Make Them Eat Their Words

Posted by Nicholas Beaudrot of Electoral Math

Ezra's finishing up college this week, so the weekend crew is coming in a bit early. And just in time for Tom Reynolds (R-NY) to suggest that the GOP give up on Social Security. Reynolds runs the NRCC, the body responsible for coordinating recruiting and campaigning for all the House Republicans. And he has no interest in forcing increasingly vulnerable House Republicans to go into re-election having voted to tear Social Security into pieces.

Without a vote, it's time to dig through all the public statements from Bush's winter and spring tour where he kept touting privatization. Anyone who stood on a podium with Bush and shilled for his plans, anyone who said they supported tweaking Social Security, anyone who suggested we haved a "gender adjustment" to benefits, needs to have his or her statments crammed down his or her throat from August to November of 2006. So start combing through Nexis searches now, so that we're ready when the bell rings.

The bill may be dead, but now it's time to extract maximum political pain for even thinking up the idea, so no one ever takes it seriously again.

Social Security Privatization: Still a Bad Idea

Posted by Nick Beaudrot

I know it feels like beating a dead horse, but it's worth remembering that there are people out there still trying to pass "free lunch" proposals to privatize Social Security and/or cut benefits. There's a large message machine out there to promote the idea. And that idea must be rebutted until it's drummed from of every prominent Republican circle.

Thankfully I can outsource this intellectual garbage pickup to Angry Bear's Pro-Growth Liberal. And remember, folks, garbage men get paid pretty well.

Just say no to fuzzy math.

Looking For Love in All The Wrong Places

RedState.org thinks they've found the group who'll revive Social Security privatization:

Social Security reform garners major support from young Americans, who know that the system is tilted against them. Personal accounts are supported by 2/3rds of young Americans and almost universally by Young Republicans. Since the over 55 crowd will not be affected by any reforms, the face of reform should be young Americans. YRs have an opportunity to fill that void alongside groups such as Students for Saving Social Security.

Gee-willickers, Social Security is really in trouble! I didn't know 2/3rds of young folks believed in anything! But it seems I was wrong. Not only do they believe private accounts are a good idea, but they believe Bush is a lying scumbag who can't be trusted. Here are more results from the 18-29 demographic in the exact same poll:

• 26% approve of Bush's handling on Social Security, 51% disapprove;

• 39% mostly trust what Bush says about Social Security, 54% think he's mostly lying;

• 42% think Republicans are generally truthful on the issue, 50% think they're liars;

• 50% think Democrats are honest about Social Security, 41% think otherwise;

So here's the Republican's great hope, the demographic clear-eyed enough to lance through liberal lies and mass behind the President's proposals: they disapprove of Bush 2:1, more than half think he's a liar, most think his party lies, and most think Democrats are telling the truth.

Huh. Maybe my generation's smarter than I thought.

Social Security: Round 2?

Well this is fairly surprising. House Republicans are vowing to vote on Social Security before the year is through:

House Republican leaders pledged to seek a vote this year on legislation creating a scaled back version of President Bush's call for personal retirement accounts under Social Security.
...
Republicans said the measure would create personal accounts for younger workers, and some of the funds would be used to replace part of their traditional benefit. At the same time, they added, the accounts could be inherited under some circumstances.

The program would also raise the government's official deficit estimates by as much as $1 trillion over a decade, a development that could increase pressure on lawmakers to cut spending or raise taxes in the future.

The strategy here is a bit surprising, House Republicans, so far as I can tell, are self-BTU'ing themselves. The Senate's not likely to pass this bill, and if they don't, each and every Republican congressperson voting "aye" has to go and explain it to their districts in 2006, and do so with no program to show for their troubles. Peculiar.

Nevertheless, this argues powerfully against defunding and disbanding Americans United to Protect Social Security. If the Republicans don't think the fight's over, then it's not. And if the fight's not over, we shouldn't be disarming.

Firestorm

What a fitting epitaph to the Social Security fight:

"I had hoped there would be, after four months, a firestorm of support for accounts, especially among young people," said Senate Finance Committee Chairman Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa). "It's not there. I'm very disappointed."

Back in March, I argued that the Republican reliance on the young was a stupid mistake. My demographic doesn't care about Social Security. If you don't give a damn, private accounts sound fine, but you're not going to lay down in traffic, or even get up from the couch, in support of them. Not to mention that young folks were the only age groups easily carried by Senator Kerry. If we'd had our way, there'd be no Bush offering Social Security change, instead, there'd be a Democrat changing our health care system. If right wing luminaries like Grassley really were counting on a firestorm of twenty-something support, privatization was dead from the start.

You Trust Me? Really? Why?

Powerful article in the Times today about the real-world impacts, effects, and uses of Social Security.  The piece profiles a set of seniors in Grand Rapids, digging into how Social Security affects, and in some cases, dictates their lives.  One quote in particular stood out:

But others, like James Townsend, who worked as a forklift operator, defend the traditional program. "If they hadn't had Social Security, I wouldn't have saved that money," he said. "If I'd had extra money, I'd have spent it. I wouldn't have anything at all."

Generally, that strikes me as the primary divide between those in philosophical solidarity with private investment and those ideologically opposed.  Putting aside clawbacks and phase-out and everything else, would you support a competently structured privatization program?  Republicans answering the question usually say yes because they "trust people with their own money".  That always struck me as hopelessly naive.  In a society where the average man on the street is packing $5,800 of credit card debt, the idea that we're all competent financial planners managing our money with an eye towards retirement savings is giggle-inducing. 

Over time, Bush came to understand this.  Moreover, he realized that Americans, like James Townsend, are less confident in their money-managing abilities than Bush was.  Guess that's difference between seeing an unabalanced checkbook every month and making generalizations based off a political philosophy.  So Bush changed his own nonexistent plan into a scheduled set of investments, no control, little risk.  At that point, all we were dealing with was a reduction in benefits, but Bush kept up the same refrain, the "I trust Americans with their money" chorus.  But Bush really didn't.  I don't.  And neither, it turns out, do Americans.  Having something come on a guaranteed schedule, protected from human error as surely as from market turmoil, offers an important psychological security net.  And that's why the alternative plan for Social Security is Social Security.  Yes yes, I know, it was created back in the prehistoric 1930's.  But while our economy might have transformed since then, it turns out Americans haven't much changed -- they still like a sure thing.

-Ezra

Cut and Run

I'm enormously disturbed to hear that the GOP is looking for an exit strategy on Social Security.  This sort of abandonment of Social Security could let it fall to AARP.  Indeed, a reverse domino effect could take place, as liberal pressure groups sense weakness, judge the administration a paper tiger unwilling to take electoral casualties, and begin pushing for a massive expansion of the welfare state. 

First Social Security, tomorrow the minimum wage, Monday universal day care, and next month, single-payer.  The thought makes me shudder.  Moreover, this essential willingness to abandon our nation's pension programs to those who seek to perpetuate our way of life proves the essential lack of seriousness conservatives bring to domestic policy.  All of us who understand that Social Security is, as President Bush said, the foremost threat to our national economy realize that his absence of leadership on the issue betrays a willingness to abandon the country's best interest in pursuit of partisan gain. 

