What do you call a cross between a stealth bomber and a lead balloon? President George W. Bush’s latest effort to “reform” the Social Security system sure fits both metaphors.
To the relief of most every Republican in Congress, Bush made no mention of renewing last year’s politically ruinous privatization drive in this year’s State of the Union speech. Instead, he called for a bipartisan commission to study “the full impact of baby-boom retirements on Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.”
But a few days later, fiscal experts discovered that Bush’s privatization plan had been quietly tucked into his 2007 budget. Unlike last year’s vague proposals, the administration even included an estimate for the transition costs of privatization – an eye-popping $712 billion over seven years.
Of course, it’s one thing to sneak a radical proposal into the budget. It’s quite another to convince Congress to impale itself upon a lame-duck president’s sword. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, said, “I have no plans to pursue these proposals.” Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., and Rep. Bill Thomas, R-Calif., chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, all ignored repeated requests to comment on Bush’s plan.
Besides reviving the discredited privatization notion, the Bush budget calls for saving a total of $3.4 billion over 10 years by eliminating the token $255 lump-sum death benefit that has been part of Social Security since its enactment in 1935. Now, isn’t that precious? – a sideswipe at Social Security that only hurts widows and widowers.
What about orphans? The president also would cut off monthly survivor benefits to 16- and 17-year-olds who drop out of high school – social engineering at its most outlandish.
Grassley ruled out cutting survivors’ benefits, saying: “I can’t see how ending a pittance for widows and widowers, and modest benefits for kids who have lost a parent, would be good policy decisions.”
Bush spokesmen defended ending benefits to high school dropouts as a way of encouraging students to stay in school. In our view, that aim would be much better served in today’s economy by continuing survivors’ benefits through age 22, as long as the students were pursing higher education. Benefits currently end at 18.
Once again, the Bush administration has put pressure on pragmatic conservatives like Grassley while playing to the right-wing ideologues and think-tankers who dream of dismantling Social Security’s protections for American families. It makes us ask if the president and his advisers have lost all sense of political reality.
