The gloves are clearly off. With two weeks to go, the Kerry campaign is seizing on a handful of Bush’s biggest vulnerabilities. One of them is obviously Social Security, which Kerry describes as Bush’s “January Surprise.”
Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry accused President Bush on Sunday of planning a surprise second-term effort to privatize Social Security and forecast a “disaster for America’s middle class.”
Republicans denied the charge as scare tactics with little more than two weeks remaining in a tight election. “It is just flat inaccurate,” said GOP chairman Ed Gillespie.
There’s a lot going on here, but Bush is on the wrong side of every aspect of the debate. Worse, he seems to be aware of it, but is at a loss to do anything about it.
First, is this a “scare tactic”? In a manner of speaking, of course it is. Bush has proposed a massive and radical change to Social Security that will cost at least $1 trillion to the system, perhaps even $2 trillion. Kerry realizes that people should be “scared” of Bush’s plan because it doesn’t make any sense. There’s nothing wrong with telling the public about something scary when the issue at hand is genuinely chilling. It’s not Kerry’s fault Bush’s plan is frightening.
Second, the GOP response — Kerry is misrepresenting Bush’s Social Security plan — is entirely the White House’s fault. The president boasts about a fundamental change in the way this program operates, but he refuses to tell anyone at any level how his plan would work or how he’d pay for it.
As even Dick Armey (R-Texas) said over in August, “You either define yourself on these big issues or the Democrats will define you.” It was a rare moment of wisdom — Bush won’t define his own agenda on Social Security; he shouldn’t be disappointed when Kerry does it for him. Indeed, even when blasting Kerry’s charge as inaccurate, the Bush campaign can’t say how or why it’s inaccurate because even they don’t know how Bush’s plan would work.
But the strangest part about yesterday’s dust-up over Social Security is how Bush and his allies responded to Kerry’s charge.
Kerry got the ball rolling by jumping on an excerpt from Ron Suskind’s New York Times magazine article, which quoted Bush (second hand) as saying, “I’m going to come out strong after my swearing in with fundamental tax reform, tort reform, privatizing of Social Security.” Thus Kerry’s “January Surprise” line.
The Republicans went apoplectic, but for no apparent reason. Steve Schmidt, a spokesman for Bush, said Kerry was levying at a “false, baseless attack.” Gillespie said Kerry’s charge was “just flat inaccurate.” All of Bush’s surrogates highlighted the fact that Suskind’s sources were anonymous.
Fine. Forget the Suskind quote. It’s probably legit, but it’s largely irrelevant. Kerry said Bush will push for Social Security privatization if given another term; BC04 said this is “false” and “baseless.” Are we really just arguing over semantics?
The fact that Bush will be advocating a privatization plan is hardly a secret. In the third presidential debate, Bush didn’t hide his agenda.
“I believe that younger workers ought to be allowed to take some of their own money and put it in a personal savings account, because I understand that they need to get better rates of return than the rates of return being given in the current Social Security trust…. I will work with Republicans and Democrats. It’ll be a vital issue in my second term.”
Kerry is saying exactly what Bush was saying. What’s “false” and “baseless” about saying Bush will work on privatization if given a second term less than a week after Bush said he’d work on privatization if given a second term?
This has been common knowledge for a long time. In August, the LA Times reported that Bush “has started telling voters that overhauling Social Security would be a key part of his second-term agenda.” In July 2003, a Bush campaign official insisted that the president will run “big time” on this issue. A month earlier, Ari Fleischer said Social Security privatization “remains a very important priority for the president.”
I have no idea why the Bush campaign is whining now. Kerry is simply engaging Bush on an issue that the president himself claims to be a key part of his second-term agenda. Seems like a no-brainer.