The seniors, it seems, have already won.

Eat The Old

You know what?  I want to work forever.

I do.

No, I mean it. 

I want to be 93, with big coke-bottle glasses and an out of style suit (because, come age 93, I don't expect to give a fuck), striding into my office.  Okay -- at 93, I probably won't stride much, but I'll do the best I can.  And I want to greet my many young colleagues, make old Jewish guy jokes as I wind my way to my desk, sit down at my holographic laptop (which will now be a hopeless relic compared to the Cornea Computers others will use), and blog for a bit.  Then I'll work the phones for awhile, trying to figure out what my next column will be.  Then I'll blog a bit more.  Work phones.  Have lunch with somebody interesting.  Go out with my wife to dinner.  Etc.

Yes, I want to work forever because what I want to do sounds like it'll be fun forever.  Maybe it won't be, of course, but David Broder is nearing 130 and he's still at it, so there seems to be a chance.  Now.  I would really not like to work forever if I was a tailor.  I wouldn't not enjoy trudging into the office each morning and, at 93, bending down to hem pants.  I would not enjoy standing up all day to adjust the merchandise.  I would much rather be sitting at home, acting the dirty old man towards my wife.

John Tierney, because he does the first job, has written a column addressed to all those lazy asses doing the second.  Those malingerers and loiterers who're checking out at 62, collecting reduced Social Security benefits, and hanging out with the grandkids.  And John Tierney, as with all the columnists who offer this suggestion, is tough for doing it.  He's taking on a sacred cow, saying what pols fear to say, going where lesser men wilt, speaking the hard truths to AARP's power. 

Raising the retirement age is the most offensive serious public policy suggestion in American life.  What it says about us as a culture, what it says about our chattering class -- it's just embarassing.  It'd be one thing if Social Security really were bankrupting this country, if its costs stretched into the stratosphere and the poor American economy was being crushed under its weight, an Atlas without the quads.  But it's just not so.  What's needed to keep Social Security safe and solvent is so minor as to be laughable.  Indeed, it's so minor that, with some good productivity growth, we'll never need to do it at all.  But rather than advocate that, our chattering classes immediately reach for the nearest blunt object and begin clubbing the working class.  So what if they need to work 8 more years at an unpleasant job?  Why're they being so lazy?  I'm going to be working when I'm 75, what's wrong with them!?

Well, nothing.  It's not what's wrong with them, it's what's different about our chattering class.  The folks retiring at 62 aren't Times op-ed columnists.  Neither are they my father, a mathematician with a deep and abiding affection for hanging out at his office.  Nor are they Senators (as Bob Dole said, "Inside work, no heavy lifting", or as Strom Thurmond noted, "What?  Speak up, I can't hear you!").  They're folks who've worked at jobs they don't like for 45 years and want to stop.  Prioritizing the repeal of the estate tax above letting the working class escape little-liked occupations while they still have healthy years to enjoy the time off wouldn't just be bad policy, it'd be wholly immoral.  And so John Tierney, no matter how many "truth to power" points he gets for calling retirees lazy and indigent, should be punished for this column.  He thinks Americans aren't getting more lazy, they're just being tricked into it by a pension system that encourages sloth and lolling.  Next time he tries to write it, we should make him prove it.  For each year he wants to raise the retirement age by, he has to spend 365 days as a short-order cook.  On the last day, we can ask him if he'd like to retire from the profession despite his young age.

What do you think he'll say?

Ding-Dong, The Plan is Dead

Looks like Social Security is safe:

President Bush has all but conceded his plan for private accounts for Social Security is dead, admitting privatization won't save the federal retirement system.

"You can solve the solvency issue without personal accounts," Bush said in an interview with the Radio-Television News Directors Association.

According to the article, Bush is still going to push on solvency measures (funny, I remember predicting the same thing four months ago...), trying to squeeze a public relations victory out of an ideological loss.  Democrats shouldn't let him.  Back in 1994, Bill Clinton did a very stupid thing and dramatically swore to veto any health care bill that didn't ensure universal coverage.  Thus, after all the bills providing universal coverage were buried in a deep, dark place in Newt Gingrich's secret underground lair, Clinton was unable to support any of the many minor, incremental bills that Republicans had cosponsored and that would've allowed him to enter the midterm elections having pushed through a tangible improvement on health care.  It was, as Newt admitted, Clinton's worst mistake of the battle as it would've allowed him to regain the momentum before the midterms.

Bush isn't going to make it.  He'll try and address the program's perceived solvency issues so he can strut into 2006 bragging about his courageous confrontation with the "third rail of politics" that had left America with a healthier pension program.  Democrats, of course, can't stop him from pulling this pivot, but if they're smart, they could change the subject before it ever becomes legislation.  There's broad agreement that Social Security isn't the problem, health care is.  Demanding that attention be paid to Medicare and the uninsured will make further moves on Social Security seem like a puzzling diversion from the work at hand and hopefully cut off further maneuvers by the president.  As an issue, health care is even stronger for Democrats than Social Security was (the American people did support investment accounts, on health care, their support is for single-payer and further government involvement), and they should press the advantage as the election looms closer, not let the president regain ground on a battle he lost.

A Plan for Social Security

Among left-wing bloggers, there's a general consensus that Democrats would be foolish to offer a competing plan for restructuring Social Security. This consensus is right (I refer the unconvinced to the Gospel of Matthew), but it leaves open the question of what to say when we're asked what our plan is, or why we don't have a plan.

There's a simple plan we can lay out here: Balance the budget, and no matter what happens with Social Security over the next 40 years, we'll be able to take care of it. Balancing the budget will put America into a sufficiently good financial position that we'll be able to shore up Social Security no matter what goes wrong. If Social Security needs a little extra money to keep going, we'll be able to come up with that.

The best thing about this strategy is that it allows us to segue immediately into talk about Republican fiscal incompetence. Here's where you start talking about tax cuts for the rich, or if you're in an anti-spending environment, big corporate giveaways like the ban on negotiating lower prices for Medicare prescription drugs. It's probably an especially good thing to say to people like Russert, since earnest talk about deficit reduction makes you look all principled and bipartisan in centrist environments.

--Neil the Werewolf

The People's Debt

I thought I might chase The Ethical Werewolf's notes on The People's Money with a snapshot of The People's Debt.  I've been following this story for several months, and I've noticed that it doesn't get much air time.  The essence is simple.  Assume the Republican Party makes all of its recent regressive tax changes permanent (but does not go farther down that path) and then only increases discretionary spending with GDP (by among other things, not debt-financing colonial adventurism).  By 2040, almost every penny that the Federal Government takes in goes just to pay the interest on the national debt.  For those who are curious about what that looks like, there's a chart below the fold.

