Rep. Shelley Moore Capito's (R) message for (pro-Social Security) West Virginians about her Social Security townhall meetings next week: "I will describe the problem, but I'm not going to be advocating for any particular solution. If I go to all these town meetings and it's a stampede against reform, I'll have to factor that into my thinking."
--Josh Marshall
Bamboozlepalooza flops in North Carolina too.
According to a fresh News & Observer poll, 46% of Tarheels "disapprove" or "strongly disapprove" of the president's position on Social Security, while a mere 31% either "approves" or "strongly approves."
(ed.note: The article notes that the poll oversampled women -- 60% of poll respondents but only 51% of the population. The poll also found, separate from the over-sampling, that women were markedly more skeptical of the Bush plan than men. 40% of male North Carolinians approved of the president's stance while 38% opposed. For women the numbers were flipped, 26% to 50%. A special note of thanks to valued TPM Reader DS for letting us know.)
--Josh Marshall
CBS News' Dotty Lynch looks at the probable 'Gannon'/Karl Rove connection.
--Josh Marshall
With the developments of the last two days, we had to add a new classification to the Fainthearted Faction: "WMD".
"WMD", say the newly updated Faction bylaws, "denotes members who say they want to protect Social Security but really just 'Wanna Make a Deal'."
--Josh Marshall
Stop the presses!
Call Richard Blumenthal!
Lieberman back in the Faction in a big, big way.
From this afternoon's Congress Daily ...
Lieberman 'Listening And Learning' About Private AccountsSen. Joseph Lieberman, D-Conn., is undecided about the concept of using payroll taxes to fund private Social Security accounts, bringing to three the known number of Senate Democrats who have yet to publicly rule out the idea. President Bush has made the accounts the centerpiece of his domestic agenda. But other than Rep. Allen Boyd of Florida, no congressional Democrats have formally signed on. While Lieberman has concerns about the idea, he is continuing to study it while hoping for more details on Social Security from the president, a Lieberman aide said today. "He's still in a listening and learning stage and is keeping an open mind, but he does have concerns about private accounts as carve-outs that would potentially undermine the guaranteed minimum benefit and worsen our fiscal health and debt load," a Lieberman aide said today.
It seems like only 2002 when Joe was saying ...
We understand Social Security's economic value and appreciate its moral value, and that we won't let it be diluted, dismantled or dissolved ... Simply put, Social Security privatization would take away the safety from the safety net, and turn the idea of a rainy day fund into a sink or swim proposition. If you don't choose wisely, you lose badly. And the government's response to bad luck would be to say, "tough luck."
That's what's so complicated about the whole moral values thing, at least as some folks practice <$Ad$> it. You can appreciate the moral value of something, but still want to learn more about phasing it out.
Maybe we can hear from all the Connecticut Dems who want their Senator to throw a vital lifeline to the forces of phase-out just as they're sinking in the waves.
Now, is this a flip-flop? Or is this where Lieberman's been throughout? I spoke to a Lieberman aide this afternoon and this person told me that "the senator hasn't changed his position, that he has serious concerns about private savings accounts that would jeopardize Social Security. But he remains open-minded about reforms that would strengthen the program."
That may be true. The truth is that Lieberman's statements over the last two months have been enough in the grey area that that may be right. But to me, at least, the issue isn't whether he's changed his position, it's what his position is right now.
Lieberman fans -- a group in which I have sometimes classed myself -- might tell you that Joe's just dancing now. And at the end of the day, he'll do the right thing, though to me that seems in doubt. But even if it's true, quite frankly, it doesn't matter. The damage he is doing, perhaps irreparable, is now.
Here's why.
As we've said from the start, the key to saving Social Security is Democratic unity. Look at those folks on the Conscience Caucus list. With a very few exceptions they are only there because there's no Democratic cover to make the vote. That's created time for the public to look and see what the president is trying to do. And the more they look, the more they turn against his plan. Throw in a few Democrats supporting phase-out and all but a handful of them will firm up and vote with the White House. Let's say every Dem for phase-out frees up three Republicans.
At the moment, too, the trend of the Social Security story is all running against the president. He can't get the seats filled in New Hampshire, the polls are bad, the Republicans in Congress are increasingly worried, scurrying for cover.
Give him Lieberman and suddenly the President is making headway in the Senate where the key vote will be made. A high-profile Democrat, like Lieberman, for phase-out would probably nail down three or four Senate Republicans for the president. In similar fashion, it would put an equal number of Senate Democrats back in play. One or two of those Dems sign on and you'll see them bring more with them. With a shift like that, suddenly phase-out is back in business and quite possibly even filibuster proof.
On the House side, with a Senate pal for Rep. Allen Boyd, you'd likely see a similar change.
Even if Lieberman eventually decides to keep his hands clean when phase-out comes to a vote, it might not matter since his individual vote probably wouldn't be needed. The damage would already be done.
--Josh Marshall
A Senator re-enters the Fainthearted Faction ... And it ain't pretty. News to follow.
--Josh Marshall
A quick and simple question some enterprising New Hampshire political reporter might put to Rep. Jeb Bradley (R).
The congressman says he flatly opposes 'privatization'. But the fine print now says that by 'privatization' he means a plan in which the "system is wholly administered through a private entity or corporation as opposed to public administration of the system that occurs today."
So the queston: Can Bradley point to any individual or institution that has proposed this policy? If not, is there any reason he has continued to prominently make this promise other than to fool his constituents into believing he opposes private accounts?
Yesterday, several New Hampshire newspapers ran stories reporting that Bradley opposed 'private accounts'. Presumably, that is because he managed to pull the wool over their eyes with his wordgame flimflam.
--Josh Marshall
I'm ashamed! Ashamed, I tell you!
(Actually, just between you and me, I'm a bit ashamed.)
