Posted on 04/26/2005 8:28:07 AM PDT by KyleM
Some congressional Republicans who have been trying to craft a Social Security reform package say their efforts have been undercut by an unlikely source: conservatives whose top priority is to restructure the program.
As President Bush has struggled to gain traction on Social Security reform, Republicans have repeatedly criticized Democrats for refusing to negotiate on changing the entitlement system.
But some say that Bush should look to his right for scapegoats if Congress does not pass a Social Security bill this year. They blame conservatives for drawing several lines in the sand and refusing to consider compromises.
Conservatives have been outspoken on what should and should not be in a Social Security reform measure. Outside groups that are a driving force in the GOP have attacked Republicans for suggesting that raising taxes could be part of reform legislation.
A Senate Republican leadership aide expressed frustration with conservative groups rhetoric. While Bush and GOP congressional leaders say they are open to many ideas, conservatives have panned the everything-is-on-the-table approach.
We should have no conditions before we start talking, the Senate leadership staffer said. If you start narrowing the ideas, theres nothing left to negotiate.
There is a splinter in the Republican Party on how this should be addressed, another Senate Republican aide said.
Rep. Clay Shaw (R-Fla.), a senior Ways and Means Committee member, said he has noticed some negative stuff coming out of certain groups, which he declined to name.
They dont understand that politics is the art of compromise, he added.
Shaws Social Security reform plan proposes add-on accounts instead of carve-outs favored by many conservatives. The carve-outs would be financed from diverting payroll taxes, while add-ons would be paid for through tax credits.
The problem with the far left and the far right, Shaw said, is that they have a my-way-or-the-highway approach.
Shaw, who has been working on Social Security matters for more than six years, said critical comments from conservatives didnt start happening until recently. I hope we stop it.
Without GOP unity, the effort to revamp Social Security will be doomed, Shaw suggested: If were fractured, Democrats will see this as a political opportunity.
In television commercials that have run in South Carolina, the Club for Growth rebuked Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) for seeking to lift the $90,000 Social Security tax cap and Americans for Tax Reform (ATR) sent a letter to Congress rebutting Grahams skepticism about Bushs insistence on personal accounts.
The groups did not hold back. The Clubs ad said Grahams idea of a huge tax hike is a really bad idea that would hit millions of families, wipe out much of the Bush tax cut and punish small businesses.
In his letter to Capitol Hill, ATR President Grover Norquist said, Sen. Grahams comments are a recipe for destroying the second term of the Bush administration and if acted upon will squander the opportunity for at least another generation to preserve and modernize Social Security.
Conservatives have embraced a reform plan introduced by Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) and Sen. John Sununu (R-N.H.) while making it clear that they will be wary of any plan that strays from that bill.
In contrast, Ryan has said he is open to negotiating on changing Social Security.
Even though Bush has put Social Security on Congresss plate, the White House has also been the target of ire from the right.
In a memo to White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove, Cato Institute President Ed Crane said, [Bush] has been heroically bold in raising [Social Security reform]. But it seems to me that hes been timid in the manner in which he has chosen to promote it. Excerpts of the memo were reprinted in The Wall Street Journal last week.
Peter Ferrara, a senior fellow at the Institute for Policy Innovation (IPI) who is credited as the author of the Ryan-Sununu bill, wrote an op-ed in The Washington Times two months ago that mocked the White House for trying to send the president out to sell personal accounts with a message that they dont really solve the problem. Ferrara wrote, Is it any wonder then that the more George W. Bush talks about personal accounts the lower they sink in the polls?
Ferrara told The Hill he is trying to help Republicans get on track on Social Security. He accused top Bush administration officials including Rove and White House Chief of Staff Andy Card of urging people to tell him to shut the hell up. Ferrara, who is scheduled to testify on Social Security before the Senate Finance Committee today, said Rove, Card and Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Director Josh Bolten lack expertise on the entitlement system and mistakenly believe some Democrats are close to embracing the presidents plan.