That's not my opinion.  That's the opinion of the General Accounting Office, based on a middle-of-the-road set of assumptions.  And yet, the Republican Party talking points are that Social Security is bankrupt because in 2042, the Social Security Trust Fund will be depleted, and the amount of money then coming in earmarked for Social Security will only be enough to pay between 70% and 80% of the then-scheduled payments (again, based on a middle-of-the-road set of assumptions).

If the Republicans can't tell the difference between these two situations (and apparently, they can't, or they'd be far more worried about the General Fund than Social Security), they really shouldn't be trusted with the The People's Money to run the government.  Frankly, The People should probably think twice about whether the Republicans can even be trusted with The People's Ten-spot to buy The People a six-pack at Circle K.

- paperwight

Bad Timing

Writing in the LA Times, Michael Hitzlick makes a great point:

when corporations are shedding their responsibilities, it's the wrong time for the government to do so. When the president, who never seems to think about the difficulty most people face in holding on to what they do own, proposes to cut the Social Security benefits of the majority of workers by 30% or more, how does he account for abrogations of promises made by companies such as United? Some workers spent their careers at the airline working toward pensions they were told would be worth $100,000 a year or more. Instead, they'll receive $45,000 or less.

As he argues, the most effective rejoinder to Bush's plan has been the time period in which he proposed it. To tell workers to trust the stock market post-Enron, to take a benefits cut post-United, and to accept transition costs post-deficit has been nonsensical. Bush's determination to push his plan through while every single real world indicator rips open its flaws has been impressive but, thankfully, it's been futile.

Indeed, Bush is lucky he didn't try this in his first term because the initiative is turning him into his father. The latest ARG poll has him at 51% disapproval, 43% approval, and all because of economic issues. 59% think the econom'ys getting worse (19% think better), 57% disapprove of Bush's handling of the economy, and 64% rate the current economy at bad, very bad, or terrible. And in the middle of it all, there's George Bush instructing America to give up their guaranteed government pensions for a lower sum that may, if the stock market cooperates, grow. Sounds to me like someone needs a terror alert...

Why 70?

Robert Samuelson gets his "seriousness" card punched today with a column advocating a raise in the retirement age to 70. I'm genuinely confused by this. The argument, so far as I can tell, is that folks retiring in the 30's didn't live as long and so our current age is way higher in absolute terms than it was then. We need to change that.

But why? I was born in 1984, but let's say I entered the world in 1980. Assuming I make it to 65, which I dearly hope to do, I will, on average, have 14.1 years of life left in me. If nothing changes, the retirement age will be 67, which'll allow me roughly a decade of retirement (12.1 years, actually, but who's counting?). Exactly why should that be raised? What sort of society are we that we can't offer our old ten years to relax and enjoy their kids and grandkids after they've spent roughly 65 years being educated and employed? I personally hope to be a cranky, Safire-esque character writing biting columns and channeling the ghost of Bill Clinton well into my 80's, but I've a bit of trouble seeing why the same should be required of a machinist, or a maitre d'. Which may, come to think of it, explain why the 60 (or so) year old Samuelson is so keen on the idea. When you're putting finger to key for a living, an extra year or two spent doing it in order to net full pension benefits probably isn't the most unfair thing in the world.

Now, don't get me wrong -- folks can do what they want and work until they want. It just seems that if they decide 67 years was plenty, society shouldn't penalize them for it. And if we need to raise taxes some and defund the Pentagon a bit and shift that, tweak this, and spin the third thing so we can offer our citizens that sort of consideration as they age, well, it seems only fair.

The "New" Bush Plan or A Summary of the Ball Plan

From what my conservatives friends have said recently, it seems that George W. Bush has settled on two main goals with Social Security, making it more progressive and fixing the shortfall. I'm all for it. But the Pozen plan isn't an efficient way of doing that. It hurts the middle class, reduces benefits, etc. So I'm going to help the president out, I'm going to tell him how to fix the shortfall in a progressive way. Ooh Mr. President, you're going to love this!

• First, raise the cap on earnings subject to the payroll tax so 90% of all income is included, That, after all, was Ronald Reagan's magic number. What the Gipper failed to foresee was that the earnings of the rich would spring forward, laughing maniacally as the rest of the country's income tried and failed to catch up. Because of that, 15% of earnings are outside the tax. So increase the earnings cap by 2% more per year than we would otherwise and, by 2043, we'll hit the magic 90%. Not only that, but you'll cut the program's deficit by almost 1/3rd. Whee!

• Bring back the Estate Tax in it's 2009 form and make it a dedicated revenue source for Social Security. As you yourself clearly realize, it's silly for the rich to pay so little and get so much. That's why you want the program to be more progressive! But where Pozen tried to do that by cutting benefits for the wealthy, my plan* does it be taxing them after they die! When they don't even know they're being taxed! It's a much better system, I'm sure you'll agree. And here's a bonus: last week, in the NY Times, Paris Hilton said:

"I'm glad I got the partying out of my system when I was young, because now I'm so over it and I can focus on my career," Ms. Hilton said one balmy afternoon late last week. "Now I'm trying to build an empire. I don't want to be known as this Hilton hotel girl my whole life. I want to make my own name."

Isn't that just like so ew!? Paris Hilton got her partying out when young? She makes Jenna look like a school marm! Well, let's help Paris achieve her goals and take a cut of her inheritance. After all, she doesn't want all that hotel money anyway...

• Now don't get all excited, Mr. President. I know you want your private accounts. But who wants a lot of little ones? We're gonna give you giant private account! 20% of Social Security's assets should be invested in equities. We'll phase it in, keep it as a percentage, and the massive amount of cash will let the program ride out the markets ups and downs. So it's still a private account, but without all that pesky risk to the individual. And it'll make money!

Do all this, and Social Security is basically balanced -- the shortfall's down to .49% of GDP, having started from 1.89%. Good stuff, and enough to be considered within "close actuarial balance". But you're a perfectionist, right Mr. President? Fine. Well. Good. Let me reach into my bag of tricks here...

• Come 2010, make sure all federal and state employees are covered by Social Security. I keep hearing you mention how Congress doesn't use the program. I'm with you -- that bunch'a bastards. Get all those federal bureaucrat lagger types in the system and the shortfall goes down by another .19%, making it a mere .3%. We can cover that with change from behind the couch.

Now, this isn't "my plan", precisely. It's really Robert Ball's plan, but it's kinda long and complicated how he wrote it so I figured I'd give you a Cliff Notes. Now, he offered a way to make benefits rise more slowly by indexing them to the Consumer Price Index. It'd be more accurate but I know you don't want to do anything regressive, and that'd hurt the poor, particularly since Medicare premiums keep going up and are taking an ever-bigger chunk out of Social Security checks.

