How a Victorious Bush Fumbled Plan to Revamp Social Security (WSJ)

[kurth]

PAGE ONE
How a Victorious Bush Fumbled Plan to Revamp Social Security
A Divided Republican Party, Strong Opposition Derails Push for Private Accounts
By JACKIE CALMES
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
October 20, 2005

Through two campaigns, George W. Bush vowed to fix and partially privatize Social Security, the nation's most popular government program. This year, claiming a re-election mandate and enjoying a Congress controlled by his party, the president finally made his move. Yet now even the president has acknowledged Social Security is dead for this year, his biggest domestic defeat to date. How could it have gone so wrong? According to people on both sides of the battle over Social Security, Mr. Bush overestimated his postelection capital and underestimated his opposition. Embittered Democrats were even more vehemently opposed to any privatization than the White House imagined...

Unbowed, the president in a recent private meeting told supporters, "I intend to be the president who signs Social Security reform into law." Yet even some of his closest allies believe the president can't prevail, given the opposition in both parties, and the swirl of other issues -- including rebuilding the Gulf Coast, Iraq, deficits and energy prices -- that now roil his administration. Asked how Mr. Bush could revive the plan, Iowa's Republican Sen. Charles Grassley replied: "Get the troops out of Iraq and get New Orleans rebuilt."...

Sen. Harry Reid of Nevada, the new leader of the Senate Democrats, created a Capitol "war room" unlike any his party had mounted against Mr. Bush. Staffers coordinated with friends at Americans United. Whenever Mr. Bush spoke, Democrats had a response, and wherever he went, protestors were there... While Republicans can ignore Democrats in the House, where the rules give them tight control, they often need some Democrats' votes in the closely divided Senate. The math is simple: Majority Republicans have 55 seats; it takes 60 votes to prevent fatal filibusters... As March approached, Senate Democrats heard that Mr. Bush was about to rev up his sputtering campaign with a "60 Stops in 60 Days" tour. Their leader, Mr. Reid, decided on a send-off. He asked Democratic senators at their Tuesday lunch to sign a letter to Mr. Bush opposing private accounts. By Thursday, they had 42 signatures, more than enough to sustain a filibuster. The letter was made public, removing any doubts about Democrats' cohesion.

Many Republicans say it shouldn't have been. Democrats' defeats had left the party in Congress more liberal, and the survivors more united. Liberals opposed any tampering with Social Security; centrist Democrats couldn't abide the massive borrowing needed to start the private accounts. Democratic leaders insisted they were willing to negotiate benefit and tax changes to keep Social Security solvent, if he'd just drop private accounts. Mr. Bush, wedded to his proposal, declined to call their bluff. The White House never expected a lot of Democratic support. It did expect to peel off some moderates' votes, as it had in the first term. Without some Democrats for political cover, Republicans weren't going to provide the difficult votes alone...

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB112977326560074008.html?mod=home_page_one_us

[gratuitous]

1. Waaaahhhhh!

Gee, the robber barons were temporarily checked in their wanton plunder of the Treasury. Too fucking bad, Wall Street Journal. And in the years to come, we the people are going to be taking our money back from the crooks and thieves. You might want to consider whether that will be a peaceful transfer or not.

[notadmblnd]

2. he over estimated his capital...

I'll say. You don't get political capital from stealing elections. You get your seat in office. You get political capital from having the voice of the people behind you. Outside of *bushes 30% base, he has no one behind him.

[OKNancy]

3. Republicans also under-estimated the opposition

from regular folks and groups like AARP. Party opposition is fine, but if it is not supported by Mom and Pop Middle-America, it's dead.

[PSPS]

4. This story has a disturbing tone to it

It makes it sound like it is "normal" for the president to get whatever he wants simply by stating that he wants it -- government by dictatorial fiat -- and finds it remarkable that bush "failed" to destroy social security after merely uttering that he wanted to.

[abluelady]

6. WSJ expects a Repug to get whatever they want.

Or maybe just Bush since he and god talk to each other!

[wishlist]

5. His 'bait and switch' tactics backfired- he concealed details of SS plan

He denied wanting drastic changes or privatization of Social Security during the election and denied Kerry's accusations that his plan would cut benefits to finance the transition to private accounts.

Then the day after the election Bush jumped onto changing Social Security as his top priority while the stock market briefly soared. But he concealed for weeks that the Bush plan included changing the Social Security indexing formula to reduce future benefits in order to finance the switch to private accounts, so Kerry was telling the truth during the campaign and Bush once again got caught in another big lie.