WSJ: Republicans Revisit Social Security Strategy

[question everything]

Republicans Revisit Social Security Strategy

As Overhaul Prospects Dim, Lawmakers Consider Alternatives To Salvage a Partial Victory

By JACKIE CALMES
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
June 17, 2005; Page A4

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In coming weeks, the separate efforts of Senate Finance Committee Chairman Charles Grassley and House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Bill Thomas will determine whether even that is possible, numerous Republicans say. What has become clear after months of meetings with Republicans on their respective panels, however, is that their packages won't include Mr. Bush's proposal for personal accounts carved from Social Security payroll taxes and may not meet his demand to keep the program solvent. The two plans are still emerging but have several common concepts. Both would reduce future benefits for all but the poorest workers, much as Mr. Bush proposes. Both would raise the retirement age for full benefits, contingent on increases in Americans' lifespans. Both want to avoid raising payroll taxes.

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In view of the president's problems, conservatives who favor private accounts are about to step in with their own alternative. Next week, Republican Sen. Jim DeMint of South Carolina will introduce legislation, with support from third-ranking Senate leader Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania and House Majority Leader Tom DeLay of Texas, that shuns the solvency goal in favor of creating small private accounts from Social Security's current surpluses. Trustees project the program will start running annual deficits in 2017. Because those surpluses currently help fund annual government spending, the bill would force deep, continuing cuts in domestic and defense programs. It also ignores the argument Mr. Bush has campaigned for months to make: that Social Security must be fixed for all time, and that requires reductions in future benefits. An analysis from the Social Security Administration's chief actuary shows the DeMint proposal would worsen the system's projected shortfall by 2079.

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A bill limited to solvency, without private accounts, also is problematic: Ms. Snowe came out in recent days against the "progressive indexing" idea for reducing future benefits for all but the lowest-income workers that Mr. Grassley and the president have embraced. Conservative Sens. Santorum and Jon Kyl of Arizona say accounts must be included. Given the stalemate, Republicans also are weighing a Senate rule to bypass a committee and take a bill to the full Senate.

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Outside the Capitol, signs of trouble for Mr. Bush abound. Business allies aren't lobbying; they have other priorities and, without a Social Security bill, worry they could be saddled with higher payroll taxes. Polls register the public's disfavor with the president's priorities, stoking Republicans' resistance. Few Republican lawmakers hold town-hall meetings at home anymore, after drawing protesters last winter.

Social conservatives have focused on fights for Mr. Bush's court nominees and against human-stem-cell research. Economic conservatives, for whom privatization is a top priority, say they are demoralized by Mr. Bush's emphasis on making Social Security solvent through benefit cuts and new revenue. Should Supreme Court Chief Justice William Rehnquist announce his retirement soon, as expected, the ensuing political fight over a successor could sideline nearly everything else in Congress, Republicans say.

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Write to Jackie Calmes at [e-mail]

URL for this article:
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB111896894746162181,00.html

[killbotfactory]

1. Bush needs to lead himself into a closet

and stop fucking everything up for the rest of us.