So there ya go! If you want to make it more progressive, we can soak the rich, roll back some of your tax cuts, raise the cap higher, or do a variety of other thingies that'll raise more funds that you can add to checks for the poor. But we can talk about that later. For now, I'm just going to hang out by the mailbox, excitedly waiting for your invitation to come by the White House, Pozen-like, and tell you more about my plan. Because, let's be honest -- his kinda sucked, didn't it? We all thought it'd be good, but it ended up hurting people under the cloak of helping them. That's silly. Mine is stolen from one of the two guys who's been administering the system since the beginning of time (well, not quite, but close) and actually helps everybody, 'cept some of the super rich, and it doesn't even hurt them, it just makes their kids a teeny-bit less super rich. My plan wins, and if you adopt it, so will you.

Note to the Right

Dear Outraged Conservatives,

I've made an effort to ignore the "Pozen plan", figuring it beneath comment or, indeed, contempt. But since you've all chosen this moment to outflank us hypocritical liberals, here's a quick guide to why no one takes it seriously: When one of the most conservative presidents in history decides to take the crowning achievement of liberalism and make it more progressive, that looks like a trojan horse. And then, when most every Republican in the country jumps on a table and demands that the program stops being so darned regressive and giving so much to the rich, that's like the trojans all running down the ramp before their equine-shaped craft even gets in the gates. It's just impossible to take seriously, so stop demanding that we try -- it's making you look silly.

Love,
Ezra

P.S -- The country ain't buying it either.

What've You Done to My Government?

Pelosi's really on the right track here (See Matt? I show the love). If Bush is denying the legitimacy of US Treasury Bonds, then that, not Social Security, is the real issue here. What's happened that America cannot pay back its debts? If our situation was truly so dire, shouldn't our president have known that and not pushed for deficit-worsening tax cuts or Medicare expansions? If we can't pay for the trust fund, can we pay the Chinese? Is there any chance they'd try to extract payment militarily? What about corporate investors? What about individual investors? Exactly who are we going to stiff? And if we're not going to welch to any of those investors, why are we not paying the trust fund back? Bush is like a kid with a mouth full of crumbs and a stomach ache who, when caught putting the lid on the cookie jar, turns and says "Cookies? We didn't have any cookies." This is either his fault or it's not happening.

If Democrats are smart, Republicans will rue the day they adopted this fake trust fund defense. The questions it raises about how our government is being run are much more serious than the doubt it casts on Social Security. The trust fund is, in essence, simply a government debt. The government runs thousands of different debts payable to millions of different sources. We've been doing that since the country's inception, and it works because we always pay back our debts. If we stop paying what we owe, our economy will crash. Bush and friends have thus adopted a line of attack that, far from nailing Social Security, is targeted right between their lying eyes, about six inches above their lying mouths. Debt repayment is the function of the government. Bush is the leader of the government. If the government can't pay back its debts, he better explain why, and quick. To paraphrase Alexis Bledel from Sin City, "Don't look now cowboy, but you're running out of valley".

Killing Us Softly With His Song

One of the really funny tricks on Social Security privatization is how sweetly it destroys Medicare. Medicare, of course, is on red-alert territory financially. Come 2006, premiums will have jumped 34% in two years, a hell of an increase. And the future doesn't look a whole lot better. I'm sorry, I should rephrase: the future is apocalyptic, Medicare is in terrible shape and, with premiums supposed to cover 25% of the program's costs, any jump in spending will drag your grandmother's monthly payments up with it. The only alternative is cutting what the government spends on Medicare services, which means cutting what doctors make and encouraging them to turn away the elderly.

Okay, so what does this have to do with privatization? Well, for 2/3rds of the elderly, Social Security is their main source of income. For about 20%, it's their only source of income. So how, exactly, do you think most seniors are paying their Medicare premiums? Currently, there's a pretty direct transfer from Social Security to Medicare, most expect it to stay that way. But what happens if you privatize?

Well, as we know, benefits are cut and Social Security earnings drop for future generations of Americans. Right now, 1/3rd of Americans have no savings whatsoever and another third have less than $2,500. Considering our rate of savings, Social Security looks like it'll be more, not less, critical for future generations. But what Bush wants to do is knock Social Security payments down while Medicare premiums shoot up, virtually assuring that seniors can't cover their bills in the future. This, by the way, would be in large part his doing -- not only was privatization his idea, but so was the Medicare expansion, which is going to make the current increases look minimal once it matures. Now, if Social Security isn't covering the Medicare bills of future seniors, thereby leaving Medicare even more unfunded and oftentimes out of reach, how safe do you think that program will be in the future? Not very. One thing liberals forget is that it's not just small government you can drown in a bathtub. Sometimes morbidly obese government, by virtue of its inability to fight back and the disgust it engenders in everyone else, can be smothered with nary a peep.

Update: The more I think about this, the worse it gets. It's like those old high school math problems. Imagine train 1, Social Security benefits, and train 2, Medicare premiums, both leave the station. At a certain point, they're going to intersect. If Social Security benefits (train 1) goes (rises) fast enough, it'll pass through the meeting point long before train 2 gets there. If Medicare premiums, train 2, go slow enough, it'll miss train 1 with no problem. But if train 1 goes too slow or train 2 goes too fast, they'll collide. Bush has already, through his Medicare expansion, propped a jetpack on train 2 and, now, is trying to get folks on train 1 to pull up the brakes by privatizing Social Security. He's moving both in the direction most likely to create a disaster, promoting policy that reduces the Social Security benefits that pay for the rising Medicare premiums. You want to think that it's all unintentional, that he's forging legislation with no conception of how it'll affect other policies, but it's just not that way, The only conclusion left, really, is that he's trying to destroy both programs.

Social Security Trustees Report

That, of course, was the day's big news. Some minor fiddling allowed them to bring the insolvency date a year closer, from 2042 to 2041. An insignificant change economically, but highly significant politically, as it'll allow them to argue that things are getting worse and, in the worsd of Fafblog!, if we don't do anything Social Security will explode!

If I had time, I'd probably go through the report today and talk about things I don't quite understand. But I have to move down for Spring Break. So here's a cliff notes guide to what you need to know and links to what you need to read.

As mentioned above, they moved the date of the trust fund's exhaustion (but I thought the fund didn't exist!) back a year, from 2042 to 2041. They also pushed back the beginning of the cash deficit (when we start using the trust fund) from 2018 to 2017. They seem to be doing this by revising death rates downward -- at this rate, there'll come a point when no one will ever die -- and by using absurdly low assumptions on immigration. Further, productivity increases, which could bring things back into balance, are assumed to be nonexistent. This despite the fact that they've almost doubled projections for the past few years. I'm going to just quote Matt on this, because it's really important:

The 2002 report projected productivity growth of 1.4 in 2002, 2.7 percent in 2003, 2.1 in 2004, 2.0 in 2005 and a long-term trend of 1.6 percent. By the 2003 report they knew that 2002 growth had actually been 3.6 percent, and short-term projections were accordingly revised upwards to 1.9 percent for 2003, 2.3 percent for 2004, and 2.1 percent for 2005. The long-term trend, however, was left at 1.6 percent. Then came the 2004 report, which revised the '02 historical number upwards to 3.8 percent, and showed that '03 productivity had actually been 3.4 percent. Thus, the projection for '04 was revised upward to 2.7 percent, and the '05 number revised downward to 1.8 percent. The long-term projection was unchanged. Now the 2005 report is out and once again past projections were too low. The actual 2004 number was 3.3 percent, and the '05 projection has been boosted to 2.0 percent.

