Thought this was interesting.

[slugshooter]

New Strategy on Social Security

With Some Risk, Bush Officials Invoke Clinton, Moynihan

By Jonathan Weisman

Monday, January 24, 2005; Page A03

With their push to restructure Social Security off to a rocky start, Bush administration officials have begun citing two Democrats -- former President Bill Clinton and the late senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan -- to bolster their claims that the retirement system is in crisis.

But the gambit carries some risk, Bush supporters say. Clinton's repeated calls during his second term to "save Social Security first" were specifically to thwart what President Bush ultimately did: cut taxes based on federal budget surplus projections. Likewise, internal Treasury Department documents indicate that Moynihan, a New York Democrat who was co-chairman of Bush's 2001 Social Security Commission, expressed misgivings about the president's push to partially privatize Social Security.

Nonetheless, White House officials -- and some Democrats -- say invoking Clinton and Moynihan could help move the Social Security debate beyond the question of whether there is a "crisis" in the system, and on to what to do about it.

"As we move forward with our efforts to talk about the problem and the need for reform, administration officials are talking about what leaders of the Democrat Party have said about the problem," White House spokeswoman Claire Buchan said.

In public speeches recently, N. Gregory Mankiw, chairman of Bush's Council of Economic Advisers, and White House budget director Joshua B. Bolten, both cited the same passage of a 1998 Clinton speech at Georgetown University.

"This fiscal crisis in Social Security affects every generation," Clinton said in the speech.

But neither Mankiw nor Bolten cited another passage from the same address: "Before we spend a penny on new programs or tax cuts, we should save Social Security first. I think it should be the driving principle . . . Do not have a tax cut. Do not have a spending program that deals with that surplus. Save Social Security first."

"The Bush White House should have read Clinton's speeches before they squandered the Clinton surplus," said Bruce Reed, who was Clinton's domestic policy chief at the time of the speech.

When Bush entered office, conservatives active in the Social Security debate, including Rep. Jim Kolbe (R-Ariz.) and Michael Tanner of the libertarian Cato Institute, urged him to tackle Social Security while the government projected a 10-year, $5.6 trillion budget surplus, before pursuing his 10-year, $1.6 trillion tax cut. But Bush signed five tax cuts in four years, totaling nearly $1.9 trillion over the next decade.

"In 2001 we faced a recession, an economy declining, and the president was concerned about people needing work," Buchan said, explaining why Bush pushed his tax cut first.

Moreover, Clinton never proposed diverting Social Security taxes from current beneficiaries to private investment accounts, as Bush has suggested, Clinton aides said. Instead, he proposed using the surplus to finance personal savings accounts on top of the Social Security system, said Jeffrey B. Liebman, a Harvard University economist who helped draft Clinton's Social Security plans.

"President Clinton did believe it was better for the country to act early on Social Security by increasing savings and protecting Social Security's guaranteed benefit structure," said Gene B. Sperling, who directed Clinton's National Economic Council during the Social Security push. "Clinton never suggested that the Social Security solvency challenge required radical restructuring."

Some Bush supporters said enlisting Clinton's words posed a more basic risk: "He's alive and well and able to reinterpret his comments at any point," said David C. John, a Social Security analyst at the conservative Heritage Foundation.

Moynihan died in 2003. Treasury Secretary John W. Snow invoked his memory Thursday in a Wall Street Journal column. But documents from the Social Security Commission, leaked by former Treasury secretary Paul H. O'Neill, indicate that Moynihan was ambivalent.

An Oct. 22, 2001, memo from Treasury economic policy aide Kent Smetters to O'Neill said Moynihan backed a Social Security restructuring plan that would layer small personal investment accounts on top of the existing Social Security system rather than diverting taxes from the system. Under the Moynihan approach, individuals could contribute an additional 1 percent of their earnings into an investment account, which would then be matched by the federal government from general tax revenue.

That "add-on" approach has become mainstream policy for the Democratic Party, but it is a major departure from the approach Bush has embraced.

President Bill Clinton waves to crowd with Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D-N.Y.) after Clinton addressed a Moynihan fundraiser at a hotel in New York in 1993. (Kathy Willens -- AP)

Moreover, "Moynihan has expressed a considerable amount of frustration that he is not being allowed to control the agenda and, in particular, that the White House and Commission Staff are controlling the agenda to a large extent," said the memo, posted on the Internet by O'Neill biographer Ron Suskind.

"Moynihan was always a believer in incrementalism," said Smetters, now at the University of Pennsylvania. "He believed that once people got used to ownership, used to the accounts, they would want more of a good thing."

Former representative Timothy J. Penny of Minnesota, another Democratic member of the commission, said the add-on approach was discussed but members understood that Bush wanted them to carve individual accounts out of existing Social Security taxes.

Besides, said University of Pennsylvania professor Olivia S. Mitchell, another Democrat on the commission, "Moynihan signed the report like everyone else," and two of the commission's three recommendations favored significant partial privatization.

Rep. Charles B. Rangel of New York, the ranking Democrat on the House Ways and Means Committee, said the administration's use of Clinton and Moynihan will have little impact on the debate anyway.

Clinton, he said, "has no public office, no legislative role in Social Security," he said. "Pat Moynihan has passed away"

"If you're talking about bipartisanship, you have to be talking to people who are alive and elected, who can reach across the aisle to you," Rangel said.

