A Social Security ‘entrance strategy’

July 11, 2005

So, Social Security privatization is dead, right? Dems won’t stand for it, Republicans are running from it, the political world has moved on to Supreme Court speculation, and the White House lacks the ability to get his plan approach through Congress.

Any chance Republicans would be foolish enough to bring a privatization scheme to the floor before the 2006 elections? As it turns out, yes.

Larry Hunter, vice president and chief economist for the Free Enterprise Fund, said leaders couldn’t achieve consensus in the House for a permanent Social Security fix, but they also couldn’t face the 2006 electorate without acting on the president’s wishes. Therefore, he said, they combined private accounts, which most Republicans support, with the popular idea of stopping the government from raiding the Social Security surplus.

“It’s not an exit strategy; it’s an entrance strategy,” he said.

Mr. Hunter said that even if the new proposal fails in the Senate, it “inoculates” House Republicans from attacks on the issue in the 2006 elections.

“If it works, you’ve got a great victory. If it fails [in the Senate], well you don’t get hurt,” he said.

It’s like a dream come true — for Dems. These guys think voting on a disastrous Social Security bill that doesn’t make any sense will help Republicans in the midterm cycle. I know, it’s almost too good to be true, isn’t it?

Let’s be clear: this “entrance strategy” means a vote on a fairly new privatization proposal that would finance private accounts through the existing Social Security trust-fund surplus. This approach would, by its sponsors own admission, make Social Security’s solvency issues considerably worse, add billions to the deficit, and wreak havoc on congressional budgeting (the trust-fund surplus currently finances the federal budget). It would also, necessarily, lead to benefit cuts for Social Security beneficiaries.

The right looks at this tack as a strategy for “inoculating” House Republicans in 2006, and a plan in which GOP lawmakers “don’t get hurt.” If we’re really, really lucky, they’ll actually believe such nonsense. It might even put the House in play.

If we’re really, really lucky, they’ll actually believe such nonsense. It might even put the House in play.

Really? I thought the consensus was that gerrymandering and normal incumbent advantage meant the House wasn’t in play in 2006. Are there enough close races in purple regions to allow for enough Dem wins to put us over the top ala Newt’s revolution in 1994?

  • Folks really care about Social Security in those deep-red states. That’s why Bush has had to couch his demented proposals in words like, ‘honoring the legacy of FDR,’ even though you it eats a hole in his stomach every time he says it. This proposal is like some sort of red-state perfect storm: it slashes benefits immediately, while increasing people’s exposure to losses, while endangering the future of Social Security in a fiscally reckless way.

    The only thing working against us being that this proposal is wrong on so many levels that you can’t really grasp it in one sitting. In that way it’s sort of like the Duke Cunningham scandals.

  • What I don’t understand is why people like Mr. Hunter continue to say things like “…they also couldn’t face the 2006 electorate without acting on the president’s wishes.”

    Why? They would have much better chances of success if they just let the president’s dumb wish go away quietly instead of constantly reinforcing it in the consciousness of the voting public.

    This is a genuinely unproductive and almost certainly hurtful tactic for the party who claims to want a ‘permanent majority’, so why do they keep bringing it up?

    Some might say that they’re just too stupid to know their own best interests; that they’ve bought into their own aura of infallibility so much that they still think they can get the public to go along just because they say they should.

    Some would be right, IMHO. And we can only hope they continue in that way of thinking. It may be civilization’s last best hope of survival.

  • Maybe Tom DeLay wants congressional reporters talking about something other than Tom DeLay. Sort of like the flag burning amendment only stupider.

  • I have only one thing to add: HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!! Bring it on (to quote the Pres). Even some conservatives in conservative districts would become vulnerable if they voted for this monstrosity

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