Nevertheless, the long-term projection is unchanged. Why? Because the method used to generate the long-term projection deliberately excludes all this new data. Instead, they come up with 1.6 percent because "The annual increase in total productivity averaged 1.6 percent over the last four complete economic cycles (measured from peak to peak), covering the 34-year period from 1966 to 2000. The annual increase in total productivity averaged 2.2, 1.2, 1.3, and 1.6 percent over the business cycles 1966-73, 1973-78, 1978-89, 1989-2000, respectively." So far, productivity growth in the current cycle has been much higher than 1.6 percent. As a result, there's every reason to believe that, as long as the methodology is held constant, the long-term number will shoot up once we reach the next economic peak.

What's really amazing here is that, even with the tweaked assumptions and the "see no, hear no, speak no" approach to productivity gains, the long-term balance of the program has actually improved from last year to this year. Despite fiddling with some numbers so the president can yell "Crisis!", Social Security is actually healthier down the road than it was last year. Go look at the graph Brad's got, it's all there.

Despite all this, the LA Times' headline blares "Social Security going broke in 2041". Sigh. The article, interestingly, shows that Social Security is not the problem, it's Medicare that matters. Medicare, after all, started paying out more than it's taking in last year (as opposed to Social Security's date of 2017), and total bankruptcy for the program is projected for 2020. Spending so much time worrying about Social Security is like a doctor worrying about early signs of Parkinson's while his patient has a heart attack on the table. Not so bright. Weird note -- the article calls 2041 the date Social Security goes "broke", but 2020 is when Medicare faces "insolvency". Same meaning, but the sense of urgency is drastically different.

So bottom line, things aren't too bad. Politically, the report helps Bush, but the slight changes should blunt its effectiveness. Moreover, Bush himself has begun admitting that private accounts don't do anything for the program's solvency, and since the report is dealing with Social Security's fiscal condition, it shouldn't give any momentum to privatization. Oh, and Medicare is going to kill us all.

For more on this, see Max Sawicky's report from the press conference, Matt Yglesias's comprehensive coverage at TAPPED, and Brad Plumer's analysis at MoJo.

By the way, two years ago, when I was starting at UC Santa Cruz and spending a great deal of my time intoxicated, I really didn't think I'd ever be disappointed because I couldn't read the latest Social Security Trustees Report in a timely fashion. I mean, Jesus, what's happened to me? I can't even drink yet (well, legally), and yet I'm genuinely fascinated by actuarial assumptions regarding the long-term fiscal health of the state-run pension program? You must be kidding me.

You Say Tomato, I Say Tomahto

The New York Times has a surprisingly good article on the war of words in the Social Security debate. Is it privatization? Personal accounts? Private accounts? Or the Republican term du jour, "voluntary personal retirement accounts"? I'd have liked a bit more history of the term privatization, and I'd have really liked for this article to have hit two months ago, but it's pretty good nonetheless. And, any piece that starts with an anecdote like this gets my love:

Mr. Bush complained last week that " 'privatization' is a trick word," intended to "scare people." Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the Democratic leader, interrupted a news conference to correct a reporter who asked about "personal" accounts.

"It's 'privatization,' " Mr. Reid said, adding that "personal accounts" was "the Republican term."

I just love seeing Reid prove he knows how to play this game. And it's kinda funny to watch the press corps get batted around, their own fetish for politician-dictated objectivity being used to confuse and browbeat them.

ALso, the Times seems to have ignored it, but you guys had some pretty good naming ideas a few months back...

Affirmative Agenda, Sure, But Still No Bill

Garance Franke-Ruta's argument that the Democratic advantage on Social Security might be enough to save the program, but might also lose us seats if we don't take the next step forward and create a compelling narrative that protects us from the obstructionist label. I've been arguing this for awhile, but to support it with everybody's favorite historical parallel (I just read 640 pages on that goddamn fight, you better believe I'll turn to it at every opportunity), there's possibly never been so clearly-defined a party as the resurgent Republicans were during 1994. They didn't rest on the health care battle, but instead used it to inform their affirmative agenda. We need to do the same.

That does not, by the way, mean pushing an alternate Social Security plan. We need to win that battle, not reengage it. Rather, we should use the capital amassed in that fight to bolster a progressive philosophy of government with the President's well-killed plans for privatization and benefit cuts being invoked to provide contrast.

So, Um, What Is Our Plan?

Following up on my last post, it's worth asking: What is our plan?

Well, I think we've been largely hesitant to come up with one, because if we do, press stories about it will begin: "Democrats on Capitol Hill, in a sign that they agree with President Bush's grim assessment of Social Security's future solvency..." That said, my scenario did sort of require that we have a plan. And as a Democrat, I'm not opposed to having one. Social Security is just about the most successful thing our government's ever done, but it could be better, and if it can be bettered without increasing peoples' personal risk, I'm down. Here are some of the more attractive candidates that I've seen:

• The Longman Plan: Basically, this raises the age at which you begin drawing benefits to 72, but keeps the retirement age at 68, and uses private accounts to cover the four-year gap.
• The Dean Plan: Raise the amount of income that Social Security payroll taxes apply to. This sounds like a tax cut hike, but it would be a really minimal one, and it would balance the SS budget.
• The Bipartisanship Plan: Get together with Hagel, Graham, or one of the other more moderate Republicans who have already floated plans. Tweak it a little to make it Democrat-friendly, and back that.

We could get a little think-tank action going on here. If there's any lesson to be learned from HillaryCare, it's that you can only make big changes in small increments. Howard Dean knows it, too; it's how he got health care reform passed in VT. So come on, folks - What little things can we do to catch Bushial Security completely off-guard? What are your favorite candidates for plans that "fix it, don't nix it"?

- Daniel A. Munz

Nuclear Disarmament

Matt Yglesias reports that the GOP is getting ready to go nuclear on judicial filibusters, thus baiting Democrats into shutting down the Senate, which in turn would...hell, I'll let Matt tell it:

I had to read that a couple of times until I got it. But now I see what the Senator meant. He means that he and his colleagues don't like being stuck between the president's pressure to endorse his plan, and the public's pressure not to pass his plan. The ideal way out of the impasse would be for the GOP to go nuclear on the filibuster issue, which will lead Democrats to shut down the Senate entirely, thus getting Republican Senators off the hook. To the White House and the privateer money bags they can say, "hey! we would have passed it if it hadn't been for those Democrats" and to the voters they can say, "hey! I never voted for any such thing."

It seems weird, but when I read this, my first instinct was: Don't shut down anything. Let 'em do it.

