As a new round of polls showed public support waning for President Bush's plans to dramatically change Social Security, Republicans attacked the AARP and Democrats on the issue Wednesday, struggling to rekindle enthusiasm for the president's call for private investment accounts.
The AARP, which claims 35 million members age 50 and over, is “against a solution that hasn’t been written yet,” said House Majority Leader Tom DeLay after a closed-door meeting with the GOP rank and file.
He called the group’s opposition to personal accounts irresponsible and hypocritical, adding that it sells mutual funds to its own membership.
In response, an AARP spokesman said the organization is “opposed to the central notion of trying to improve Social Security solvency by taking money out of Social Security.”
“Even the administration has acknowledged that taking money out of Social Security does nothing to solve the solvency problem,” said the spokesman, David Certner. He also said AARP encouraged its membership to invest in mutual funds “in addition to Social Security.”
And a new poll from the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press found that far more Americans trust the AARP on the issue of Social Security, 53 percent, than trust the president, 42 percent, or Democratic leaders in Congress, 41 percent.
The Pew poll also found that fewer than half, 46 percent, said they support the plan to allow younger workers to invest part of their Social Security taxes in stocks and bonds — down from 54 percent who supported that plan in December. Only three in 10 said they approve of Bush’s handling of Social Security.
A CNN-USA Today-Gallup found a drop in Bush's approval on Social Security to 35 percent now from 43 percent three weeks ago. An Associated Press Ipsos poll found Bush’s approval on Social Security at 39 percent.
On Wednesday, DeLay and Speaker Dennis Hastert also criticized congressional Democrats, who are virtually united in opposition to Bush’s plans. “The party of no,” Hastert called them.
Republicans unleashed their latest attack as Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan urged Congress to act quickly to fix looming financing problems for Social Security as well as Medicare. “If existing promises need to be changed, those changes should be made sooner rather than later,” he told the House Budget Committee.
One program provides retirement, survivors and disability income for 54 million Americans, while the other is the government’s health care program for seniors.
As he has before, Greenspan endorsed a key element of Bush’s plans for Social Security, a proposal that would allow workers to set aside a portion of their payroll taxes to be invested on their own. But he stressed that much more needed to be done to put the giant retirement program and Medicare, which he said faced even more severe financial strains, on a more sound footing.
Greenspan's endorsement
Diverting the payroll taxes into the Social Security trust fund, Greenspan said, had merely allowed the government to run larger budget deficits. He said that switching to the private accounts would be a way to bolster the nation’s low savings rate.
Greenspan repeated his view that a go-slow approach to setting up Bush’s proposed private accounts was necessary to gauge the impact on financial markets of the increased borrowing that will be needed. “I think it is very important that you move gradually and see what the response is,” he said.
“The one certainty is that the resolution of the nation’s unprecedented demographic challenge will require hard choices and that the future performance of the economy will depend on those choices,” Greenspan said.
Hastert and DeLay talked with reporters after meeting with lawmakers just back from a week spent sampling public opinion on Social Security. DeLay said the session produced “not one negative comment by the members.”
At the same time, both he and Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist left open the possibility on Tuesday that final action may not be possible this year.
On Tuesday Frist said, “The opposition is very well organized,” adding that it was too early to say whether he’d bring a bill to the Senate floor in “a week, a month, six months, or a year.”
But Senate Finance Committee Chairman Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, warned last month that if Social Security legislation “isn’t done this year, it won’t be done for 10 years.”
Both DeLay and Hastert said Republicans are determined to move ahead with Bush’s proposals, and several Republicans said they believe the president’s campaigning is slowly raising public awareness of the issue.
Wary of commitment
Sen. Ben Nelson, D-Neb., who has been consulting with Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C, on ideas for legislation, indicated in comments to reporters Tuesday how wary most senators are about committing support to specific ideas for redesigning Social Security.
“It never hurts to talk about ideas, as long you know you’re talking about ideas,” said Nelson. “The challenge is (to ensure) that whatever you’re talked about, doesn’t get reported that that’s your position. … I can talk about an idea or two ideas or three, but I get disturbed when I see that somebody says, ‘He’s going to go for this,’ just because I talked about it.”
Nelson added, “I’m going to look for compromises wherever possible to accomplish something.”
White House spokesman Scott McClellan tried to tamp down any sense that time is running out for consideration of a Social Security plan.
“We're very early in the process right now,” McClellan told reporters. “We're really just now beginning to step up our efforts.”
But as Republican National Committee Chairman Ken Mehlman noted on Tuesday, Bush in his speech at the GOP convention last September did call for allowing younger workers to save some of their Social Security taxes in personal accounts, and he repeated that call in nearly every campaign speech in the fall campaign.
Seeking negotiations
Bush and congressional Republicans have consistently sought to coax Democrats into negotiations on Social Security. Most Democrats have resisted, arguing that since Republicans control the White House and both houses of Congress, they must first present a comprehensive proposal of their own.
At stake is an issue of surpassing political significance. Democrats contend Bush and Republicans want to cut benefits to pay for privatizing part of the Depression-era program, and have made clear they intend to try and use the issue at the 2006 elections.
Republicans counter their goal is to shore up a program with shaky finances, but also are leery of being maneuvered into taking a series of politically difficult votes unless the result will be legislation that Bush signs and at least some Democrats support.
Bush is to travel to six states over the next two weeks, and many more later as he tries to build public support for a Social Security overhaul.
Echoing White House claims, congressional Republicans said they hope that by the time he is finished, the president will have produced a public groundswell for legislation, forcing at least some Democrats to reconsider their opposition.
Bush has said his plan would guarantee that Social Security benefits would remain unchanged for retirees and workers age 55 and over.
Younger Americans would be allowed to invest a portion of their payroll taxes on their own. In exchange they would receive a lower government benefit than they are now guaranteed, on the assumption that the proceeds of their investments would make up the difference. In addition, though, even younger voters who choose not to establish personal accounts would receive a reduced government benefit under Bush’s plan, according to GOP congressional officials who have been briefed on the plan.
