How bad is Bush’s Social Security scheme faltering? Fred Barnes, of Fox News and Weekly Standard fame, has decided the president’s wisest course of action is to give up entirely, saying Bush “needs an exit strategy” because it’s “hard to see how a reform measure can pass.”
If Bush is forced to accept defeat on Social Security, it’s important he do it the right way. If he’s petulant, it will only make things worse. And if he says the fight isn’t over yet and he’s going to try again in the next Congress to push through a reform measure, it will only make life easier for Democrats. They’ve become completely reactionary and have nothing to campaign on in 2006. Keeping Social Security reform alive would give them an issue to run on — or rather against.
But Bush can deny them that issue with the right exit strategy. He could say he tried his best to alert Americans to the coming crisis in Social Security, and that Democrats not only opposed him in the most partisan and irresponsible fashion possible but failed to present a plan of their own for modernizing the system. Sadly, he could add, the matter must now be left to future presidents and Congresses…. [T]he smart move now is to find a way to minimize the damage from a possible defeat.
Barnes continues to be a Bush cheerleader and enthusiastic supporter of privatization, of course, but he also is surveying the political landscape and sees an almost inevitable defeat for the president.
In fact, Barnes sees nothing but advantages to dropping Social Security from the domestic policy front altogether. If Bush follows this tack, Barnes argues, Dems won’t beat Republicans over the head with the issue in mid-term elections, it will give Dems less of an in-road in “Red” states with high numbers of elderly voters, and the White House could shift their attention to more politically popular agenda items such as — wait for it — more tax cuts!
Oddly enough, I think Barnes is completely right (on the merits of the political strategy, not the value of privatization and tax cuts). We can only hope the White House ignores his advice.