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Bush's Social Security Playbook
By Paul Waldman, The Gadflyer
April 12, 2005
For a White House that may be better than any in history at the carefully crafted photo-op, it was an uncharacteristic blunder. Following the PR rule that says stating your case is nothing without a good picture to lodge itself in our visual memory, they sent President Bush, as part of his whirlwind tour of the United States to sell the public on partial privatization of Social Security, to the Bureau of Public Debt in Parkersburg, WVa. Bush stood next to a rather ordinary-looking file cabinet, looked meaningfully at a manila folder, then quickly moved on to a "town meeting," where he proclaimed, "There is no 'trust fund,' just IOUs that I saw firsthand."
The reaction was not exactly enthusiastic-after all, by Bush's logic, you have no "bank account" either, since your bank isn't holding an actual stack of money with your name on it. The argument that the United States Treasury bonds in which the Social Security trust is held are nothing but a bunch of IOUs-pieces of paper that might or might not be honored, meaning Bush is entertaining the calamitous idea of the United States government defaulting on its debt-is hardly a message that inspires confidence, either here or abroad.
And saying that you want to "save" Social Security while deriding it as nothing but a gigantic scam is bound to cause people to question your motives. As The New York Times reported on Sunday, the White House's plan is to "lure Democrats into negotiations on the program's solvency and prepare for an endgame in which Mr. Bush will make an all-out push to convince the country that individual investment accounts will reduce the pain of benefit cuts or tax increases and provide a historic opportunity to help low-income people disproportionately."
There we have the Bush playbook, all wrapped up in one sentence: the clever manipulation of gullible Democrats, the promise of a free lunch and the deceptive bait and switch.
Deliberate On This
In recent years, political scientists have taken a keen interest in the idea of "public deliberation," the process of arriving at decisions through an extended discussion and debate. Some have staged "deliberative polls," in which representative groups of citizens are put through a veritable policy boot camp, hearing lectures from experts and taking part in extended discussions on critical issues; they are then surveyed to determine whether their opinions change as a result. The results show that the opinions people start out with are often altered quite dramatically by the process of listening, talking and thinking about an issue.
Unfortunately, occasions of true public deliberation are rare in American politics. Every few weeks seems to bring a major policy shift or new initiative that comes about without the awareness-much less the input-of most Americans. And of course, the less attention paid to an issue, the more likely it is that those with a special interest and special access can subvert the interests of the public. To take just one recent example, if every American had been fully aware and informed about the details of the recently passed bankruptcy bill, would it have had a chance of passage? Probably not.
But the current debate over Social Security is one of those rare occasions where the public is getting the chance to really think about what is being proposed. As poll after poll has shown, the more they hear about the administration's proposal, the less they like it. So the biggest mistake the White House made could have been to allow the debate to extend for months. In the process, they actually admitted that carving private accounts out of Social Security not only doesn't solve the problem of a potential shortfall a few decades from now, it makes it much worse-something truly remarkable coming from an administration that has shown such a willingness to testify that night is day and black is white.
Offering private accounts as a path toward eternal solvency of the Social Security system suffers from the rhetorical disadvantage of being utterly absurd on its face-something that might not be a hindrance were we talking about a quickly concluded debate on a matter citizens care little about. But this is one of the few government programs that eventually touches each and every one of us, fulfilling an intergenerational promise to not let us fall into destitution in our later years. It's no wonder that Bush, a big thinker if ever there was one, is so eager to get the snowball rolling toward dismantling the linchpin of mutual obligation through progressive government. In a candid moment campaigning in 2000, he told a factory worker, "It's going to take a while to transition to a system where personal savings accounts are the predominant part of the investment vehicle," going on to say that his private accounts proposal was "a step toward a completely different world, and an important step." Hard to argue with that.
War Is Peace, Freedom Is Slavery.
Through the progression of this debate, the administration has tried to convince various groups-African Americans, Hispanics, young people-that Social Security is a bum deal for them, and they'll make out like bandits when privatization comes. If the Times is right, the next move is a push to tell all of us that their only concern is with low-income Americans.
But we've heard this tune before. In 2003, when they were arguing for eliminating taxes on stock dividends-a tasty plum to be enjoyed almost entirely by wealthy Americans-Glenn Hubbard, then Bush's chief economics advisor, told us that the plan was "very much pro-poor." After all, he went on, "That's what the president is all about." Karl Rove too located Bush's heart with the little guy: "Give him a choice between Wall Street and Main Street," Rove said, presumably with a straight face, "and he'll choose Main Street every time."
Wall Street, of course, has been the source of a deafening silence during this whole debate. Though the prospect of the billions of dollars in fees private accounts would generate must have them quivering with lust like Gollum staring at the Ring of Power, they're smart enough to stay quiet, lest their involvement put a less "pro-poor" face on the privatization forces. If the administration's new tack is indeed to wax poetic about the shower of riches privatization will bring to those struggling to make ends meet, they won't be speaking up in favor, even as they keep their fingers crossed.
There is little reason to believe that the argument that privatization is really about helping poor people will be any more persuasive than the previous arguments that it was about helping black people or young people. Unfortunately for the administration, when people actually know the facts and take the opportunity to think things out, it can be awfully hard to pull the wool over their eyes.
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