|
|
For President's Social Security Proposal, Many Hurdles
By Richard W. Stevenson, New York Times
March 2, 2005
Doug Mills/The New York Times
Senator Bill Frist said it was too early to tell when Social Security legislation might be introduced.
After a week at home listening to constituents on the issue, Congressional leaders of Mr. Bush's own party have returned to Washington and immediately begun playing for time, suggesting that they may not meet his goal of passing legislation this year.
Democrats, apparently feeling little political pressure to come up with a plan of their own or work across the aisle, remain remarkably united against the main element of Mr. Bush's plan: his call for private investment accounts to be carved out of Social Security payroll taxes.
A USA Today/CNN/Gallup poll published Tuesday showed Mr. Bush receiving his lowest marks on the handling of Social Security since becoming president.
Perhaps most difficult of all for the White House, members of Congress have little sense that voters are demanding that they confront the issue now and make difficult choices that are bound to have political repercussions.
Contrary to the broad-based support that drove the last bipartisan action to overhaul an entitlement program - the addition of a prescription drug benefit to Medicare - the public has not been clamoring for a new approach to Social Security or for confronting the painful steps necessary to meet Mr. Bush's goal of ensuring its permanent solvency.
Indeed, there is no consensus even among Republicans about how to proceed. They are divided, in some cases bitterly, over issues like how big the private accounts should be, whether the nation can afford to borrow trillions of dollars to establish them and whether a tax increase can be part of any solution.
"When a boat springs so many leaks, it only floats for so long," said Tony Fabrizio, a Republican pollster, who declared that Mr. Bush was losing the momentum he had picked up after making Social Security the centerpiece of his State of the Union address. "The Democrats have certainly shot holes in it, but the Republicans have also been shooting holes."
Robert Bixby, executive director of the Concord Coalition, a group that advocates balanced budgets and bringing Social Security's promised benefits into line with what it will be able to pay, said the chances that legislation would emerge from Congress this year now appeared slim.
"The political dynamics just don't seem to be there to achieve a meaningful Social Security reform this year," Mr. Bixby said.
White House officials said Tuesday that the president's goal of getting legislation enacted this year was still achievable. But on Capitol Hill, Republican leaders, while maintaining their support for Mr. Bush's approach, appeared intent on dampening expectations of quick action and easing the anxiety within their ranks.
Asked if it was a certainty that Social Security legislation would reach the Senate floor this year, the Republican leader, Bill Frist of Tennessee, said the "pacing" of that legislation would be "determined by the American people," and added, "In terms of whether it will be a week, a month, six months or a year as to when we bring something to the floor, it's just too early."
But to some proponents of taking action along the lines of what Mr. Bush has proposed, the chances of getting something done at all are receding, hurt by missteps and political posturing on all sides.
Charles W. Stenholm, a Texan who was among a handful of Democrats to support private accounts before he lost his House seat last year, said both parties were to blame for not creating an atmosphere in which a deal could be worked out.
"Where we are right now is in deep trouble," Mr. Stenholm said. "The problems associated with the future of Social Security for our grandchildren are still there, but we seem to be even farther away from a bipartisan solution. It's obvious the game plan the administration chose is not working."
Mr. Bush has been telling audiences that the politics of Social Security have changed, that the appeal of personal investment accounts and what he describes as the urgency of acting before the baby boom generation retires have combined to outweigh the costs, political and economic, of doing nothing.
Some Republicans appear unconvinced. After their weeklong recess hearing citizens' complaints and seeing the organized opposition to private accounts, many Republicans returned with a warning that if Mr. Bush wanted action this year, he would have to do much more to convince the nation that Social Security's projected financial gap required immediate, bipartisan legislation.
The White House promised on Tuesday that Mr. Bush planned to do just that. Administration officials said the president, cabinet secretaries and other aides would blanket the country in coming weeks, redoubling their efforts to generate support for Mr. Bush's proposal.
The officials said they would seek to get across a variety of messages: that older people, a potent voting bloc that tends to be suspicious of any changes to the retirement system, have nothing to fear; that younger workers will get a better deal from private investment accounts than if the solution to Social Security's long-term problems is limited to benefit cuts and tax increases; that doing nothing will inevitably lead to big tax increases or benefit cuts; and that Democrats in states where Mr. Bush is popular will run a political risk if they defy him.
Noting that it had been only a month since the State of the Union speech, Nicolle Devenish, the White House communications director, said: "If you look at what the president has been able to do in terms of elevating the issue, explaining a program riddled with terms like 'bend points' that are hard for busy families to wrap their brains around, the intensity with which we have engaged in the public campaign and the legislative process, we feel good about where we are. But we recognize there is much more to be done."
Asked what Mr. Bush intended to do to keep the issue moving forward and bring some Democrats to his side, Ms Devenish said: "The president believes that once everyone has coalesced around the belief that there's a problem that has to be addressed, it will be something that invigorates members of both parties. Without the understanding and acceptance among the American public that we have to act now to strengthen Social Security, it will be very difficult to get to that point."
Representative Tom DeLay of Texas, the House majority leader, said he disagreed with another Republican, Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, a crucial broker of Social Security legislation as chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, who said Monday that Mr. Bush needed to shift public opinion in the next three weeks "or you might have some question about the president succeeding."
Mr. DeLay responded: "I think we are talking about months of dialogue with the American people. We are going to talk to the American people. When we feel comfortable enough that they understand what the issue is, we will write a bill."
But the challenge is not coming up with a bill that would accomplish Mr. Bush's goals. The challenge is to do so in a way that attracts enough Democrats to make the legislation credibly bipartisan. So far, not a single prominent Democrat has been willing to embrace Mr. Bush on the issue, a marked departure from what has occurred with other contentious issues, including the Iraq war, abortion rights and tax cuts.
"This privatization plan is sinking like a rock," said Senator Barbara Boxer, Democrat of California.
Betting against Mr. Bush has been a losing proposition for the last four years, and there are still possible routes to legislation, most likely through Mr. Grassley's committee, traditionally one of the least prone to instinctive partisanship.
"My advice," Mr. Stenholm said, "is step back, relax and stop shooting down the other side's ideas. And that goes for everyone."
David E. Rosenbaum and Robin Toner contributed reporting for this article.
|
|
