{"id":4506,"date":"2005-06-22T10:25:43","date_gmt":"2005-06-22T14:25:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/4506.html"},"modified":"2005-06-22T10:25:43","modified_gmt":"2005-06-22T14:25:43","slug":"still-looking-for-a-social-security-exit-strategy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/still-looking-for-a-social-security-exit-strategy\/","title":{"rendered":"Still looking for a Social Security exit strategy"},"content":{"rendered":"

The White House hosted a gathering of Senate Republicans yesterday, and apparently, a couple of lawmakers told the president that they’re moving forward with their own proposals on Social Security — one of which does not include private accounts. <\/p>\n

Because the president told lawmakers to proceed with their plans, the AP suggested<\/a> that there’s been some kind of breakthrough and that Bush is now willing to accept a plan that falls short of privatization. The AP, however, is wrong<\/a> and the White House position has not changed.<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, the Wall Street Journal’s Jackie Calmes had a good piece today<\/a> on the politics behind the new, competing proposals and fleshed out in more detail how Bush is proceeding with the broader debate.<\/p>\n

To break Congress’s impasse on his promise to revamp Social Security, President Bush is encouraging conflicting plans from two Republican senators: One would only make the program solvent through future benefit reductions, and another would only create personal retirement accounts for workers.<\/p>\n

At a rare White House luncheon with Republican senators yesterday on a range of subjects, Mr. Bush reiterated his commitment to the twin goals of Social Security solvency and new private accounts, senators said. But with his party divided on the issue — and politically fretful amid Democratic opposition — the president is seizing on proposals that fall short of his own aims just to keep his top domestic priority alive in the Republican-led Senate and House.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Utah Sen. Bob Bennett (R) has a plan whereby the system would use “progressive indexing” to reduce retirees’ benefits. South Carolina Sen. Jim DeMint (R), meanwhile, redirects the system’s trust fund — which Republicans have said for months does not exist — into creating private accounts.<\/p>\n

But here’s the kicker from the WSJ Calmes:<\/p>\n

Bush aides acknowledge that many Republicans in Congress privately view the DeMint bill not as a way to revive the issue, but as “an exit strategy” — believing it can’t pass, but will allow them to put Social Security behind them without having to vote to cut benefits.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Sounds like they’re poised to give up. When Republican leaders are prepared to accept a bad bill they know will lose just to get the darn thing over with, we’re that much closer to seeing them accept defeat on privatization.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The White House hosted a gathering of Senate Republicans yesterday, and apparently, a couple of lawmakers told the president that they’re moving forward with their own proposals on Social Security — one of which does not include private accounts. Because the president told lawmakers to proceed with their plans, the AP suggested that there’s been […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4506","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4506","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4506"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4506\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4506"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4506"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4506"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}