Just yesterday, we added Rep. Jeb Bradley (R) of New Hampshire to the Conscience Caucus even though the line that got him in was merely a claim to oppose "privatization."
How that got past me is a really good question. As we noted yesterday evening, no less a man than the President of the United States seemed to put Bradley in the Caucus. Every paper in New Hampshire from the Union Leader to the Concord Monitor to Foster's Daily Democrat fronted with Bradley's opposition to the president. We even rung up Bradley's spokesperson Stephanie DuBois and asked if his opposition to 'privatization' meant opposition to private accounts.
DuBois told me she'd have to discuss that with the congressman directly and that she'd try to get back to us, though we didn't hear back from her.
With so many red flags, you'd think we wouldn't have fallen for this one like a cub reporter the first day on the job.
But it seems that sometime after we talked to her, DuBois did find out and she gave the word to the Union Leader. And Bradley turns out to be anothe mumbojumbo man cut from the same cloth as Rep. Heather Wilson.
According to this morning's Union Leader ...
Bradley spokesman Stephanie DuBois yesterday said he continues to oppose privatization of Social Security, which he has defined as turning over administration of the system to the private sector. But he would consider personal accounts, which President Bush has been calling for, DuBois said.
In a new written statement, he says ...
Privatization of Social Security means the system is wholly administered through a private entity or corporation as opposed to public administration of the system that occurs today. We need to proceed in a deliberative manner that looks at the different options, which may include personal retirement accounts, that can enable our nation to address the looming problems facing Social Security.
So like so many other playbook gamers, when Bradley says he opposes 'privatization' he is using the word to refer to something that no one has ever proposed, making his statement not only meaningless but nothing more than a transparent attempt to bamboozle his constituents.
Needless to say, Bradley's short stay in the Caucus just came to an abrupt halt.
--Josh Marshall
Trouble in Phase-Out City, reports the LA Times: "President Bush's push to transform Social Security is in trouble, despite intense salesmanship designed to build support in Congress and with the public."
Kevin Drum has some apt comments on what it means.
--Josh Marshall
Et Tu, Kent?
I don't want to worry you needlessly, fellow sleuths. But some senators may be smiling at your Social-Security-loving faces while plotting phase-out behind your backs.
Upsetting, I know. But be strong.
As you know, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R) of South Carolina has been running a bipartisan phase-out book club up on the hill. And my sources tell me that the participants are ...
Baucus (D)
Carper (D)
Collins (R)
Conrad (D)
Feinstein (D)
Graham (R)
Grassley (R)
Gregg (R)
Lieberman (D)
Lincoln (D)
Ben Nelson (D)
Bill Nelson (D)
As you can see, quite a few current and former members of the Faction grace the list. But what's always been odd about this group is that Graham has made clear that phase-out is what's on the table, albeit perhaps a more honestly-budgeted and less draconian form of it.
And yet by my count, at least five of the Dems on that list are on record against phase-out, the key point being private accounts carved-out from Social Security.
And this invites an obvious question: Just what do they have to talk about?
I'll admit that I like sitting around in a circle and shooting the breeze about the latest Social Security primer as much as the next guy. Perhaps they're even singing a little Kumbaya just to loosen things up. But if everyone's being on the level, there shouldn't be any point of compromise possible.
And yet today we hear this from Bloomberg News ...
Graham, who leads a group of Democrats and Republicans discussing Social Security and is working with the White House, said he would present a plan within the next couple of weeks that provides the outline for a compromise with Democrats.
Now, given the tone of things, it would look awfully foolish to come out with a plan that purports to be an outline for a compromise with Democrats if you didn't have even one Democrat on board. And Graham is no fool. In fact, Social Security aside as well as many other political disagreements, he's a solid senator with independence and integrity, as near as we can tell.
So who's getting ready to sign on?
Who on that list isn't being on the level?
We've even got a new designation ready for any of them who said they were out of the Faction and then did the deed: "SIB" ("Stab in the Back").
We're pretty sure Sen. Bill Nelson (D) of Florida wouldn't sign on to anything so villainous, if for no other reason than that he appears to have made a strategic decision to campaign for reelection next year on the basis of opposing phase-out.
About Baucus and Feinstein we think there's some reason to think they're on the level too -- though it's nothing we'd put money on.
But of the others, who knows?
--Josh Marshall
Can't get no respect?
First the New Hampshire fiasco; now <$NoAd$>this!
Just a couple days ago, President Bush gave the luxe treatment to the Quad City (Iowa) Times' veteran political reporter Ed Tibbetts to talk about Social Security phase-out.
The next thing you know, they're whacking him on their editorial page.
The Times sent veteran political reporter Ed Tibbetts to Washington for a special White House briefing with President Bush specifically to share insight with readers about this important debate. Among the most critical questions: What is the president willing to accept in terms of raising the retirement age, curtailing benefits, increasing payroll deductions or extending the taxation to higher incomes?On almost all, our president declined to share his thoughts. “The more I preclude ideas, it’s less likely something might come forth. This is going to have to be written by the Congress along with our input,” the president said.
...
We know from experience our President’s administration has a tough time processing information. Recall that cost estimates of the Medicare drug benefit weren’t even in reality’s ballpark. The Bush administration’s newest estimates are more than double what they swore to 20 months ago when pitching the plan to Congress.
And the president and staff missed wildly on weapons of mass destruction. Regardless of the war’s present outcome, Congress authorized a search and destroy mission for weapons, not the liberation of a country. That misinterpretation cost 1,462 American lives so far and affected millions more whose families have been directly touched by war.
Social Security affects many, many more — less violently for sure. But for the millions who will be absolutely reliant on that retirement or disability income, Social Security can be a life or death matter.
If the system indeed is in crisis, we can’t afford to guesstimate our way out of it.
Oops.
--Josh Marshall
Ahhh, truer words, truer words ...
