Another high-profile Republican opponent of Bush’s plan

OK, to be fair, this opponent didn’t realize he was criticizing Bush’s plan at the time, but the end result is the same.

The New Republic’s Ben Adler discovered this gem of a quote:

“I think it’s a nutty idea to fool around with the Social Security system and run the risk of [hurting] the people who’ve been saving all their lives…. It may be a new idea, but it’s a dumb one.”

And who was this wise critic of privatization? George H.W. Bush, while running for president in 1987.

The context is important: Pete DuPont, the former Republican governor of Delaware, was seeking the GOP nomination at the time and was the only presidential candidate to publicly call for the privatization of Social Security. H.W. Bush was responding to DuPont’s proposal when he called privatization “nutty” and “dumb.”

The irony is, some of the same people who helped shape DuPont’s proposal in 1988 were making the case to a different presidential candidate 10 years later.

Back in 1997, proponents of overhauling Social Security met with the man who would become their most powerful convert: Texas Gov. George W. Bush, whose presidential ambitions were beginning to gel.

The governor dined with Jose Pinera, architect of Chile’s 1981 shift from government pensions to worker-owned retirement accounts, in a meeting that helped bring Bush a big step closer to embracing a similar plan for Social Security in his emerging presidential platform.

“I think he wanted to support the idea but needed to be convinced,” said Edward H. Crane, president of the libertarian Cato Institute, who was at the dinner. “I really think Jose convinced him.”

Too bad the son didn’t have the father’s sense.