Senators Debate About Social Security

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Senators Debate About Social Security

By Leigh Strope, Associated Press Writer, The Guardian

September 23, 2003

Lawmakers are trying to bring debate back to the Senate floor, tackling the nation's most urgent issues with good, old-fashioned oratory.

Four senators faced off Monday night over Social Security. The program's projected shortfall didn't get funded, the arguments weren't new and neither side budged. All the senators decided was that the country faces tough choices in restoring the system's financial health.

Still, the debate represented an attempt to return the Senate to its history as a great deliberative body. It was the first of several exchanges planned on major policy issues not tied to specific legislation. Some lawmakers and experts hoped it would lead to improvements in the legislative process.

``Sometimes the very big issues that affect us - the controversial issues - are issues that we don't confront in open debate very effectively,'' said Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., chairman of the Democratic Policy Committee.

``These debates are an opportunity for us to rise above 30-second sound bites for a true give-and-take on important issues in a way that the founders might have envisioned,'' said Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., chairman of the Republican Policy Committee.

Intense and growing partisanship has reduced deliberations in Congress to sound bites in a permanent political campaign, said Thomas Mann, a political analyst at the Brookings Institution.

Lawmakers often read prepared statements and rarely engage each other on the floor, he said. Legislative deals get brokered by leaders behind closed doors without give-and-take in public debate.

``In the old days, when bills would be introduced in the early days of the country, you would first have floor debate and then it would be sent off to committee,'' Mann said. ``There's something to be said for that.''

Republican Sens. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania and John Sununu of New Hampshire squared off against Democrats Dick Durbin of Illinois and Jon Corzine of New Jersey on Social Security.

It's one of the most daunting policy and political questions facing Congress and is sure to play prominently in next year's presidential and congressional elections, as it has in the past. The system faces a $3.8 trillion deficit in the next 75 years.

President Bush and Republicans advocate letting younger workers invest a portion of their payroll taxes in the stock market to help shore up future funding.

Santorum said Democrats were wrong in advocating ``this idea that if we don't do anything, things will be fine,'' adding that ``waiting is not an option.''

Corzine, the former chairman of Wall Street powerhouse Goldman Sachs & Co., reminded Republicans of his 30 years of experience with financial markets, and said personal accounts invested in the stock market were ``an uncertainty and a risk,'' and would be a mistake for millions of Americans relying on the income for their retirement.