Wednesday, June 22, 2005

Social Security: “Where are the Democrats?”

From a must-read editorial in today’s WashPost:

No doubt Democrats' political instincts will be against engaging at this point: Why bail out Mr. Bush now, the strategists will argue, and let him claim that he led the way to putting Social Security on the path to solvency? Why endorse spinach when it's so much more fun -- and politically useful -- to point out the spinach in the other side's plan? To a certain extent, Mr. Bush is reaping what he's sowed here: Having given Democrats no credit when they cooperated with him -- indeed, having campaigned against them -- he's not entitled to much sympathy when he now complains of their obstructionism.

But there is also the little matter of what's right for the country. Failing to act now will make the problem harder to fix down the road; cuts or tax increases will have to be steeper the longer the problem goes unaddressed. Yes, Medicare is a bigger, thornier problem, but that's a reason to get Social Security done, not to ignore the issue and let it fester.

Democratic lawmakers keep insisting that they take the Social Security problem seriously and want to deal with it. This seems a good time to start.
I said months ago that taking private accounts off the table would be the Democrats’ worst nightmare because it would finally lay bare the fact that they care less about saving Social Security than scoring political points.

2 comments:

Brian said...

What? How dare the President campaign against the Democrats? Why didn't he, when running for President, talk about how lucky he was to have Democrats around?

Anonymous said...

People (especially those in Washington) remember the "uniter, not a divider" catchphrase and how quickly it was disproved. It's not nearly the albatross that his father's "Read my lips, no new taxes" was, but it's at least a trail of toilet paper on GWB's shoe that he'll never shake loose. Take the amount of bipartisanship that Bush offered in his first term and triple it: that's how much he'll be getting back, now that he needs it.

It should go without saying that the rhetoric is a joke. For the GOP to whine and wail about self-interested Democrats not doing the right thing for Social Security (and just to gain a political advantage!) is the definition of "dingenuous" (for this news cycle, anyway). Dick Cheney all but told us to look out our windows for the terrorist mushroom clouds that would erupt once John Kerry got elected President.