Rove thinks hes been beatified by the last election, Ferrara added.
The White House declined to respond to Ferraras comments. Spokespeople for the Department of the Treasury and the OMB said the administration is open to input from all groups on Social Security reform.
The IPI has also gone after Graham and Senate Finance Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa). In a strongly worded release, IPI President Tom Giovanetti said, The movement to fix Social Security through personal retirement accounts is in serious trouble when some Republican leaders demonstrate utter ignorance about how they work.
The IPIs comments came in the wake of doubts expressed by Graham and Grassley about personal accounts.
Perhaps we need new people leading the cause of personal retirement accounts, Giovanetti said. Graham and Grassley just dont get it.
Ferrara defended the IPIs statements: All we are doing is telling the truth.
Both senators are proponents of personal accounts but are concerned that insisting on the accounts could imperil Social Security reform this year.
Some conservative groups believe that could be a good thing even though such a scenario would be regarded as a huge political setback for Bush.
The Free Enterprise Fund, which has championed personal accounts, suggested that no action on Social Security would be better than moving a reform bill without personal accounts: If Republicans move ahead on Social Security with no personal accounts, or accounts so small as to be financially inconsequential to voters, then it is the GOP that may win the battle but lose the war. Social Security reform without personal accounts will lead to a political Waterloo for Republicans and could jeopardize the GOPs majorities in the House and Senate in 2006.
Norquist contends that Social Security reform may not happen this year but will be passed eventually. However, Grassley last month told The Hill that Social Security reform must happen in 2005 or it wont for the next eight or nine years.
In an interview with The Washington Post, Grassley likened a vote on Social Security reform to walk[ing] the plank.
Certainly, a sizeable number of Republicans such as Reps. Jo Ann Emerson (Mo.) and Rob Simmons (Conn.) are wary of reshaping the Social Security system with private accounts. The notion that Social Security will return as a top issue in the next Congress is debatable and may largely depend how it plays out in the 2006 election.
Senate Majority Whip Rick Santorum (R-Pa.), who is admired by conservatives, has also conveyed disappointment with groups representing the right. An irked Santorum earlier this month responded to conservative commentary written by Free Enterprise Funds Stephen Moore and IPIs Ferrara on National Review Online (NRO).
After Moore and Ferrara blasted Senate Republicans for allegedly selling out on Social Security, Santorum responded with his own NRO commentary: If [Moore and Ferrara] had asked me what Senate Republicans were up to instead of quoting a report by the Associated Press, perhaps there would be no need to set the record straight. Again.
Political observers believe that the hard line conservatives have taken is a shrewd negotiating maneuver.
Its all part of the legislative process, a House GOP leadership aide said. I do think in the end [the conservative groups] will jump on board.
Rep. Jim McCrery (R-La.), chair of the Ways and Means subcommittee on Social Security, said he is not bothered by critics on the right. He added that he has urged his colleagues not to draw lines in the sand.
But others say conservatives are overplaying their hand.
They dont have near the votes [to pass the Ryan-Sununu bill], the Senate Republican staffer said.
The Ryan legislation has been praised by House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.), Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas) and the Republican Study Committee, a group of over 100 House conservatives.
That group has told top Bush administration officials that it will strongly back a Social Security bill with personal accounts. It has also warned that it will vehemently oppose any legislation that raises taxes or lacks carve-out accounts.
Conservative lawmakers are still bitter about being pressured to vote for the prescription-drug bill that deteriorated the financial future of Medicare. That experience has emboldened them to get a Social Security bill to their liking.
The bickering among Republicans on Social Security over the past several months is a clear indication that GOP leaders will have to worry about votes from conservatives when they are already struggling to attract support from centrists.
Right-wing groups have been pushing for Social Security reform for years. Now that its Bushs top domestic priority, they are not eager to strike deals with Democrats.
Ultimately, Republicans say, it is up to the White House to settle the GOPs deep divisions on Social Security.