The delightful Jill Zuckman from the Chicago Tribune ...
President Bush declared Thursday that his overhaul of Social Security "is going nowhere" if Congress does not come to share his belief in the urgent need for change. He acknowledged that he still has much work to do in convincing both lawmakers and the public of the merits of his proposal.
I think we've found something we can agree on.
--Josh Marshall
You've got to be awfully fainthearted to get into the Fainthearted Faction when you're not even in Congress.
But some men are up to the challenge.
Gov. Ed Rendell (D) of Pennsylvania, for instance, was an early entrant to the Fainthearted Faction. That was way back on January 1st after an extremely fainthearted appearance on Hardball on the 29th.
(Andrea Mitchell was the guest host that night. So there may have been some Greenspanian mojo in the air that contributed to the governor's bout of faintheartedness.)
But on the basis of this still vaguely fainthearted talk at the University of Pennsylvania and his appearance on Monday night's Hardball we've decided to strike his name from the Faction roll.
--Josh Marshall
The 'Jeff Gannon'/John Thune connection? No, I'm not trading in euphemisms or innuendo. I mean political ties, and getting to the bottom of just who was working for who. Check this out. We'll add more later. See this too.
In addition to having a couple of 'bloggers' on the payroll this year, Thune went in for some similar shenanigans in 2002.
--Josh Marshall
So it seems the president's New Hampshire Bamboozlepalooza stop didn't pan out so well.
A piece in Tuesday's Union Leader announced that there were still plenty of tickets available for the president's event. In the event, however, only about half of the 2,000 free tickets got snatched up. Before the president hit the stage, White House aides had to scurry around collecting empty seats to avoid images of the president speaking to a half-empty room. With such low demand they may even have considered letting in folks who wouldn't sign a loyalty oath or didn't have relatives employed at Cato. But the reports provide no details on that count.
As the rather-less-than-liberal Boston Herald headlined it: "Bush strikes out in N.H. on Social Security."
Also a bit of a bummer is that Rep. Jeb Bradley (R) chose yesterday to restate his apparent opposition to Bush's phase out plan.
Bradley has been bouncing around the edges of the Conscience Caucus for some time. And, as we alluded to yesterday, we almost had to come up with an entirely new category for him after the president himself appeared to put Bradley in the Caucus by something like an impromptu executive order.
The president's visit was to Bradley's district and as an AP story from yesterday had it ...
Though Bush heaped praise on scores of local politicians, from the state's two Republican senators on down, he did not mention Bradley."You don't have to worry about your senators. They're people who understand we have got to address the problem," he said, conspicuously omitting Bradley.
As this and other passages in the article make clear, the president sure seems to think Bradley's in the Caucus. Indeed, a bunch of New Hampshire political observers seemed to think that was the reason he was there.
We were about ready to put Bradley in the Caucus, just on the president's say-so. Then later in the day he issued a statement saying: "In 2002, I opposed privatization, and I remain opposed to privatization."
Now, as we've noted many times, lots of phase-out supporters say they're opposed to privatization but mean by that they still support private accounts (sort of a big middle finger flipped to the English language.) Yet, all the New Hampshire papers had little doubt that Bradley was opposing the president. Since they headlined the story I think they were probably sure that his statement was what it appeared to be on the surface.
Just to be sure, I put a call in to the congressman's office today. When I asked whether his opposition to 'privatization' meant he was opposed to carved-out private accounts, the staffer I spoke to said she would check and get back to me. I haven't heard back yet. But I didn't get the impression there was any Heather-Wilson-like ducking and weaving going on, just an effort to check with the boss before answering a relatively technical question.
In any case, until we hear otherwise, on the president's say-so and taking his own words at face value, Rep. Jeb Bradley (R) of New Hampshire becomes the 21st member of the House Conscience Caucus. And subject to what we hear back from his office, he may even be Loud and Proud.
--Josh Marshall
I sometimes wonder -- genuinely wonder -- how often some folks on the rightward side of the privatization debate simply repeat claims they know to be false or whether they simply shovel them up from the noise machine and dish them back out without making any attempt to find out whether what they're repeating is true or not.
A few moments ago, a TPM Reader sent me a link to this post on the site of Roger L. Simon.
He says many things in it on the Social Security debate which one may agree or disagree with. But what pops out to me is his flat claim that both Sen. Harry Reid and President Bill Clinton supported private Social Security accounts in the late 1990s. The point being that the two men are transparently hypocritical since they now attack President Bush for supporting what they endorsed less than a decade ago.
This is simply false, presumably because Simon simply isn't familiar with the subject. It's not an issue up for debate or a question of interpretation. It's simply a matter of the difference between what did happen and what did not happen.
There's no particular reason to pick on Simon. This stuff is ubiquitous. One might just as easily have chosen from a thousand other examples -- not a few of them on cable networks and other places that are supposed to have checks in place to prevent egregious error and misstatement of fact.
What Bill Clinton proposed was that rather than having the Social Security Trust Fund invest all its assets in Treasury bonds that it invest a relatively small portion of those assets in private securities. Again, no point of interpretation here: that's not private accounts, period. The president also proposed so-called USA Accounts, a universal 401k available to all Americans, but not part of Social Security. Again, completely different from what the president is proposing.
I am close to certain that this is exactly what Sen. Reid endorsed or proposed as well. My only reason for the slight qualification is that I cannot say that I am familiar with every quotation or press release that the senator put out in the 90s, though the ones I've seen purporting to show his support for private accounts are just what I described above in the case of Clinton. I can't say it in his case, but I can say it in Clinton's.
The pattern here is pretty much just the same with the intentional misconstrual or distortion of the quote from FDR which purports to show him supporting a transition to private accounts. Kevin Drum has a good run-down on that one here.
