Duckworth, Bean & AARP Dance the Social Security Two-Step
One of my favorite lines from post-Sorkin West Wing comes in an episode about the policy and politics surrounding Social Security. In a one-on-one conversation, Bartlet tells Toby:
“you can't save Social Security without cutting benefits or raising taxes, and this is the largest meeting in Washington where anyone's ever admitted it."Though the show is fiction, that statement couldn’t be any truer. The only other option is to reform Social Security, and fundamentally change the structure of the program, as President Bush proposed doing last year.
If only today’s real Democrats were as honest in public as their fictional standard-bearers are in private. Tammy Duckworth is vehemently opposed to reforming or structuring the program; and, according to a recent press release, she is also opposed to raising taxes or cutting benefits. So how exactly does she plan to save it? According to her website, by “solving the nation’s exploding federal budget deficit.”
I’m sorry, but can someone please explain how that – as unquestionably worthy and necessary a step as that may be – will solve the fundamental problem facing Social Security, which is that more money will soon be going out than will be coming in to replace it. Yes, we must pay back the money borrowed from the Trust Fund. But that is an oversimplified, temporary solution that only delays the inevitable.
Given that, I’m inclined to say that, when the AARP asked in their candidate questionnaire "will you support a balanced Social Security plan to continue the program's guaranteed benefits for future generations?” Tammy Duckworth lied by answering yes. She doesn’t seem to support any such plan.
You would think that the AARP might be angered by a candidate answering yes and then renouncing any plan that resembles their own stated definition of “balanced” (which according to their website, includes “additional contributions from high income workers with modest adjustments in future benefits can maintain guaranteed Social Security benefits for future generations"). Instead, they have assisted Duckworth, and her 6th District counterpart, Rep. Melissa Bean, in backpedaling their responses - explaining how answering yes to that question doesn’t necessarily mean that they support raising taxes or reducing benefits.
With their own positions sufficiently mirky, both Duckworth and Bean, with the help of AARP are hoping that they can shout "we're for saving it and the Republicans are for dismantling it" loud and often enough to avoid giving the voters of the 6th and 8th District the straight answers they deserve before Election Day.
Cross Posted at Grand Old Partisanship
6 comments:
GOP
At the time he was trying to sell it, I failed to see how what President Bush was suggesting would do anything to solve our current SS dilemma. His proposal would obviously have changed the dynamics of the problem when todays 25 year olds were retiring, but, between now and then; as you said there ain't enough money going in and too much coming out.
As you also pointed out, "repaying" the "trust fund" is at most a diversion from the real problem. It's a pay-as-you-go system that isn't and can't.
I need to have someone explain to me how the current problem can be solved by any other means than some combination of increased contributions and reduced future benefits. I'm serious; someone educate me.
Steve – the President’s solution was far from perfect, granted. But, as I understood it, we would have been paying more (or borrowing more) upfront to bail out the system (unpleasant, but necessary), in exchange for structural reforms in the program that would help make financially stable indefinitely into the future – similar to a corporation taking the hit on current pension obligations while converting to a defined contribution 401(k) for their employees.
If that part was there, I didn't see it. The contribute substantially more in the short term piece would have to be there. Was that going to be paid for out of general funds?
Corporations pay for the hit by taking it against earnings and funding the shortfall (or by going bankrupt and voiding their obligations). If we were going to pay for the shortfall, wouldn't that require a tax increase?
GOP,
The primary fiscal problems facing the US today are our General Fund deficit and our trade decifit.
Next on the list comes exploding healthcare costs, which are causing both private and public health insurance programs to raise premiums.
The SS trust fund's future net deficit (as in 30 odd years from now) pales in comparison to the above fiscal problems.
Mark,
you are right, those are serious problems that need to be addressed. But simply doing that won't ensure the solvency of Social Security, which is what Tammy Duckworth seems to be claiming.
The problem was that when Reagan took his meat axe to our tax code, he produced mind-boggling budget deficits. Voodoo economics didn't work out as planned, and even after borrowing so much money that this year we'll pay over $100 billion just in interest on the money Reagan borrowed to make the economy look good in the 1980s, Reagan couldn't come up with the revenues he needed to run the government.
The actuaries at the Social Security Administration now say there is a problem along with conseratives running aganist democrats.
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