There's an episode of West Wing, which I love like Kevin Drum loves 24, where the president can't get the GOP congress to move on a budget deal. The Speaker offers him a compromise deal, but he balks, the government gets shut down, and his approval ratings tank. Instead of taking the compromise, the president gets on TV, and walks down Penn Ave. from the White House to the Hill and back. (It's actually a little more complicated than that.) It changes the entire dynamic of the conflict: The public no longer sees him as dragging his feet on a budget, but as leading, and the Speaker is forced to cave into some of his demands. Later, he explains to the Speaker why he wouldn't take the compromise: "I'm not going to negotiate with anyone who holds a gun to my head!"

Think about this. I consider the odds of social security actually passing the House or the Senate to be lowish. But really, the only thing saving the GOP from complete armageddon on this is the fact that Bush is just drifting around the country tossing out ideas. It's also the only thing stopping Dems from completely bludgeoning them with it: There's nothing there to bludgeon them with. Yet. But forcing them to codify this plan, at the same time as they bring it from the realm of the hypothetical to the realm of Now All Your Benefits Are Gone seems like the worst of all possible worlds to them.

But more to the point, this whole nuclear thing has been a gun to our head, and we shouldn't bargain with it. Social security, an issue on which a little offense can actually gain us some serious ground for midterms, is the perfect opportunity to forget the whip count altogether and engage the public debate. Let 'em pull the nuclear trigger. We'll propose our own brilliant, moderate plan, and when it doesn't pass anyway, we'll hit the road on the biggest media blitz this nation has ever seen. Let everyone know who tried to fix social security, and who tried to kill it. Majority Leader Reid and Speaker Pelosi will be pleased.

I'm probably missing something huge here. But the GOP plan is already drowning in social security. Why not throw the bastards an anvil?

- Daniel A. Munz

Defense Savings Accounts

This week's TNR features dueling pieces on Social Security. The second, by Jon Chait, is a principled case for obstructionism, hitting all the points you blog-readers have now committed to memory. The first, however, is by Greg Mankiw, former Chair of Bush's Council of Economic Advisors, and it argues -- I'm not making this up -- that Social Security privatization is a good thing because he and his colleagues at Harvard have similar pension plans (also known as 401(k)s and they like them fine.

Excuse me?

Putting aside the ivory-tower elitism that should have O'Reilly rushing to retch, can conservative arguments reach any lower? Maybe we should stop funding defense, just for a single year, and give each American an equal share of the savings, which would mean everyone gets a check for $1,332.43. With that money, they can invest in stocks, weapons, whatever they want. It'll be an enormous economic boost, allow consumers to make wise decisions for the future (defense or assets? Hmmm...), and best of all, not touch the deficit in any way! We can encourage savings by making the giveaway tax free so long as they're socked away in -- you guys will love this! -- Defense Savings Accounts! Damn are we gonna create wealth!

That's a good idea, isn't it? So why don't we do it? Well, it's risky. Even if we didn't tell the rest of the world that the money was coming from Defense, there's always the possibility that we could be attacked. I mean, it's rare that attacks are launched on our soil, and even when they are, we're generally unable to stop them, but you don't want to take the risk, you know?

And that's why I'm genuinely interested in the conservative pathology on this. Because they do know that. So why is it so tough for them to understand that Social Security is a system of insurance, not a wealth creation program? I have no problem with wealth creation, hell, I think we need a lot more of it. And I'm a fan of many of the excellent plans floating around that'll do just that. But we can repeal the tax cuts or not launch wars or something if funding one of those is our aim. But all the wealth creation in the world can't compete with a poor economy and a touch of bad luck. That's why Americans need at least one layer of protection between them and the fluctuations of fate.

What's weird is that this is Mankiw speaking, not some hackish Senator; he should have read enough economic history to realize that the stock market occasionally crashes. But it's really the most amazing thing; these otherwise smart folks join the Bush administration and it's like all sense of history or caution is zapped out of their psyche. It's the great sucking sound of our generation. Really one of the stranger phenomena in modern politics.

The Kids Aren't All That Interested

DHinMI is wondering whether young voters, who seem to support private accounts, will help Karl Rove create the enduring Republican majority he seeks.

Nope.

Young voters barely care about politics, Social Security excites them about as much as Golden Girls cliffhanger. From 15 years ago. Seriously -- whether or not my generation likes Bush, and the election results resoundingly proved we don't, we're not going to flock to his side because he'll grant the opportunity to transfer 4 percentage points of payroll taxes into private acZZZZZzzzzzzzzz.

I like my peers, and I don't mean to feed the stereotype that we're apathetic, but most of us are and, even among those who aren't, the idea that pension plans are going to spark some sort of realignment is absurd. It ain't* going to happen.

* See? I'm a populist, sho' nuff.

Can't Follow Privatization Without a Program

I have to imagine that a large portion of blog readers want to jump off a cliff every time a new Social Security post pops up. It seems, at least it did to me, that one day Matt, Kevin, and Brad awoke, having undergone a Matrix-style download of Social Security data ("I know kung-fu bend points."), forcing the rest of us to read a slew of killer-dull material on the subject. But for those who haven't and are still a bit lost, this NY Review of Books article by Krugman is far and away the best introduction I've seen to the subject. Read it and feel caught-up.

SS Pessimism

The reason Bush is unexpectedly content to let Social Security privatization simmer (and continue inflicting damage on him) until 2006 is that he might win it. Yes, I know, Democrats are ecstatic about the great successes we've had in the battle thus far, but it's nowhere near over. What scares me about it, actually, is how closely it resembles the fight over ClintonCare.

Yeah, I'm aware that health care is supposed to be linked to Bush's side of aisle, making it a parable on the dangers of transformative legislation. But Democrats are really the ones tracking it most closely. Clinton, of course, started out way ahead on health care, and indeed retained that lead till quite late in the fight. Democrats too have pulled into an early and commanding lead on Social Security privatization. But what matters is what comes next. In Clinton's case various other priorities and problems (Whitewater, etc) cropped up, weakening the president and, crucially, delaying the final push on health care. That time frame gave the right and its business-based allies time to mobilize, to put their ad campaigns in gear, and begin changing minds. That same coalition supports, indeed, needs, privatization to go through, and with Bush in office and Republicans in the majority, they're going to be willing to spend more money and air harder ads because they're not afraid of reprisals. In order to give them time gear up for the fight, Bush, with his power to set the agenda, is letting Social Security hang out for awhile, even if it looks damaging for Republicans. My guess, such as it is, is that come early 2006, Democrats are going to start seeing the $200 million Bush's backers have promised to spend appearing in their districts. With that sort of money, an enormously targeted campaign, run mostly by corporate-funded 527's, becomes possible, with vulnerable members of the House and Senate experiencing an absolute saturation of attack ads, all of which are understood to click off if and when the pol agrees that personal accounts really are the wave of the future.

That's why I'm not as sanguine as Josh about bringing this to the voters. Given the two plans, I have no doubt which they'd vote for. But given an overwhelming ad campaign in districts unused to such air warfare and unsure about their incumbent, minds can be changed. Not necessarily on the plan, but then, minds don't need to be changed on the plan. They just need to shift, or appear to be shifting, on the incumbent, and s/he'll quickly do what's necessary to make the pressure stop. So in a fair world, I'd be quite stoked to see this one dragging out until 2006. But Republicans aren'[t stupid -- if they're letting it hang around, they've got a reason. My fear is that we don't have a response.