In both cases, the misinformation or lies continue to cycle through the echo chamber, apparently with no penalty for their falsehood or attempt to correct.
I'm not sure what there is to say about this really other than to observe the relative half-life of misinformation on the right today. But it seems worth noting it for the record.
Late Update: The specific target of this post, Roger Simon, quickly updated his post, correcting the error. So good for him. Nobody can keep up with every angle of every topic without sometimes hitting a false note. So correction is the key. The general point stands, however, since such timely, good faith correction is not the norm. Has Brit Hume corrected his whopper yet? Even though his tendentious error has now been pointed out probably as many times as his fellow chirpers have repeated it? Didn't think so.
--Josh Marshall
Aha! No doubt the first of many online actuarial calculators that will let you see how big your Social Security benefit cuts will be under the first stage of the Bush phase-out plan. This one from Sen. Schumer of New York.
--Josh Marshall
Frank Rich, perceptive and amusing, on what the surreal 'Jeff Gannon' saga all amounts to.
Has anyone registered potemkinrepublicanism.com yet?
And one more stab at this: I won't deny a certain discomfort at the vaguely lord-of-the-fliesian nature of the exposure of all this man's lurid ridiculousness. But if it turned out that any other president -- doesn't even have to be Clinton -- had a ringer 'reporter' stationed in the press pool to serve up soft-serve questions, and the same folks had already been caught paying off or buying or otherwise subborning other 'journalists' several times in recent months, AND evidence mounted that the ringer 'reporter' turned out to be a ringer 'reporter'/GI Joe-style male prostitute with what Sid Blumenthal rightly calls "enormous potential for blackmail", don't we figure that this would have ginned up a bit more big time press razzle-dazzle and gasps and awwws by now?
--Josh Marshall
Coming Thursday: the strange case of Rep. Jeb Bradley's application for membership in the Conscience Caucus and Gov. Ed Rendell's apparent departure from the Fainthearted Faction.
--Josh Marshall
Some very bad news for Sen. Lincoln Chafee (R) of Rhode Island ...
An independent poll - specifically, the Brown University poll -- shows potential challenger, Rep. Jim Langevin (D) beating Chafee 41% to 27%.
What catches my attention is that the sample size is small -- 384 voters. And, of course, you're almost two years from an actual vote.
Still, by definition, an incumbent senator who can't crack 30% is deep, deep in it.
Says the poll's director, Brown Professor Darrell West: "Langevin did very well because he has very few negatives and Lincoln Chafee's negatives are starting to rise. Chafee has alienated part of his Republican base but not yet won over Democrats so he's trapped between the left and the right."
(Obscure TPM Trivia: I once tried to install a modem in Professor West's home computer -- if memory serves, unsuccessfully. Long story -- one of my angles to use individual initiative to overcome graduate student poverty back in the day.)
If anything, I would think such bad numbers would push Chafee toward some conspicuous bucking of his party and president - presumably on Social Security.
But, honestly, with numbers so poor, it's hard to say. I think West has it right: he's trapped.
Is the Jeffords option the only answer?
--Josh Marshall
The new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll shows some good news for the president on Iraq and very bad news on Social Security.
The Social Security numbers appear to be in line with other recent soundings on the key points: Opponents of the president's plan clearly, though not overwhelmingly, outnumber supporters (51% to 40%). And opponents are far more fixed in their opposition than supporters are fixed in their support (60% of opponents are "completely firm", only 31% of supporters.)
A difference slice of that last question suggests the unfirm ground on which the president's supporters are standing. Fully 68% of private accounts supporters are "open to changing [their] mind.
The 51% to 40% reading above is for the question: "do you think that it is a good idea or a bad idea to change the Social Security system to allow workers to invest their Social Security contributions in the stock market?"
Further down into the poll (here's the full data) they ask the question in a slightly different fashion and this one gives a clearer sense of the downward trend of support over the last two months.
The question asks ...
Please tell me which of the following approaches to dealing with Social Security you would prefer––(A)making some adjustments but leaving the Social Security system basically as is and running the risk that the system will fall short of money as more people retire and become eligible for benefits, OR (B) changing the Social Security system by allowing people to invest some of their Social Security taxes in private accounts--like IRA's or 401k's--and running the risk that some people will lose money in their private accounts due to drops in the stock market?
Back in December the numbers were 45% to 39% in favor of private accounts; in January, it was close to tied, 46% to 44% in favor of private accounts. In this new poll, private accounts have dropped to 40% support while 50% favor the "basically as is" option.
Those numbers yield only one credible interpretation: the more the president talks about privatization the less popular it gets. One might more generously say that the longer the debate goes on, the less popular it gets. But politically speaking, same difference.
One other point.
The question is not included in the initial table of results (it says additional data will be published tomorrow). But the article (sub. required) on the front page of the Journal has this paragraph ...
Moreover, the poll shows that the values and priorities the public brings to the debate make it an uphill fight for the president. By 61%-32%, Americans say Congress should emphasize "guarantees for the future" rather than "more responsibility and personal control" in addressing Social Security. As outlined by White House aides, Mr. Bush's plan calls for workers to accept reductions in promised benefits in return for the establishment of private accounts that they could control.
Clearly, that's not good news for the president.
But it's more than that. It's not too much to say that conventional wisdom in Washington and in elite journalistic circles generally (not to mention right-wing-radio-jabberdom) would suggest that those numbers should be reversed. The private accounts model is not only held to be more 'modern'; the assumption is that Americans are increasingly disposed to prefer greater risk in exchange for greater individual control and the possibility of gain.
Now, opinions about Social Security are perhaps not the best ones on which to test these broader cultural questions since (as we've been arguing here for some time) Social Security is supposed to be extremely risk-averse. That's the whole point: it's the part of the retirement security pie in which there is supposed to be a flat guarantee, as opposed to employer pensions and private savings, in which there are greater levels of risk and the opportunity for greater gain.
