Posted on 05/17/2005 9:33:06 PM PDT by Libloather
House GOP tries to pass Social Security overhaul by 'super-sizing' bill
05/18/2005
WASHINGTON (AP) - House Republicans are moving to super-size President Bush's Social Security overhaul with measures aimed at breaking Democrats' united front against it - such as bolstering private pension plans and improving non-retiree benefits for widows, children and the disabled.
Democrats say they will not be tempted by what one member has labeled "artificial sweeteners" as long as any bill includes the private investment accounts Bush is pushing.
"They're trying to get the goods through Customs that way," Rep. Rahm Emanuel, D-Ill., a member of the House Ways and Means Committee, said Tuesday. "In my view, you put aside the insistence on privatizing Social Security, you'll get a retirement agreement in short order."
Rep. Bill Thomas, the committee's chairman, is architect of the new strategy. His panel has a hearing Thursday to discuss, among other things, ideas for assuring that participants in company and union-sponsored defined-benefit pension plans get the retirement checks they were promised.
"To only deal with Social Security is to ignore what else is going on in the society," the California Republican said at an earlier hearing.
While Democrats have been singularly united in their opposition to private accounts, Thomas has previously succeeded in passing a White House initiative by cloaking it in member-friendly provisions.
In 2003, it was the administration's economic stimulus package, which he helped pass after changing it to include a cut in dividend taxes, instead of eliminating them, as the president wanted. Last year, the chairman succeeded in winning support for a $136 billion corporate tax bill by including various special-interest perks, such as a bailout for tobacco farmers.
Rep. Steny Hoyer of Maryland, the No. 2 Democrat in the House, branded the vote "a $5 billion problem with a $140 billion tax cut."
"Mr. Thomas wants to go after Democratic proposals. Why? Because they don't want to talk about their proposals, which are bad," Hoyer said.
Thomas hopes to break the Social Security stalemate by broadening the president's initiative to include language appealing to his opponents, perhaps including a provision to expand access to tax-protected retirement accounts such as Roth IRAs. The chairman has to date talked in generalities, even saying that the personal accounts pushed by the president "can take a number of forms."
While Democrats have remained united against the accounts, there was a fissure this week when Rep. Robert Wexler, D-Fla., announced over the objections of his party's leaders that he would file his own Social Security legislation. Republicans, after months of hearing their own reject Bush's ideas, heralded the break in the opposition's ranks, even though Wexler's bill included a 6 percent increase in payroll taxes that the president has already ruled out.
Wexler drafted his legislation after being asked recently by a high school student in Florida about his party's lack of an alternative, a question that many Democratic members have faced at town hall meetings. Thomas's strategy is in part rooted in Democrats' description of themselves as guardians of senior citizens since long before President Franklin Roosevelt signed legislation creating Social Security into law in 1935.
Emanuel's proposals, for example, include measures that would create automatic enrollments in employer 401(k) retirement plans and allow people to direct the Internal Revenue Service to deposit tax refunds directly into retirement accounts.
But he said Democrats will not vote for any of the provisions if they are included in a Social Security bill that lets workers divert to private accounts some of their Social Security taxes now used to pay benefits to retirees.
"He has ideas on health care; we have ideas on health care," Emanuel said of Thomas. "We have ideas on employer-based retirement; he has ideas on employer-based retirement. We have ideas on personal savings; he has ideas on personal savings. They're not far apart. We're farther apart on Social Security through the insistence on privatization."
Rep. Jim McDermott, D-Wash., another member of the Ways and Means panel, acknowledged the success that Thomas has enjoyed in the past using an expand-and-conquer strategy but said it won't happen this time.
"You know, there's nobody in the Hall of Fame in baseball who hit .1000. If they hit .300, they're pretty good," McDermott said. "And Bill isn't going to win this one."
That goofball should be behind bars...
See, Murrymom. Even high school students know Sosha Security is going bankrupt. (And now they're starting to dictate RAT policy...)
The Politicians will not be able to control the money in the Personal Accounts. The Progessives really can't stand that!!
Bush will pass nothing on SS in his final term. That is my prediction. Obviously, the public square holds surprises. I could be wrong. But I strongly doubt it. The fiscal crisis is not there, the choices are too painful, the option of sweetening the pie to attract Dems is too expensive, particularly since passing something would weaken the Dem base.
OMG! Allow people to actually free themselves from government bondage?
The nerve of those eeeeevil Republicans. Why, financial freedom is soooo pre-depression era! This is the liberal New Age !
How dare they talk about "freedom". That's hate speech if I've ever heard it!! Who'll support the democrat base ???? What about those democratt voters who have decioded to use their Constitutional right to choose a lifestyle that excludes employment? Huh? What will they eat? What will they wear? Where will they live? Who will pay their bills?
Incramentalism got us into this mess in the first place. It'll have to be incramentalism that gets us out.
People become addicted to free handouts. We have to re-teach them how to fish on their own.
I have a serious question. I don't understand the American system so bear with me. If Bush wants this passed and Republicans have the majority in Congress, what is stopping the bill from passing?
True, but let's take it one step at a time.
He's President of the United States, not a dictator. He can't make a Senator or a Congressman do anything they don't want to do, even if they are in the same party and have the majority.
Says who?
Spine, Backbone, Balls
That appears to be the case in the Senate. President Bush has an easier time with the House, but too many Republican Senators think they are oligarchs. The Senate is where we have the most problems.
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