Complacency Kills

As successfully as the Democrats seem to be repelling Bush's assault on Social Security, we still show no conception of how to turn our defensive entrenchment into a powerful counterattack. We cheer when one of our number tags privatization as an attack on Social Security's legitimacy, but what about on the legitimacy of government?

For twelve years this Nation was afflicted with hear-nothing, see-nothing, do-nothing Government. The Nation looked to Government but the Government looked away. Nine mocking years with the golden calf and three long years of the scourge! Nine crazy years at the ticker and three long years in the breadlines! Nine mad years of mirage and three long years of despair! Powerful influences strive today to restore that kind of government with its doctrine that that Government is best which is most indifferent.

For nearly four years you have had an Administration which instead of twirling its thumbs has rolled up its sleeves. We will keep our sleeves rolled up.

We had to struggle with the old enemies of peace...business and financial monopoly, speculation, reckless banking, class antagonism, sectionalism, war profiteering.

They had begun to consider the Government of the United States as a mere appendage to their own affairs. We know now that Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob.

Never before in all our history have these forces been so united against one candidate as they stand today. They are unanimous in their hate for me‹and I welcome their hatred.
...
But they are guilty of more than deceit. When they imply that the reserves thus created against both these policies will be stolen by some future Congress, diverted to some wholly foreign purpose, they attack the integrity and honor of American Government itself. Those who suggest that, are already aliens to the spirit of American democracy. Let them emigrate and try their lot under some foreign flag in which they have more confidence.

Head here and you can listen to FDR deliver that speech. It sends chills down my spine. What have we done, that we've gone from crushing Goldwater to allowing Clinton to close out the era of big government? I'm reading about the 1993 health care battle and I'm just stunned at how we let the special interests walk all over us, barely noticing until their foot finally found our throat and stomped down. In FDR's hands, their opposition was a positive; let them mass, it was his job to repulse their assault! In FDR's eyes, those who hated America's government hated America, unlike today, when believing in our country's government is somehow inimical to the ethos of this country. Which one is more logical? How the hell did we lose that rhetorical battle?

In his excellent book The 2% Solution, Matt Miller quotes Bill Bradley on health care saying, and I paraphrase, "Democrats are still scarred from 1994. They can't think big anymore -- they're afraid to go back into the dark room where the bad thing happened." But Christ on a bumper sticker, I'm tired of our post-traumatic stress syndrome. This isn't even hard! Which seems more sensical in the ideological makeup of a patriot: believing our government an incompetent coagulation of bureaucracies or a force for good? And which seems more likely to strengthen the party: painting Republicans as bad on Social Security or painting them as a bunch of ideologues determined to destroy the programs that help average men and women?

Now that Republicans are reeling from running into the brick wall of the foundational Democratic program, wouldn't it make sense to toss their ideology an anvil? Half our number seems to think we need to close the Social Security battle now while the other half wants to draw it out and win it closer to midterms. What about widening our attack so the counteroffensive takes some time and does larger damage? How about using the "crisis" language and the fact that Bush's Medicare pperversion is a much larger economic fiasco to propose fight for changes that'd make it more cost-effective, more progressive, and force Bush's promised veto? How about forcing Bush to roll back his tax cuts to fix Social Security's shortfall, and demand that he not starve government to satisfy his radical ideology?

In 1993, we made the critical mistake of letting health care languish on the backburner. The screw-up proved fatal, as the time we spent publicly crafting it without promoting it gave the Republicans the breathing room to form their coalition for the killing. Initially, everybody loved Clinton's ideas, public approval beat disapproval by 32%(!); months later, we didn't have enough shovels to bury all our fallen congressmen. If we sit here, pleased as punch to neutralize their offensive but lacking the killer instinct to land the follow-up blows, they're going to rally their troops, commission their ads, buy their spots, and push back. And we're going to fall down. Because for them, this isn't a legislative scuffle but a philosophical war. FDR would have agreed. Why don't we?

Soul Train

This bit of horseshit comes from a report of a meeting between industry reps and the White House:

Karl Rove stressed the importance of Social Security reform on the President's domestic agenda. He said that the President felt in his soul that Social Security reform is vital for the future of the United States.

I remember the last time we relied on Bush's soul-based intuitions:

"I looked the man in the eye. I found him to be very straight forward and trustworthy and we had a very good dialogue...I was able to get a sense of his soul.

He's a man deeply committed to his country and the best interests of his country and I appreciate very much the frank dialogue and that's the beginning of a very constructive relationship," Mr Bush said.

Putin's behavior, of course, didn't quite comport with Bush's soul-reading. I have a feeling Social Security privatization would prove George's connection to the spirit world no more accurate.

Fighting Philosophies

Mark Schmitt's got one of those posts that make all the bloggers breathlessly beg you to stop what you're doing and dive into his site. So imagine my heaving bosom (look to the upper right for a pictorial aid) as I send you over to his place to find out what the Social Security debate is really about. For those with a lazy clicker-finger, suffice to say that privatization isn't about advancing any particular Republican philosophy, but destroying the Democratic one.

Mark doesn't quite go as far as I will here, but privatization probably won't end up that popular. All other countries that've tried it have found a mixed bag at best, and many have looked down to find their sack filled with manure and lit aflame. But if privatization does crash and burn, that's not going to hurt Republicans at all. The boomerang is going to whip back and smack Democrats in the head as irritated pensioners shake their heads and mutter about how the doggone government can't do anything right.

This is something I spoke about yesterday, but to put it in more concrete terms, Democrats want to wage policy battles. We argue in order to promote or destroy specific programs. Republicans take a much more foundational view and enter these fights intent on boosting or demolishing a philosophy. When they went after Clinton's health care program, they did so believing that its passage would be a triumph for the Democratic conception of the government while its defeat would open the door to a revived antitax, antigovernment movement. It would, in essence, make or break the foundations of the sides involved, which made it, for them, much more than just a legislative battle.

Social Security is the logical continuation of that attack. After denying liberalism its ultimate victory, their campaign has reached its logical conclusion -- destroying its foundations. Whether privatization works great and glorifies the free market (ha!) or simply collapses in on itself and proves bureaucratic incompetence, Republicans win the battle because the positive view Democrats take towards government is undermined. That's why, in this fight, there's no substitute for success. Compromising on Social Security is selling out the Democratic philosophy of governance, not being a bipartisan legislator.

As for the inevitable swipe at me and my party of "no"; give me a break. Social Security isn't broken, nor anywhere near it. We need to raise the payroll cap, roll back some tax cuts, shift the retirement age (I'm personally not in favor of that, but nevertheless), or otherwise divert some general fund revenue in order to shore up the system. This whole idea that simple solvency plans aren't an adequate response is absurd -- it's like criticizing someone who needs their radiator fixed for bringing their car into the mechanic rather than mortgaging their house in order to purchase a plane.

