A couple of weeks ago, Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.) told Roll Call that she had agreed to listen to the White House’s pitch about Social Security privatization, but was surprised at how little she heard with which she could agree. Lincoln has flirted in the past with Fainthearted Faction status, so her trip down Pennsylvania Avenue was noteworthy, but Arkansas’ senior senator seemed thoroughly unimpressed with Bush’s approach.
One of the areas of contention for Lincoln is the part of the Social Security debate that often goes unmentioned: disability and survivors’ benefits.
[Lincoln] also complained, as did [Sen. Mark Pryor (D-Ark.)], that the president has not spent enough time explaining how his plan might affect the millions of Americans who receive Social Security benefits before retirement because they are either disabled or widowed.
“The fact that it just kind of gets glossed over and put to the side is also a non-starter,” Lincoln said.
I think there’s a reason Bush and his aides have “glossed over” this point — the White House appears to have no way of dealing with this issue. Indeed, the Wall Street Journal’s Jackie Calmes raised this point very well in an article yesterday.
What about benefits for the disabled and workers’ underage survivors? Survivor benefits are treated the same as retirees’ benefits. It is unclear how disabled benefits would be affected.
Currently, at retirement age disabled beneficiaries are reclassified as retirees. If retirement benefits are reduced, so might the disabled beneficiaries’ checks. Mr. Bush has said disability benefits won’t be cut. But shielding them would undercut his claim to be closing 70% of Social Security’s looming deficit. That percentage is based on Mr. Pozen’s plan, and one-sixth of Mr. Pozen’s proposed savings are from lower disabled benefits.
Bush knows it’ll be an even bigger political fiasco for him if he tries to cut benefits for those receiving disability and survivors’ benefits, but he also knows his notion of reducing Social Security’s long-term shortfall is dependent on doing just that.
What do you want to bet the White House hasn’t crafted a line on this problem yet because they have no idea what to do about it?