Social Security 2.0: Coming in 2007?
In a television interview last weekend, President Bush said Social Security reform was "still alive" and again declared that it would be one of his top goals when the next Congress convenes. Of course, that's what Bush said right after the 2004 election. And despite pushing the issue hard and personally campaigning for it around the country–60 cities in 60 days in early 2005–the idea's beta version never really took off with the American people, and no legislation was ever submitted. So, what are the chances of reform happening in a Congress that will almost certainly be less hospitable to Bush than the current one?
Ask any veteran Washington hand, and you'll certainly get a skeptical response. "Bush has fought the good fight on this issue," says Charles Gabriel, political analyst for Prudential Securities, "but he wasn't able to get it done when he had enhanced political capital after the 2004 election." Gabriel thinks that the White House will have a tough enough time just getting Congress to reauthorize fast-track trade authority next year, much less starting a revamp of perhaps the most politically sensitive federal program in existence.
Maybe the president's chatter about this issue is merely part of a pre-election, Karl Rove scheme to fire up the base, particularly its more libertarian members. But if so, the conspiracy is a deep one. In Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson's first speech after being confirmed in the post, he spent a good chunk of his time advocating entitlement reform. "I have always tried to live by the philosophy that when there is a big problem that needs fixing, you should run toward it, rather than away from it," Paulson said in an August 1 address at Columbia University. "That is one of the reasons I decided to come to Washington, and that is the reason I admire the president's political courage and willingness to address entitlement reform."
And during a recent interview with U.S. News, Rob Portman, director of the Office of Management and Budget, quickly skimmed through the end-of-year budget numbers–good news from the administration's perspective–and then quickly shifted into a hard-hitting and dour assessment of the nation's entitlement problems, calling them "unsustainable." So perhaps the White House isn't so much trying to help congressional Republicans this year as it is laying the groundwork for a new Social Security reform effort next year.
Promises, promises
Indeed, both sides of the issue seem to be gearing up for a fight, beginning with an autumn battle of pledges. House Democrats are pushing their candidates to sign a "Golden Promise" to oppose any efforts to privatize Social Security. On the other side, reform advocates have launched For Our Grandchildren, a campaign that encourages congressional candidates to "urge Congress to work in the coming year toward a bipartisan solution to strengthen Social Security for the long term by putting aside partisan politics and seeking common ground."
It all sounds bipartisan and innocuous enough, but Democrats are urging candidates to have nothing to do with the group. In a September 27 letter, Democratic House leaders Charles Rangel and Sander Levin wrote that the "appearance of this pledge, and its carefully veiled language, shows that the privatizers haven't given up. They've just gone underground. With this pledge, they are laying the groundwork to support the president and congressional Republicans' oft-stated goal of resuming their fight for privatization in the next Congress."
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