[OJR]

Re: Thought this was interesting.

There is one thing I have to say about all this and investing.

There is NOTHING tigther with their own money that a liberal! There is also NOTHING more liberal with other people's money than a liberal!!!

[stevebeilgard]

Re: Thought this was interesting.

right on ojr!

[Norm Sauceman]

Re: Thought this was interesting.

hmmmmmm... Why do anything... never touch your vehicle... there is nothing wrong with it now...so there never will be..right?

[Norm Sauceman]

Re: Thought this was interesting.

You Democrat!!!!

And no, I am NOT a Republican.. I am an Independant..

I vote both for Dems and Reps...

[ParrotHead]

Re: Thought this was interesting.

[ QUOTE ]

hey man i am a liberal i dont belive in social secutiy reform no way. Why mess with the most succeful social program of all time you are insane if you think so!!!

[/ QUOTE ]

The most successful? I DON'T THINK SO!

The best social program ever is a system of economic liberty featuring capitalism and free enterprise operating under a system based on the rule of law. No program, private or public, has ever done so much to raise so many from the depths of poverty and despair as has capitalism. When the government steps aside and lets free people react freely with one another, amazing things happen. It's really too bad that Americans have fallen out of love with freedom and so in love with government-provided security.

[stevebeilgard]

Re: Thought this was interesting.

hey bigbuck. if the program is so solid why 1) did clinton, and most democrats, say in 1998 that it would be bankrupt by 2008? and 2) why are our government people exempt from social security, and put their money into private investments? remember, for you liberals, bushes plan is voluntary. voluntary ( means you, as a clear thinking liberal, can go down with the ship.,...)

[slugshooter]

Re: Thought this was interesting.

[ QUOTE ]

hey bigbuck. if the program is so solid why 1) did clinton, and most democrats, say in 1998 that it would be bankrupt by 2008? and 2) why are our government people exempt from social security, and put their money into private investments? remember, for you liberals, bushes plan is voluntary. voluntary ( means you, as a clear thinking liberal, can go down with the ship.,...)

[/ QUOTE ]

Do us a favor and stop talking to us like we are uneducated dopes. Everyone here knows what voluntary means, but as you and every other Bush lover has said, there is no plan set in stone yet, so far all Bush has done is travel around the country and tell everyone that Social Security is broke, when it's gonna be broke, how broke it's gonna be, and has not given out one clue or idea as to how he is going to fix it even if he does push for it to be fixed. So, he has no plan, you know what, I don't support non-existent plans. The problem on here is Bush says it is broke with no plan to fix it and the right supports it, even though they have no idea how it is going to work. How does anyone know it will be a disaster, how does anyone know it will be a financial windfall for everyone involved. I don't know, and you don't know, I have simply posted a fact check message how the Bush Admin is using scare tactics and misinformation to make it seem worse than it is. Don't worry, I have been through worse on here than you can dish out and I am still here while others have disappeared completely.

[wtnhunt]

Re: Thought this was interesting.

Think bigbuck needs to tell us how if the program is so succesfull it will continue on at the current rate and provide benefits for the excessive amoungt of people who will be eligible for those benefits when there is nothing there?

You guys need to wake up and get a little better eduacted before making such igfnorant comments.

[carbonhunter]

Re: Thought this was interesting.

[ QUOTE ]

You guys need to wake up and get a little better eduacted before making such igfnorant comments.

[/ QUOTE ]

Hmmmmm..........

[wtnhunt]

Re: Thought this was interesting.

LOL. Caught me in an error, oops. Keys too close together for my fumblesome fingers. Guess you never hit the wrong keys eh Aaron.

[Texan_Til_I_Die]

Re: Thought this was interesting.

BTW - President Bush may have been quoting President Clinton, Sen. Moynihan and other recent Democratic leaders to promote his Social Security policy, but those were not the first Democrats to favor privitizing the program. That honor goes to none other than President Franklin Roosevelt who clearly stated in a speech that in order for Social Security to survive, it needed to evolve beyond a government run tax and wealth redistribution program into something that would tap into the great engine of our free market economy and eventually become self sufficient.

Couldn't have said it better myself.

BTW Part II - I do believe that this subject may just be the source of the most whining I've ever seen in this forum!

[carbonhunter]

Re: Thought this was interesting.

[ QUOTE ]

LOL. Caught me in an error, oops. Keys too close together for my fumblesome fingers. Guess you never hit the wrong keys eh Aaron.

[/ QUOTE ]

J-O-K-E!!!

[wtnhunt]

Re: Thought this was interesting.

I realized that Aaron, I was laughing. I hit the wrong keys or two at the same time all the time and sometimes I catch my mistakes typing sometimes I dont. I type at a pretty steady pace, but going back fixing my mis keys really slows me down.

[stevebeilgard]

Re: Thought this was interesting.

i don't worry about you ss. this is just a discussion forum. didn't mean to imply that anyone is stupid. i just like options. so far, seems folks are applauding or criticising a "no plan".

if you go back in history, the socail security program has been in trouble for decades. fixed over and over. so, whatever comes next, i'm willing to look at it. but the one thing made clear by both sides is that the system does, indeed, need fixing. the problem is clear. bush just stole the idea from the libs, and they are beside themselves.

note: i do not like bush. much too liberal, and a big spending republican. he was simply the best option