The president has to give us more guidance, the Senate Republican staffer said.
Add ons are such a waste and redudant to IRA's, 401k's, etc.
Eliminate SS and let the $$ flow into the IRAs.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1388136/posts
Conservative Republican congressmen want action from the Bush Administration on Social Security reform.
Rep. Mike Pence (R.-Ind.) warned Tuesday that House conservatives are growing increasingly frustrated by the lack of a concrete proposal from President Bush to reform Social Security with personal retirement accounts.
"A lot of us House conservatives believe you can't beat nothing with nothing," Pence told a gathering of journalists at the Heritage Foundation. "I really believe the time has come for the President of the United States to put a concrete proposal on the front doorstep of Congress and take that proposal in detail to the American people."
Pence, chairman of the conservative House Republican Study Committee, supports a plan known as Ryan-Sununu, named after its sponsors, Rep. Paul Ryan (R.-Wis.) and Sen. John Sununu (R.-N.H.). The White House has been coy about endorsing a specific proposal, but Pence said the lack of any Bush-backed plan is allowing Democrats to seize control of the debate.
"There's talk about phase one. Phase one is there is a problem. Phase two is the solution. I'm not quarreling with the [White House's] marketing tactic, but I'm just saying I think many House conservatives want to get to phase two," Pence said. "The unknown is always more frightening than the known, and it is advantage Democrats right now."
Pence has publicly clashed with Bush twice before: He voted against the No Child Left Behind Act in 2001 and led a revolt against the Medicare prescription drug entitlement in 2003 because both vastly expanded the federal government. Pence said he hoped a similar situation would be averted on Social Security. He said that's one reason he wants Bush to take his case to the American people.
"I have learned to never underestimate the persuasive abilities of President George W. Bush," Pence said. "This President, with a bill under his arm, is almost an irresistible force."
But until that happens, Pence said, the White House will continue to face a skeptical public. He said Americans understand the problem, yet they haven't been offered a solution.
"I've lost count of the number of times that I've been confronted at town-hall meetings by Americans who tell me about 'the bill,'" Pence said, recounting a typical conversation. "You know, 'What's in the bill?' What bill? I'm cosponsoring Ryan-Sununu, would you like to talk about that bill? 'No, no, the other bill, the President's bill.' The President doesn't have a bill. It goes on. It's like Abbott and Costello, 'Who's on First?'"
Welcome to FreeRepublic.
This entire issue needs to be dropped ASAP. It is killing the presidents ratings and giving the RINOs the feeling that they can vote down whatever bill the White House wants because he isn't popular anymore.
This is hurting us in so many ways from Bolton to the filibuster fight.
Not only that, it is only by carving out a portion of the payroll tax that is already being withheld that lower and middle income earners/taxpayers will be able to benefit from a reform. The people that would benefit most are typically not in a financial position to take advantage of an "add-on" program.
They dont understand that politics is the art of compromise,
..."artifice" is closer to the truth.
Everyone knows that SS is a Ponzi/pyramid scheme - that the principal collected over all these years has been paid out to beneficiaries or the trust fund raided by Congress. I can't see how it will make things easier to divert money that was going to be paid in to support the boomers into individual retirement accounts for the current payors.
They keep telling us that there won't be enough payors to support the boomers. How will this help?
You positively REEK of troll.
I don't understand this, Galveston County opted out of the Social Security System for its own and is far better than SS.
I thought about taking me a sign:
"A President's Duty is to Protect its Citizens! Secure our Border Mr. President!"
Mike Pence MUST be our nominee in 2008! Let's make it happen!
"Rep. Mike Pence (R.-Ind.) warned Tuesday that House conservatives are growing increasingly frustrated by the lack of a concrete proposal from President Bush to reform Social Security with personal retirement accounts."
Does it appear that Rep. Mike Pence (R.-Ind.) is outing himself as something other than a conservative? Isn't that called a RINO?
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