We recently learned that the Bush administration is abusing the Social Security Administration, forcing the agency to spread deceptive propaganda about the program and the need for “reform.”
Over the objections of many of its employees, the Social Security Administration is gearing up for a major effort to publicize the financial problems of Social Security and to convince the public that private accounts are needed as part of any solution. The agency’s plans are set forth in internal documents, including a “tactical plan” for communications and marketing of the idea that Social Security faces dire financial problems requiring immediate action.
[…]
[A]gency employees have complained to Social Security officials that they are being conscripted into a political battle over the future of the program. They question the accuracy of recent statements by the agency, and they say that money from the Social Security trust fund should not be used for such advocacy.
Seizing the opportunity, Senate Dems will be giving some of these agency employees the opportunity to expand on some of these concerns in a very public way. Apparently, they’ll explain that the Bush administration is not only using the SSA’s resources to disseminate the White House line; the administration is also pressuring employees directly.
Senate Democrats will make their first high-profile stand against President Bush’s proposal to privatize Social Security on Friday, when two employees of the Social Security Administration are slated to testify that White House officials are pressuring them to help sell the plan.
The employees — whose names are being withheld by Democrats until Friday to protect their identities — will be two of at least seven witnesses who have agreed to participate in the hearing sponsored by the Democratic Policy Committee.
“We have a couple of employees of the Social Security Administration who will be testifying about the administration’s use of resources in the Social Security Administration to promote its agenda on private accounts and to promote its agenda that there is in fact a crisis,” DPC Chairman Byron Dorgan (N.D.) said in an interview. “There are pressures being brought to bear inside the Social Security Administration — improper pressures they believe to promote the administration’s plan.”
This one could be fun.
This is not a “committee hearing” in the formal sense. It will be held by Democratic Policy Committee, which is the policy arm of the Senate Dem caucus. The committee does not have subpoena power and Republicans (who’ll be in West Virginia strategizing for the coming year) won’t be there.
But it is part of a strategy that I think is a tremendous idea.
Lacking the power to formally examine alleged corruption in the Bush administration, Senate Democrats plan to create their own investigative team and hold hearings on their findings in the new Congress.
Though the hearings will not be officially sanctioned by the Senate – and will not be aided by Congressional subpoena power – Democrats say they will offer an opportunity to provide oversight of the executive branch, which they claim has been lacking under Republican rule.
“The fact is, with one-party rule – the presidency and the House and Senate – there is no oversight on anything,” said Democratic Policy Committee Chairman Byron Dorgan (N.D.). “The oversight function … is non-existent.”
This week’s hearings on SSA appear to be the first in what will hopefully be a long series of similar hearings that will do what the Republicans refuse to do — hold the administration accountable for its actions.
There’s an element of political theater to all of this and that’s a good thing. Dorgan, Reid, and others could interview these SSA officials privately, for example, and prepare a devastating report that no one would read. But the theatrical power of Capitol Hill hearings tends to generate interest and attention.
Once again, it’s the latest sign that Harry Reid’s leadership is working towards the most effective Dem opposition since the GOP takeover in 1994.