Still, those numbers should prompt some real questioning on the part of many commentators about whether the cultural and ideological road map they're working from really describes American society today.
--Josh Marshall
Kerry to speak out tomorrow on electoral reform at 12:45 with Sens. Boxer and Clinton and Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones.
See the details here.
--Josh Marshall
Just out from the The Hill:
"Sen. Harry Reid (Nev.) and Rep. Nancy Pelosi (Calif.), the Democratic leaders of the Senate and House, plan to shake up the Democratic political consulting community and break the grip that a small number of consultants have had on strategy and contracts, party sources say. The Democratic leaders want to bring in new people with track records of success and innovation and look beyond the Beltway for message smiths to help guide the party."
Click here to read the whole thing.
--Josh Marshall
Must Read: The Century Foundation's Greg Anrig on Alan Greenspan's troubling, double-dealing record on Social Security.
Sorry, there's no other word for it.
--Josh Marshall
Good for Howard Dean.
Good for Gov. Pataki.
Good for Howard Wolfson.
And very, very bad for the lizardly Republican New York state party chair Stephen Minarik.
Took a look, you'll see what I mean.
--Josh Marshall
The distinguished gentleman from Orange County speaks for me in this matter.
--Josh Marshall
Phase-out by any other name is still phase-out: President Bush says he's open to a tax hike for upper-income earners (i.e., raising the payroll wage cap) to make Social Security phase-out possible. It's just more of the same effort, which we described yesterday, to woo the Conscience Caucus and the Fainthearted Faction.
--Josh Marshall
President Bush orders Rep. Bradley (R) of New Hampshire into the Conscience Caucus? More to follow ...
--Josh Marshall
The Night of the Long Gavels continues!
A couple weeks back we brought you the news of the recent purge of non-DeLay-lieutenants from the House Ethics Committee and their replacement with a slate of pliant toadies.
Now, according to this story in CQ Today, new Chairman Doc Hastings' first order of business was to fire two top members of the committee's professional staff --- Staff Director and Chief Counsel John Vargo as well as spokesman and counsel Paul Lewis.
Pioneering new ground in understatement, Hastings (R) of Washington told the remaining committee staff he is “headed in another direction.” And apparently there may be more firings to follow.
In the spirit of the moment, might we suggest that there may be some out-of-work former DeLay aides back in Texas who are available for the new jobs?
--Josh Marshall
Rep. Steny Hoyer (D) of Maryland trying to move in on TPM's turf?!?!
In today's edition of The Hill, Hans Nichols reports that Hoyer says he's counted 29 House Republicans who oppose "all or major parts of President Bush’s plan."
Of course, the House Conscience Caucus currently includes only 20 members, nine shy of Hoyer's magic 29. But then we've been tightening the requirements.
So we'll be checking into this ...
--Josh Marshall
President Bush is trying to sell America on a plan that will cost several trillion dollars (the lower estimates are for ten years, before the big bills come due), cut future benefits by as much as 46% for today's children and pull more money out of Social Security.
There is great public interest and notice. Many people are worried, in most cases with good reason. And yet the president says again and again that he won't say just what he wants to do to Social Security.
When a reporter asked him about this at the conversation in the White House yesterday, he said this ...
"The tendency in Washington is, ‘OK, Mr. President, you play your cards now and we’ll decide if we’re going to play ours. I’m not going to do that. I’m keeping them close to the vest."
Shouldn't there be some pressure on this guy to just come clean? To say what he wants to do?
Sure, yes, there's legislative politicking and making the first move and all that. But this goes a bit beyond that. The president is pushing this. This is all about him. Absent initiative from him, replacing Social Security with private accounts wouldn't even be on the agenda. Though the policy has some ardent Republican supporters, the impetus all comes from him.
When you brush away all the legislative gobbledygook and beltway jockeying, you have a president who wants to put what is probably the most popular government program in American history under the knife and he won't even say what he wants to do to it.
Shouldn't his critics just be saying over and over: level with the public? Tell them what you want to do to Social Security.
--Josh Marshall
At the moment, for all to see, the president doesn't have the numbers in Congress to move any phase-out bill. He's got only one Democrat clearly on his side -- the poltroonish Allen Boyd -- and at least a couple dozen Republicans who aren't ready to phase out Social Security.
So Tuesday he tried <$Ad$> another approach: going directly to local press in critical districts and states around the country, trying to sell phase-out. The president sat down for an hour long group interview in the Oval Office with reporters from regional papers, each from areas with high concentrations of retirees. They included the Tennessean (Nashville), the Orange County Register, the South Florida Sun-Sentinel (Fort Lauderdale), the Birmingham News (Alabama) and the New Haven Register.
(Note that the president is having real problems with Republicans in Tennessee and Alabama.
Another target was Iowa. When asked about benefit cuts, according to the Times reporter from the Quad City Times, President Bush "appeared to suggest ... that the scheduled rate of increase in Social Security benefits is not in step with reality."
This is the coming tactic, which has already been the focus of a lot of press push-back, to simply say that the current scheduled benefit rates are impossible or can't really happen. Thus reducing benefits from those which can't really happen doesn't count as 'cuts'.
Here's how the Quad City Times reporter described that exchange in his follow-up report ...
“Benefit cuts is an interesting word,” Bush said. “Benefits are scheduled to grow at a certain rate, and one of the, one of the suggestions, for example ... was they grow at a, they grow, but not at a rate as fast as projected. You can call it anything you want. I would call it an adjustment to reality,” he said.The president stressed, though, that he was not expressing a preference for what a Social Security package might include.
“This is one of the many suggestions that people have made,” he said. “I don’t want you to walk away thinking that I am picking one part of the solution mix or not. I’m not.”
Another reporter in the session, William Gibson of the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, had this take on what the president said ...
