Barack Obama

Dems smell win, hold firm: no accounts

Wednesday, April 27, 2005

CHICAGO SUN-TIMES
BY LYNN SWEET WASHINGTON BUREAU CHIEF

There they were, some 120 Democrats, House and Senate members, at a rally Tuesday to protest President Bush's plan for retirement investment accounts they say will jeopardize the long-term health of Social Security.

Emboldened by polls showing that Bush's 60-day campaign for these accounts -- to be created with a small amount of money diverted from Social Security payroll taxes -- may have actually eroded backing for his plan, the Democrats have a sense that they may have prevailed.

For now.

The Democrats are and have been displaying an iron wall of unity when it comes to opposing retirement investment accounts.

Social Security faces a solvency crisis in the future -- Republicans and Democrats disagree when and to what degree, but that very important conversation gets drowned out because of Bush's seemingly singular emphasis on personal or private accounts. Without some change in the Social Security program, people born after 1950 may end up retiring later, paying more in taxes, or getting less of a benefit.

"I am proud to stand here as a Franklin Delano Roosevelt Democrat,'' said Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), the leadoff speaker, referring to the president who signed the law creating Social Security.

"The president finished his 60-day, 60-city tour, and he announced that he may go out for another 120 days,'' said Durbin, the No. 2 Democrat in the Senate. "Let me tell you what. If he's going out to push for privatization, let's help him pack!''

Durbin took some license on the 120 days -- the administration never put out that number -- but you get his point.

White House spokesman Scott McClellan said Tuesday with the 60-day promotion tour wrapping up in Galveston, Texas, Bush "will continue reaching out to the American people and continue going across the country talking about this important priority.''

Democrats staged the rally outside the Capitol, as well as in Chicago and other cities, to coincide with the opening of hearings on Social Security, chaired by Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa), the Senate Finance Committee chief.

The group that organized the rally, Americans United to Protect Social Security, is officially a nonpartisan organization, but that's on paper only. I was told GOP lawmakers were invited to attend, part of the fig leaf of an operation that is an important ally to Democrats fighting Bush on Social Security. A coalition of labor unions helped supply the crowd.

Grassley told CNN he is not sure he has the 11 votes it will take to pass an investment account measure out of his committee.

Under Senate rules, a measure failing in committee does not die; it can linger in legislative limbo, only to be to be resurrected and attached to a piece of legislation on another day.

By coincidence, Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) delivered a speech on the need to preserve Social Security just before the rally at a sold-out National Press Club lunch.

The speech was planned months ago, at the behest of the Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Institute, the Hyde Park, N.Y., organization dedicated to studying the legacies of the New Deal era.

James Roosevelt, FDR's grandson, introduced Obama and later was at the Capitol rally.

Republicans get their say
Obama talked about the origins of Social Security as a safety net for retirees who had nothing. It was intended to be the minimum, not the maximum, and never to take the place of regular savings and other investments. It was a way, said Obama, for people to share -- and minimize -- risk.

"Since Social Security was first signed in to law, almost 70 years ago, by James' grandfather, at a time when FDR's opponents were calling it a hoax that would never work and that some likened to communism,'' said Obama, "there has been movement, there has been movement after movement, to get rid of the program for purely ideological reasons.

"Because some still believe that we can't solve the problems we face as one American community, they think this country works better when we're left to face fate by ourselves.''

The irony, said Obama, of this "all-out assault against every existing form of social insurance is that these safety nets are exactly what encourages each of us to be risk-takers, what encourages entrepreneurship, what allows us to pursue our individual ambitions.''

Republicans held their own press events Wednesday. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), talking about Social Security with other Republicans, offered a good sense of where things stand. "Democrats are united around the idea that accounts should not destroy the function of Social Security as FDR envisioned it,'' said Graham.

"They're united around the idea that accounts shouldn't blow a hole in the deficit," he said.

"I am totally convinced that there are Democrats who would accept new ideas as long they didn't blow a hole in the deficit and as long as they didn't destroy the purpose of Social Security. That's what I get back from the Democrats I deal with.''

A starting point? Not yet.

The Democrats for now are not going to budge on these investment accounts. Listen to the words of the song playing at the end of the Democrats' rally. It was rocker Tom Petty's anthem: "Well I won't back down, no I won't back down.''