nothing' is a perfectly fine plan. (Pelosi by the way understands this). Republicans have been lying to us on Social Security for several decades. That is the message we need to take to the country this fall "The Republicans are lying to you on Social Security. Again."
Barkley's formula: "76% of 160% equals 120%". Current promised benefits for 2041 are 160% of the equivalent level that retirees get today. It is all about Social Security's policy of sharing advances in standard of living with retirees. You can give privatizers every number in the world and retirees getting benefits in 2041 will only be cut back to a benefit 120% of what my Mom gets today. I'll take that deal knowing that any rate of growth above 2.0% starts restoring the gap.
We are going to unleash our Inner FDR this Fall. And we will not be doing it in increments.
February 9, 2006 2:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
I went to Rosser's website and my eyes glazed over when I saw his volume of work. For those of us with significantly diminished levels of economic analysis, could you point me in the direction of a simpler explanation of his plan?
February 9, 2006 2:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
Rock the Vote: Don't get Played on Social Security
Check the Hippocratic Oath. "First do no harm." Simple minded people might want to start with the Rock the Vote link, then visit Lee Arnold's animation that eviserates the Posen plan (http://www.ecolanguage.net/ Social Security: the Real Connections) then if you wished visit some of the pages on my site starting with http://bruceweb.blogspot.com/2004/11/social-security-is-not-broke-by.html
Or you might start at a high level and ask yourself the question "What would it take to extend the clear trend shown in this table?"
http://www.epi.org/content.cfm/issueguides_socialsecurity_changes
Depletion is getting pushed out at a rate of 1.3 years per year and despite inaction the payroll gap needed for an immediate fix has been shrinking for a decade. I want to simply extrapolate this table from the Economic Policy Institute, the burden is on privatizers to explain why I (and by extention Barkley) are not entitled to do so.
(Not HTML tagged in the interest of transparency)
February 9, 2006 3:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
"We are going to unleash our Inner FDR this Fall. And we will not be doing it in increments."
I certainly hope so.
It's a fucking gimmie. I thought the GOP had a good thing going in letting privatization die a year before the elections. But their weird SS hubris remains.
Bush put it in the budget for legacy reasons. He figures it'll get passed in 2014, and they'll bring him back for the signing ceremony as the godfather of privatization. Some GOP pundit compared it to Reagan winning the cold war even though Bush was in office for the actual end.
The only way to stop that future is to hit them so hard this fall that they'll go cower in the corner anytime they ever hear the words "Social Security" spoken.
That's how you assassinate an opposing side's issue.
------
Winning back the house is like a chair with four legs:
The whole town in rotten.
Done skillfully, this fall should go down as the fatal assassination of the Cato iron triangle. of SS
Why did the GOP design this mess to screw our parents and us, while taking care of their business interests. And hey, we're Democrats. We actually enjoy making stuff like this work for the American people.
February 9, 2006 3:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
I am excited. The shattering of the Bushian mystique began when he went up against Social Security. For MONTHS we were able to hammer him on it successfully thanks in no small part to TPM.
Now... WE GET TO DO IT AGAIN. Fainted-Hearted Faction lists here we come.
February 10, 2006 1:48 AM | Reply | Permalink