Bush said the current system cannot be sustained, and he implied that benefits in the traditional program will have to be scaled back for those born after 1950."One of the suggestions, for example, is that they grow but not at a rate as fast as projected," he said. "You can call it anything you want. I would call it an adjustment to reality."
So, big benefit cuts if you're born after 1950 under the president's "adjustment to reality."
One of the big questions about the president's 'over 55 and you're safe' promise is how he can guarantee that when many of those people will be alive thirty or even forty years from now and he wants to pull lots of money out of the system.
Here was his stab at that: "I don't know how you guarantee (benefits for) somebody 30 years from now, but I mean, that is obviously a promise that can be kept and must be kept. When it's all said and done, we'll have to show people how the Social Security system is solvent. Once we can show solvency as a result of a permanent fix, I think people will be more comfortable that the promise will be kept."
Some reporters of course were a bit more fawning than others. The reporter from the Orange County Register, for instance, seemed rather easier to impress. "His brows narrowed and his tone was resolute," writes Dena Bunis, "when he talked about his determination to get this issue resolved during his presidency."
Each of these pieces were distributed widely over the wires.
More to follow ...
--Josh Marshall
As Drudge says tonight, those three CBS execs whose resignations were requested -- they were never received. And why should they tender them? When you're hung out to dry, why go easily if the people hanging you out have dirty hangs too?
Were the highest level people at CBS really not deeply involved in the digging in of heels phase of that whole fiasco? Even after it was clear that the network's reputation was on the line? They didn't get involved? Hard to figure.
--Josh Marshall
I don't know enough yet about the probable suspects behind the Hariri assassination in Lebanon or the precise geopolitical situation that surrounded it. Nor have I had a chance yet to talk to the people whose judgment I trust about this. And given where the pieces were on the chessboard, Damascus or friends of Damascus are certainly under a cloud of suspicion. But it is more than a little unfortunate that I at least find it hard to take at face value anything this administration says about the probable perpetrators. And again, I say that not with any particular knowledge of this situation, but simply on the basis of the track record and the region of the world.
--Josh Marshall
Who will run against this meddlesome congressman?
The St. Petersburg Times profiles the Dean of the Fainthearted Faction, Rep. Allen Boyd (D) of Florida.
--Josh Marshall
I usually think of the Boston Globe as a white hat paper. But certainly not here. They appear to have published one of that unfortunate class of columns in which a non-Jewish scribe tosses around the charge of anti-Semitism as though it were no more than one more ideological brickbat or cudgel to be used -- seemingly absent any real knowledge of the issues being discussed -- in the never-ending pundit street fight. Here Eric Alterman discusses his futile attempts to get the Globe to allow him to respond on the merits to a foolish and shameful column they published which accused him of being an anti-Semite.
--Josh Marshall
Another local Democratic party resolution in opposition to the president's Social Security phase-out plan.
--Josh Marshall
With any luck, or if I can resist <$NoAd$> the temptation, the blogging will be a little lighter today. I think I've finally gotten a handle on a book review I've been working on fitfully for a couple months and now more intensively over the last few weeks. So I'm going to be getting into the writing of that. And I'm going to do a radio segment this afternoon. But mainly, I'm not too modest to say that today 
is my 36th birthday and I'm going to take some time to enjoy it. First, with one of the long leisurely walks with my dog, Simon, which seem to be one of his prime joys in life. And now mine too, I guess. That and a good cigar I've saved for the day, which a long walk affords an opportunity to enjoy.
A few other matters of customary business.
With all the site's readers contacting their senators and reps and being so aggressively civic, I am chagrined to say that until a few days ago I hadn't gotten around to figuring out who represents me. Living in DC for half a decade you get used to having no representatives at all. And I've only lived here for eight weeks or so. Still, I didn't know.
It turns out that it's Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D) who represents the 8th District of New York. I don't figure him for much of a phase-out man. So I doubt we'll be fielding many letters on his position on Social Security. But there it is.
As for Heather Wilson (R) of New Mexico, it was a tough call whether 
she makes her way into the Caucus. So I got in touch yesterday with the outside judge who sometimes helps me with the really difficult calls. His feeling was that she doesn't belong in since he figures she's been cagey about her position for so many years because she really does support phasing out Social Security. She's just wary of saying it, fearing the political backlash.
I noted though that in running the Caucus we've had to flesh out a quite detailed and fine-grained taxonomy of weaseltude. And the FIW ("Finger in the Wind") category is designed specifically for her form of weaseling -- the fancy footwork of reps like Rep. Wilson who are signaling resistance but will go whichever way the wind blows or expediency or patronage dictates in the final analysis.
With that in mind and on the basis of the 'Coleman Surmise' (see the excerpted paragraph in this post from yesterday that begins 'Ok') we're slotting her in, though only barely and with a close watch on subsequent weaseling.
We've also got some interesting information coming about ambassadorships in East Asia, an old interest of mine. So all that soon.
--Josh Marshall
House Conscience Caucus Dean Emerson refuses to logroll away her opposition to privatization. "She said her constituents have strongly voiced their opposition to privatizing the system," reports The Hill.
--Josh Marshall
Next stop on the Bamboozlepalooza Tour: New Hamphsire, where the Union Leader reports that 32% support private accounts and 54% oppose them.
--Josh Marshall
The Times-Picayune on the McCrery Waffle ...
