The battle over Social Security reform seems to have stalled the President’s legislative agenda. The Democrats have been trumpeting polling data that suggests the President’s plans are unpopular. However, what belies that assertion is that with younger workers, the President’s plan is quite popular. Furthermore, 56% support the concept of a voluntary investment account as a supplement to Social Security.
Furthermore, the public isn’t buying the Democrats’ ridiculous line that there’s no Social Security crisis. That line of attack is absolutely and completely idiotic — the numbers simply do not add up, and the fact that Bill Clinton certainly believed there was a Social Security crisis doesn’t help either. When Alan Greenspan, who is about as close to the Oracle of Delphi as anyone can be in modern times says that there’s a problem, people aren’t going to buy the line that there’s no problem. The Democrats cannot count on dismissing a crisis. The fact that the Democratic line is that we’re in the worst economy since the Great Depression yet Social Security is doing just fine just doesn’t compute with the electorate. The ABC poll found that 3 out of 4 surveyed believe that there is a crisis in Social Security and action is required.
Sebastian Mallaby makes an excellent point in yesterday’s Washington Post:
Last year Democrats impaled themselves on the Iraq war. They were so anxious to denounce the invasion that they failed to acknowledge the most basic point of all: that, having waded into Iraq, the United States could not leave prematurely. By attacking the Bush policy relentlessly, Democrats sounded negative. By refusing to say clearly that they would finish the Iraq job, they sounded irresponsible.
Now Democrats risk making the same mistake on Social Security. They are so anxious to denounce private accounts that they fail to acknowledge the most basic point: Social Security has a serious deficit. The Post reported Friday that nearly every Democratic senator refuses even to contemplate the Bush proposals. But the Democrats have no proposal of their own. They sound negative and irresponsible.
Mallaby’s point is an essential one: the Democrats are making the same mistake they did over Iraq. Even if one assumes that the President’s proposals aren’t popular, the Democrats are doing nothing but whine and bitch. Where is the Democratic counterproposal? Exactly how would the Democrats fix Social Security? What’s their plan?
Of course, that would first of all require the Democrats to admit there’s a problem, which they now can’t do having staked out the position of sticking their heads in the sand over this issue. The President has essentially backed the Democrats into a corner again. He’s said he’s open to ideas from all sides — and the Democrats have yet to step up to the plate on this issue. Meanwhile, Republicans like Sen. Chuck Hagel are coming up with reasonable and detailed plans for Social Security that put something on the table. In politics, something almost always beats nothing, and the Democrats are going to have to put something on the table.
The other problem that the Democrats are facing is that while Social Security reform is massively unpopular with the elderly (who won’t be effected by these changes anyway), it’s quite popular with younger workers. Pollster John Zogby notes that Social Security reform can help seal the Republican Realignment:
Why would the president risk his political capital on a plan that appears doomed to failure? I think the answer lies well beyond the politics of any single reform plan. And the president may end up a winner if his call for personal accounts ultimately fails. After all, he has raised a serious issue that needs attention–the very solvency of Social Security–which Democrats have never touched. Huge majorities of voters understand that the current system is in trouble. He will, at the very least, get credit for trying to reform the program previously referred to as the “third rail of American politics”–even if he achieves more modest change than he now proposes.
But there is a much bigger picture. The president’s real prize would be a significant realignment in party politics. It has been no secret that Mr. Bush and Karl Rove have their sights set on a political realignment not experienced since FDR built a coalition of urban ethnics, liberal ideologues and Southern conservatives under the Democrats’ big tent. Like the New Deal, the president’s “ownership society” is a compelling new vision and veritable redefinition of a society less dependent on government largess, of a middle class more independent and more capable of securing financial security on its own.
Zogby notes that in the last election, 46% of the electorate identified themselves as members of the “investor class.” This group is not exlusive to the rich, but represents a fairly broad segment of American society. Investment used to be only for the rich, now it’s firmly part of middle class life. The Democrats have failed to reconcile themselves with the fact that the politics of class warfare is less and less relevant to modern life. It’s hard to argue that we should stick it to the Wall Street tycoons when a good number of people are counting on Wall Street to provide for their retirement. The growth of 401(k) plans, stock options, mutual funds, IRAs, and the like all have helped expand investment to the masses.
The Democrat’s anti-market rhetoric may have worked when the market was something that only the rich could afford to dabble in, but it’s completely out of step with the times now. The concept that people shouldn’t be allowed to invest a portion of their Social Security money in private accounts doesn’t work when 65% of workers age 18-35 believe that Social Security will provide 25% or less of the income they need to retire. The days of Social Security providing for all workers have already passed. This generation is the generation that will get the shaft unless the system is reformed.
Even if Bush loses the battle over Social Security, he’ll win the larger war. The Democrats have once again set themselves up in opposition to President Bush but with no alternative plan to back up that position. The Democrats are positioning themselves with the AARP crowd at the expense of younger workers. The demographics of the American electorate are not on the side of the Democrats, and even if they get their way, it will be a Pyrrhic victory.
One would think that after Bush outmaneuvered the Democrats in 2004 that they’d learn their lesson. Sadly, the Democrats have become the “no” party, and while saying “no” to everything that Bush proposes may appeal to the Democratic base, for everyone else it’s simply mindless opposition.