 By Dick Morris April 08, 2005
Today, the Hillary Clinton-led Democrats are attacking President Bush, saying that he wants to let Social Security die of its own funding shortfall while he builds a privatization lifeboat in which the rich and the upper middle class can escape. Ten years ago, the truth was that unless and until Clinton proposed his own version of a balanced budget, replete with substantial spending cuts, neither the nation nor the Congress would take seriously his proclamations of support for deficit reduction.  ©Brian Fairrington, Cagle Cartoons With the White House, most of Clinton's liberal advisers urged that he not produce his own balanced-budget proposal but leave to the Republicans the onus of suggesting the cuts necessary to eliminate the deficit. They said that by embracing cuts on his own he would incur public wrath and lose his standing to fight congressionally imposed reductions. Today, the conservatives in the Bush White House are telling their president much the same thing: that he should not propose his own series of cuts in Social Security because it will subject him to a massive political vulnerability and give the Democrats fodder with which to attack him. They say that he should simply talk about the problems Social Security faces and bemoan the absence of a Democratic plan for saving it, even as he refuses to proffer his own. Back then, Clinton defied the conventional wisdom of his party and most of his administration and submitted his proposal for a balanced budget, including a broad package of spending cuts that were to pave the way to the elimination of the deficit. But he avoided most of the heavy lifting in suggesting these cuts by proposing to take 10 years - instead of the GOP proposal for seven - to bring about his objective. As a result, his cuts did not trigger the damage his advisers had feared. Once Clinton had proposed a balanced budget, he could no longer be attacked as insincere in wanting a balanced budget and, at a stroke, the Republicans lost their best issue. No longer could they hide their desire to dismantle an array of important programs such as Medicaid, Medicare, federal education funding and environmental enforcement behind the façade of deficit elimination. Clinton had taken away their monopoly on the deficit issue. Today, Bush has to take away the Democratic mantra that is costing him so dearly in popular support: that Bush wants to wreck Social Security. He needs to counter the effective AARP ad that shows a house being demolished as a metaphor for the destruction of Social Security. By proposing his own package of cuts, Bush can rob the Democrats of their positioning just as Clinton did to the Republicans. But just as Clinton muted the pain of his cuts by stretching the reduction over 10 years, so Bush can avoid the dire implications of reductions in benefits, raises in taxation or postponement of retirement by using the central ingredient, choice. By offering beneficiaries one of three plans - lower benefits or later retirement or higher taxes, he can avoid the pitfalls of a one-size-fits-all approach to the complex and highly individual calculations of what retirement is right for you. Bush's current approach is to give Congress a menu of cuts. But that is flawed. He must give the beneficiaries themselves a menu of reductions or tax increases from which to choose for their own retirement. By leaving it up to Congress, Bush looks as if he doesn't really want to save the system. By leaving it up to the beneficiaries, he belies that accusation completely. This approach will turn the debate back to its original focus: privatization of a portion of the Social Security tax revenues. The issue will be no longer destruction of the system but individual choice and options.
Look for his new book, "Because He Could" about Bill Clinton. All Rights Reserved. Distributed exclusively by Cagle, Inc. www.caglecartoons.com to subscribers for publication.
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