McCrery has change of heartRep. Jim McCrery, R-Shreveport, who had been publicly skeptical of President Bush's approach to overhauling Social Security, pronounced himself sold last week after a White House meeting. "Frankly, I had not thought of the policy rationale they described yesterday," McCrery said Wednesday after huddling with Allan Hubbard, director of the White House National Economic Council. The comments were something of a turnabout for McCrery and evidence of the administration's interest in lassoing strays from the Republican herd. McCrery joins the president in supporting the idea of private accounts, but he has been publicly wary of the chances of Bush's plan to allow Americans to create them by diverting their payroll taxes. McCrery has said he leans toward another approach for financing the accounts, such as through tax overhaul or more government borrowing. Ten days ago, he warned that the president's plan would give naysayers, such as AARP and most Democrats, a powerful line of attack because it takes resources from the Social Security trust fund. Now it appears McCrery is on board. "I'm convinced the president's approach is worth pursuing in the legislative process," he said after the White House meeting.
Flippity <$NoAd$>floppity.
--Josh Marshall
Is Sen. Landrieu looking to make up for faintheartedness on Social Security with budget moxie?
Check out the new front page of the website ...
Also, we're close to completing our review of Rep. Wilson's application to join the Conscience Caucus. We'll be reporting the decision shortly.
--Josh Marshall
Rep. Heather Wilson (R) of New Mexico <$Ad$>can run. But maybe she can't hide.
You've noticed that we here at TPM have been trying to get to the bottom of her Social Security word games. And just last night we expressed our surprise that no reporters had followed up with her to get to the bottom of her verbal gymnastics about whether she's supporting the president or not.
But it turns out I spoke too soon.
The article isn't in Nexis yet. And the website is subscriber only. So as yet it's hard to know it's out there unless you're a subscriber. But a story did run in the Albuquerque Journal yesterday. And reporter Michael Coleman honed the questions down to good effect.
Here's the key passage from Coleman's sleuthing ...
Rep. Heather Wilson, a Republican congresswoman who represents a swing district where Democrats slightly outnumber Republicans, parted ways with her fellow Republicans on the issue. "I don't believe the government should invest Social Security taxes in the stock market," Wilson told me during an interview for a story that ran last Sunday.What I should have asked her then was: "Do you oppose allowing individuals to invest part of their share of Social Security in private accounts?"
On Wednesday, Wilson gave me another chance to ask that follow-up question. But she repeatedly declined to answer it. Then she denied playing semantics with the issue.
"I don't play word games and I don't deal with hypothetical situations," Wilson told me. "I try to do things to benefit my constituents."
OK. But, it's curious that Wilson wouldn't answer my follow-up question. Despite her dodge, I'm convinced that Wilson truly does have a deep skepticism about opening Social Security to the volatility of the markets. That's not to say she will definitely vote against some proposal to do so, but I think such a vote would come with a fair amount of personal, or at least political, anguish.
Anguish, indeed.
Later on down in Coleman's piece there's this ...
She said the president's proposal would move the system from a system of defined benefits to a system based on defined contributions."And I'm not convinced that's the right way to go," Wilson said.
Wilson seems to be saying she opposes putting Social Security in private accounts— period. She certainly didn't dispute my characterization of her position that way last Sunday. But she's also a politician, and politicians, when possible, like to keep their options open.
So much need to read tea leaves with Rep. Wilson!
Coleman clearly believes that Wilson is in the Conscience Caucus. But the evidence is awfully ambiguous. We're going to review Wilson's application for membership, perhaps even getting a second opinion from our Caucus/Faction outside judge. (Sort of like the ump behind the plate occasionally calls out to first for the call on whether the batter went around -- only the final decision is always with the TPM judge.) But Rep. Wilson, the keys to the Caucus await you! Just say the word!
--Josh Marshall
I must say I'm a little surprised the AP hasn't followed up on their story claiming that Rep. Heather Wilson (R) of New Mexico is opposed to President Bush's Social Security plan. Wilson is a classic Social Security Switch-hitter. And given what we found out last week, it seems pretty clear that Wilson managed to bamboozle the AP into putting her down as opposing the president when it actually seems she's supporting him.
As we noted last week, Wilson's angle is to say she doesn't support having the government invest Social Security money in the stock market. But to her that doesn't rule out creating private accounts invested in the stock market because that's not the government.
In other words, Wilson is relying on the sort of tactic that usually doesn't pan out for five-year-olds when they try to use it in household cookie-jar theft investigations.
Here are some earlier examples of Wilson's switch-hitting ways ...
"I support innovative approaches that would allow working people to put at least some of their Social Security payments into personalized pension funds."
"In 1998, Wilson advocated "personalized" retirement accounts that would allow people to determine how some of their Social Security contribution is invested. In 2000, Wilson said she wanted to leave Social Security alone but would consider allowing younger workers to invest in the stock market to increase their benefits. Wilson's camp denies Romero's assertion that she favors privatization. 'The fact is,' Wilson said Saturday, 'that I oppose the government's investment into the stock market and oppose privatization.'"
"In the past, Wilson has supported plans to allow individual workers to create 'personal accounts' within Social Security. She is no longer talking about that idea, although she hasn't ruled it out, either."
"If the federal government invests in the stock market, it will overnight become the largest investor in American business, and I don't think that's right."
"During the campaign Wilson said she did not favor privatizing Social Security. She said Thursday she would not vote to reduce benefits for anyone in or nearing retirement, increase payroll taxes or allow the government to invest in the stock market. Instead, she would look at plans to encourage individual investment accounts."
--Josh Marshall
Social Security phase-out not popular in Kentucky.
Newcomer Rep. Geoff Davis (R) is in the Conscience Caucus, even slotted as Loud and Proud.
But Ron Lewis (R), Anne Northup (R), Hal Rogers (R) and Ed Whitfield (R) all look pretty solid for phase-out.
--Josh Marshall
I keep hearing from TPM readers who've got their noses bent out of shape because it turns out that while their brokers are helping them invest their private savings on the one hand they're trying to pull the plug on Social Security with the other.
We've also heard from folks within the industry who don't like what they're seeing, especially from the real pied pipers of private accounts like Charles Schwab and Edward Jones. Back a few years ago Bill Shipman at State Street Global Advisors was one of the biggest pied pipers. But he's now moved on to other things. So we're not clear on what the situation is there now.
