News Intelligence Analysis
From Mt. Vernon News
Rudderless with Rove on Social Security
Sunday, May 08, 2005 07:18 AM
By Douglas Cohn and Eleanor Clift
WASHINGTON – President Bush managed to alienate just about
everybody with his latest proposal to reform and modernize the
Social Security system. Progressive indexing is a fancy term
for cutting benefits for anyone earning over $30,000, which is
70 percent of the working population.
Bush is casting himself as Robin Hood, taking from the rich – who would face the largest cuts -- to protect the poor. It’s a device designed to attract Democratic support, but it’s a misnomer. The rich wouldn’t feel the pinch because they don’t rely on Social Security. A person clipping coupons isn’t going to notice a dip of a few hundred dollars in their monthly Social Security check. The poorest Americans would be spared from cuts under Bush’s plan, but they wouldn’t be any better off than they are today. It’s the middle class that takes the big hit with progressive indexing, which is why the proposal is all but dead on Capitol Hill.
You would think with all the brain power in Washington that Bush could have come up with an idea more palatable than to stick it to the middle class. Everybody applauded Karl Rove after the election for his political acumen. Now that Rove is deputy White House chief of staff, he should have Bush on a clearer path. But without the structure of a reelection campaign, Rove seems to be floundering. He’s a political operative who can ramrod an election, but he’s not geared to congressional politicking. Putting together a coalition on Capitol Hill and bringing people along is not Rove’s strength, and Bush is paying the price.
This is a president who is drifting on domestic issues. After visiting 24 states in 60 days to promote his agenda, Bush’s poll ratings are at the lowest of his presidency. He’s lurching around on Social Security, going through contortions to protect his commitment to private accounts while refusing to confront the hard realities of a budget drowning in red ink. If Bush were to suspend his tax cut for people earning over $350,000, that alone would solve 70 percent of the Social Security shortfall. He accuses the Democrats of refusing to negotiate in good faith, yet he has avoided putting his ideas into legislative language so that Congress can understand and debate the trade-offs and the costs.
It’s not only on social-security where Bush seems rudderless. On the signature piece of legislation from his first term, No Child Left Behind, states are rebelling because of the strict requirements for testing coupled with a lack of federal resources. Utah, one of the most Republican states in the union, is pulling out of the federal legislation. Seventeen other states are considering similar action.
On immigration, states on the front lines are frustrated that Bush has done so little to secure the borders. California’s Republican Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger declared the civilian Minute Men monitoring the Arizona border with Mexico were welcome in California. When governors start inviting citizen vigilantes to do a job, it’s evident that government has failed.
During his first term, everything Bush did was geared to the 2004 election. Now that he’s a second-term president, he is free to pursue his true agenda. Watching his performance over these first hundred days, he looks directionless, like he’s making it up as he goes along. Setting down principles to reform Social Security and expecting a Congress full of politicians worried about their reelection to do the hard work of cutting benefits and raising taxes is not a good strategy. When Bush tossed out his proposal for progressive indexing at his press conference last week, he was casting about for a lifeline, and he found one that is so unpopular, it could just as easily sink him.
Copyright 2005 Douglas Cohn
Distributed by U.S. News Syndicate, Inc
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