Battle Lines

From The System:

Had any part of the Clinton plan passed that Congress in any form, Gingrich and his closest conservative allies believed, their dreams for forging a militarily conservative future would "have been cooked," as a key Gingrich strategist later explained. It would have been the final nail in the coffin of the American marketplace resulting in a social-welfare state like Britain or Canada, creating greater public dependency on government and a government-run plan, and a stronger allegiance of voters to majority Democrats, who provided them their benefits. Only by controlling Congress with a new conservative Republican majority could the final goals of their "Republican Revolution" be achieved: to break the public dependency on Democratic tax-funded government programs; "defund the government" as they put it, and in so doing, destroy the liberal constituency groups; and permit the flowering of an antigovernment, antitax, entrepreneurial nation. All these aims were threatened by the Clinton plan.

We've gone from losing a battle that both sides believed would codify the triumph of Democratic ideals to fighting to save the most cherished program of the New Deal. So we've gone from owning the debate and losing in our attempt to laminate a Democratic society to defending the tangible core of our philosophy. We've gone form offense to defense, from having the momentum to trying to stop that of others.

This debate, it needs to be understood, is not about the solvency of Social Security. Nor, as Biden put it, is it about the legitimacy of Social Security. It's about the role of the government, and whether our society should have fail-safe mechanisms that care for those who need help and assure the security of those who take risks, or whether we should return to the pre-New Deal era of Social Darwinism where citizens sink or swim under the uninterested gaze of a bored government. That's why Joe Lieberman's potential betrayal is not a policy defection, but a repudiation of his party. That's why this isn't about compromising on private accounts. Read the quote again -- they couldn't let any iteration of the bill pass Congress without all its philosophical goals winning the day. And neither can we.

Is that clear?

Maybe I'll Send Flowers

If you had sat me down six months ago and told me the Democrats were going to not only outmaneuver, but out-organize the Republicans on Social Security, I would have called you a CIA plant. If you did it today, I'd call you the Washington Post:

Administration and congressional officials said many Republican members remain afraid of taking on Social Security, and many fewer than the party had hoped are holding Social Security events this week.

Republican officials said at least 70 of the party's House members are holding town hall meetings this week, not all of them devoted specifically to Social Security, while House Democrats said they will hold more than 90 Social Security events this week.

In other news, my altar to Reid and Pelosi is coming along nicely.

Rule #1: Don't Piss Off The Old Folks

Well Sam certainly hit that nail on the head. The question, though, is whether or not setting some weird front group like USA Next in opposition to AARP is really such a smart idea. AARP's spokespeople certainly won't be alone in news articles, but whether or not anyone actually cares about the pull quotes from both sides is open to dispute. Moreover, they never got articles all to themselves, a CATO-flack or heritage "expert" always contradicted AARP's take, so I'm unconvinced that this play for media equivalency does the right any good.

More to the point, G.W. had a good thing going in mending fences with AARP. There's no doubt that Medicare would've failed without their backing, and, even if it had miraculously passed without AARP's, there would've been no cover when AARP decided to turn out its members against the scoundrels who wrecked their system. But even though AARp lined up against Medicare, if you can't be friends, you can at least be enemies only temporarily. Siccing USA Next on them doesn't offer rapprochement a few years down the line, it pushes them into full-out opposition towards the president and his party.

One thing that was nice about the Swift Vets deal, and is doubly in effect now that USA Next hired their media team, is that the veneer of plausible deniability really fell away for the Bush administration. There was no doubt that the attacks were part and parcel of the reelection effort, and there'll be no doubt that these attacks are wholly-owned subsidiaries of the Bush administration. That's liable to leave the 35 million-person AARP with the impression that Republicans want to kneecap them now and for the future, and they best move to show that such things shouldn't be attempted. And that, of course, plays into the central truth of Bush's tax-cutting and budget-busting and privatizing schemes, which is that all of them make future Republican congressmen cannon fodder. Privatization has just worked quicker than its backloaded cousins, of course, but when the economic consequences come due for all these initiatives, there'll be electoral consequences right there with them. Pissing off AARP simply hastens the reckoning, particularly for no-name congressmen in districts with large populations of seniors.

A few months back, the administration understood this and was doing everything in its power to assure seniors that they wouldn't be touched by the new plans, that they and AARP really didn't have a dog in this fight. But now AARP does have a dog and, more to the point, it's actually their dog. So they not only want to mobilize seniors to fight privatization, but to protect their organization and head off future challenges. I wouldn't necessarily like to be Katherine Harris when that counterattack manifests at the ballot box.

Brilliant!

Yes, that's smart Republican strategy -- enrage AARP:

Taking its cues from the success of last year's Swift boat veterans' campaign in the presidential race, a conservative lobbying organization has hired some of the same consultants to orchestrate attacks on one of President Bush's toughest opponents in the battle to overhaul Social Security.

The lobbying group, USA Next, which has poured millions of dollars into Republican policy battles, now says it plans to spend as much as $10 million on commercials and other tactics assailing AARP, the powerhouse lobby opposing the private investment accounts at the center of Mr. Bush's plan.

"They are the boulder in the middle of the highway to personal savings accounts," said Charlie Jarvis, president of USA Next and former deputy under secretary for the interior in the Reagan and first Bush administrations. "We will be the dynamite that removes them."

Sign Me Up For The Fainthearted Faction

As Kevin noticed last week, there are two magazines packed into every issue of The Economist. There's the smart, savvy magazine that doesn't let its ideology get in the way of informing you, and then there's the magazine that talks about George W. Bush. That magazine, in stark contrast to its world-weary housemate, views the president with a combination of excited optimism, twice-burned shyness, and more excited optimism! This, from last week's issue, was simply too good not to quote:

There is no reason to believe the horror stories that Wall Street is about to fleece helpless savers: learning from other privatisations overseas, Mr Bush's people want the new retirement accounts to be managed in a way that will keep costs low.

Really truly!? Consider me convinced -- I had no idea that, unlike the Thatcher administration, President Bush's folks didn't think fleecing the elderly was a good idea! But now that I know, well, I'm going to start blast-faxing my senators right this instant!

Update: Speaking of privatization, check this WaPo article on what it's wrought overseas.

The Wheels on the Bus Go Flying Off, Flying, Off, Flying Off...

With Bush publicly considering a payroll tax hike, we're starting to get "wheels come off" stories on Social Security privatization. The LA Times, for instance, has a nice one centering on conservatives furious at the president for considering tax hikes. Considering that many Republicans were simply looking for a way out of supporting the bill, they just got their "get-out-of-jail" free card, complete with Grover Norquist's stamp of approval on it. Bush, for his part, clearly thought mentioning a tax increase would bring Democrats rushing to the table, but the ghosts of Charlie Stenholm and Max Cleland seem to have kept them in their seats. But the man is not just failing to convince Democrats, he's failing to convince everybody:

That p