In any case, we'd really like to know more. And since a lot of you seem to know more already, why not let us in on the story?
Which companies are, shall we say, heavily invested in phasing out Social Security? We also hear tell about various pied pipers getting in touch with HR departments to set up workshops about how Social Security is like Wile E. Coyote already out three feet over the cliff. Seen anything like that? Let us know. We even hear that now President Bush is again putting the touch on folks in the business to ante up more money to help him get phase-out back on track. Know more? Let us know.
--Josh Marshall
A glass of sherry or just a cup a' grog?
Rep. Sherwood Boehlert (R) of New York tells the Poughkeepsie Journal he's skeptical about privatization but thinks "everything should be on table to examine from stem to stern."
So Sherry's still a Caucus man, just not Loud and Proud.
The article also gives a good run-down of Social Security politics in the state's dense archipelago of Republican districts.
Some other highlights.
Rep. Sue Kelly (R) says "I think most people agree that Social Security needs to be looked at. People are hung up on that one piece [personal savings accounts]. But I know of six or seven plans that senators and House members are talking about. It's not just private accounts."
That's great. A real profile in courage.
And then there's Rep. Jim Walsh (R), our New York project for the week. A candidate for the Caucus or still hanging tough for W?
--Josh Marshall
Rep. Charlie Rangel (D) of New York: "There is no Democrat in the House of Representatives, on my committee, that this president has reached out for. I'm telling you now, Social Security reform by the president is dead, and he killed it."
From this morning's Meet The Press.
See the video here.
--Josh Marshall
There's been a lot of question about whether Sen. Gordon Smith (R) of Oregon belongs in the Conscience Caucus.
But in today's paper, Portland Oregonian columnist David Sarasohn, asks the man directly.
And Smith tells Sarasohn he deserves in ...
Is the Conscience Caucus the accurate address for him?"That's an appropriate conclusion," says Smith. "I have not signed up to anyone's plan.
"I'm open to the debate. I'm keeping my counsel."
Sarasohn also asks Sen. Smith the details about President Bush's efforts to lure him out of the Caucus.
--Josh Marshall
Another very interesting nugget from Tom Edsall's piece in the Post on why some non-financial services companies are so keen to start phasing out Social Security ...
Some business groups have calculated that if the Bush Social Security plan fails, pressure will grow to raise payroll taxes to pay future costs of the program. Every percentage point increase would cost corporate employers about $50 billion annually.
Now, the odds <$Ad$> of there being much more than a very slight hike in payroll tax rates (and then possibly only on the employer side) seems pretty long to me. However, what's getting a lot of attention is removing or substantially raising the cap on payroll taxes for upper-income earners. That is the current rule which dictates that you don't have to pay payroll tax on any dollar you make over $90,000. That means that for every dollar you make over $90,000 per year your effective rate of payroll taxation goes down.
If that changes, half of that change will be on the employer side. So maybe this is angle: these companies want to phase out Social Security so there's no chance they'll have to pay payroll tax on a larger percentage of the salaries of their upper-income employees.
Of course, the more forward-thinking pro-phase-out companies can probably see that down the road privatization will likely get them out of a lot of existing payroll taxes too.
--Josh Marshall
A very interesting article by Tom Edsall in the Post today about the $200 million waiting to be spent by "a large network of influential conservative groups ... to help the White House win passage of legislation to partially privatize Social Security and limit class-action lawsuits."
As Edsall notes ...
The emergence of the center-right phalanx backing the Social Security proposal is a major victory for the Cato Institute, a prominent libertarian group. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Cato was almost alone in its willingness to challenge the legitimacy of the existing Social Security system, a politically sacrosanct retirement program.Recognizing the wariness of other conservatives to tackle Social Security, Cato in 1983 published an article calling for privatization of the system.
The article argued that companies that stand to profit from privatization -- "the banks, insurance companies and other institutions that will gain" -- had to be brought into alliance. Second, the article called for initiation of "guerrilla warfare against both the current Social Security system and the coalition that supports it."
Just 22 years later, the business alliance is fully on board in the drive to create partially private Social Security accounts.
Also of interest to me is this <$Ad$> passage: "For corporations wary of publicity over their involvement in this and other controversial issues, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's Institute for Legal Reform, the Club for Growth and Progress for America pointedly offer donors the promise of anonymity."
In other words, a lot of the Club's funders appear to be pretty fainthearted themselves and far, far from Loud and Proud.
Perhaps we should be calling it the Laundromat for Growth.
That brings us back to the news yesterday that Edward Jones (of which more dastardly financial shenanigans are discussed here) abruptly pulled out of Derrick Max's Alliance for Worker Retirement Security a couple days ago after a few picketers showed up at their offices.
Now it seems that pretty much all the organization's financial benefactors are fainthearted because when you go to the membership list on the site it brings up a freshly scrubbed page with no names listed at all. Luckily, TPM Reader LY managed to find this archived version of the membership list from the Internet Archive Wayback Machine.
--Josh Marshall
This morning on ABC, Stephanopoulos again put the private accounts question to Sen. Kent "The Kernel" Conrad (D) of North Dakota, who responded thus: "I think there is a kernel of a good idea with individual accounts, because we do need to find a way to get a higher rate of return on funds invested in Social Security. But I cannot support a plan that is financed by massive new debt. You know, the president's plan would require the borrowing of something like $4.5 trillion over the next 20 years. This is on top of already record budget deficits…"
As our new nickname suggests, I think this must be the dozenth time Conrad has used this 'kernel' line about private accounts. Presumably he has chosen this word to show he's still a homey to all his state's grain growers. But who knows?
So by all means, let's crack open the kernel already!
Conrad says there's a kernel of good idea in private accounts because we need to find a way to get a b