Where are the Republicans on Social Security?

Many Republicans aren't talking about Social Security
By Jon Sawyer
Post-Dispatch Washington Bureau Chief
02/26/2005

Kenny Hulshof



Social Security reform may be the signature issue of President George W. Bush's second term but so far it is mostly Democrats, not Republicans, who have answered his call for a grand national debate.

When Rep. Kenny Hulshof, R-Columbia, spoke Friday to the Washington (Mo.) Area Chamber of Commerce, he talked about health care, methamphetamine and Amtrak but he barely mentioned Social Security.

He said nothing at all about personal accounts, the centerpiece of Bush's plan, even though Bush has proclaimed this his top domestic priority and even though Hulshof serves on the House Ways and Means Subcommittee on Social Security.

"It's going to be a long process," Hulshof said afterward. "It's important to solicit information and opinions on some of these proposals, but until we really get down to the brass tacks of talking about specific legislation, right now it's just an informational exercise."

That Democrats are more than willing to talk specifics, not just brass tacks but maybe brass knuckles too, was evident Thursday night at a town forum sponsored by Rep. Russ Carnahan, D-St. Louis.

More than 150 people spilled out of the meeting room at the Weber Road Branch of the St. Louis County Public Library, a majority of them older people, but a sprinkling of 20-somethings too, and virtually unanimous in opposition to any kind of Social Security privatization.

Carnahan, a freshman, told the audience that in his view Bush had given "some really mixed messages. On the one hand he says the Social Security system is bankrupt but on the other hand he says it's stable for about the next half century. To me it can't be both.

"Experts will tell you that for the next 50 years the system is sound and even after that it can pay up to 80 percent of its benefits to everybody," Carnahan said, passing over the fact that most experts agree it would be ruinous to Social Security's long-term solvency to postpone reforms that long.

"That doesn't sound like a bankrupt system to me," he said. "This is the president's number one objective. He's made this the debate. I say, let's have the debate."

Only two attendees raised their hands to indicate they supported the idea of personal accounts. When one of them suggested that for younger people such accounts would bring better returns than the current Social Security system, he was all but shouted down.

"Where's he been for the last five years?" a man in the back of the room called out. "I lost $35,000."

"I'm a working man," said another. "When a millionaire starts trying to help me with my money, I get scared."

Leonard Thomas, 63, of Oakville, said that he had put aside money all his working life, as a member of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, but that the stock market crash in 2000 had hit him hard.

"I lost $100,000, a third of my 401(k)" retirement account, he said. "Who's going to make that up if I'm a baby boomer and the stock market goes south again?"

Rich Brown, 51, of Lemay, noted Social Security's role in serving the disabled and survivors. "My father was 50 when I was born, and he died when I was in high school. The survivor benefits kept us out of poverty and got me at least a couple of years of higher ed.

"I'm forever grateful for it," he said. "I don't want to see any change."

In a meeting that had the feel of a pep rally, and one against an especially reviled rival, Carnahan got strong encouragement even from the young workers often cited as prime beneficiaries of Bush's proposed personal accounts.

"I came here not just to voice my opinion because I think most of us agree," said Chris Murphy, 22, of St. Louis, who waits tables at the Old Spaghetti Factory on Laclede's Landing.

"We need a champion, someone who can go full throttle on the floor of the House or Senate. It won't be citizens who can do this. ... I came here to ask you to be a champion for us."

At the Chamber of Commerce meeting Friday, by contrast, the Social Security issue sparked no questions at all from a lunchtime audience of about 100. Participants noted that Hulshof shared the stage with state legislators and the focus was on more local issues, among them the fight over state Medicaid funding and the proposed ban on stem-cell research.

But among those interviewed there was skepticism of the personal accounts even from strong Bush supporters.

"Privatization is not a solution," said Eric Park, head of a Washington-based financial planning firm. He noted that Bush administration officials themselves have acknowledged that the proposed personal accounts, funded by a portion of employee-paid payroll taxes, would not by themselves shore up the system's long-term funding shortfall.

Park said he was also concerned by data showing the generally poor performance of 401(k) and other retirement accounts where investment decisions are left to individuals.

"I'm a red-white-and-blue Republican conservative capitalist, but this is not a solution," Park said. "It's good to promote an ownership society. But to say that this solves Social Security's problems? It doesn't."

This past week was the first recess of the 109th Congress, and the first since Bush named partial privatization of Social Security as the top domestic priority of his second term. While he himself spent the week in Europe, shoring up a sometimes fractured alliance, there were signs at home of trouble to come on his Social Security reform campaign.

First was the emergence of partisan sniping, from both sides:

Internet ads assailing the AARP, principal voice of Americans over age 50 and a leading opponent of privatization, as being pro-gay and anti-Iraq war. The ads were floated by USA Net, an offshoot of the Swift Vets and POWs for Truth, the group behind ads last fall attacking the Vietnam military record of Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry.

Ads from a liberal advocacy group, Campaign for America's Future, targeting Rep. Jim McCrery, R-La., chairman of the House Ways and Means Subcommittee on Social Security. The ads said McCrery's receipt of some $200,000 in campaign contributions over the past for years from banks and security firms make him beholden to Wall Street interests pressing privatization.

A second sign was the reluctance of Republican congressional representatives to embrace Bush's agenda. Most, like Hulshof and Sen. Jim Talent, R-Mo., passed up the chance to highlight Social Security at public forums back home. Those who pressed the case, like Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa., found the going rough. More than two dozen, according to Democratic counts, have already rejected privatization outright.

Third was the admission, from Bush's own inner circle, that the campaign has gotten off to a rocky start.

"We still have some work to do," Treasury Secretary John Snow said as he headed off to Florida to pitch Bush's plan. "We're at the early stages of this education process and engagement process. We're going to hit this hard. We're going to get the facts out."

Jill Quadagno, a sociologist at Florida State University, was a staff member on the 1993 entitlements reform commission, a bipartisan group that tried and failed to come up with long-term solutions to Social Security and Medicare.

Quadagno opposes personal accounts because she believes setting them up would undermine the broad public backing that has made Social Security thrive. She expects the proposal to die. But she also notes that the debate has just begun, and that Bush has already achieved much.

"What's interesting to me is that change in what's acceptable to speak about," she said. "Before the 2000 campaign it was considered suicide to bring up privatization at all. Bush did, and it didn't hurt him."

Missouri Lt. Gov. Peter Kinder, appearing with Hulshof, said it was way too soon to write off Bush's prospects.

"We've now had three election cycles of evidence, in which no one who's campaigned on personal accounts has been defeated," Kinder said. "I don't know how much evidence you need," he said.



Reporter Jon Sawyer
E-mail: jsawyer@post-dispatch.com
Phone: 202-298-6880