The unfolding of the SS debate has rested on the combination of a united Dem opposition and the sour reality of Bush's reform proposal: a formula worth repeating. Without the cover of `classified intelligence', the Administration's tactics are on clear display and the public isn't buying. Bush is now committed to another 6 weeks out `negotiating with himself' on SS, so it's a good time to highlight the folly in his priorities and his 2006-2010 budget projection seems the appropriate vehicle.
Senator Kent Conrad's Senate floor speech on Monday hit just the right notes. It included a slew of charts to hammer home how disconnected Bush's statements are from his actual budget. For me, the money plot was the one showing the real budget deficit over the next 5 years.
Bush was smoke'n mirrors when he said last August that "...the budget deficit will be cut in half over the next five years...".
Update [2005-3-23 21:49:13 by pvjeff]: changed to gif files for smaller (faster) loading (on my diary page)
The chart clearly shows Bush's claims of deficit reduction are simply achieved by hiding the real deficit. First by not including the known costs of war and changing the Alternative Minimum Tax (which has bipartisan and Bush support) and secondly by
borrowing from the SS trust fund. These two hidden accounts grow with each year so that the overall deficit quickly reaches nearly $600 billion per year or about $3 trillion over the 5 year period.
There is no deficit reduction.
Oh, let's talk Social Security then... We have a possible $3.75 trillion dollar problem in SS funding over the next 75 years. Well maybe not. If you're bullish on capitalism like democrats are, SS is completely solvent according to the SSA's more optimistic (and historically more reliable) projection. But even so, compare this $3.75 trillion dollar problem with the nearly $3 trillion dollar added debt over the next 5 years. What if we only can pay the interest on this $3 trillion debt over, say, the next 42 years? Oops, there goes another $3.75 trillion. Sure is good we have a "leader" who feels it's his duty to "fix problems" and not leave them for future generations.
Senator Conrad's speech hit other points as well most notably how Bush broke precedence by projecting out only 5 years instead of 10. That's because the 10 year deficits explode if the tax cuts are made permanent.
It just seems to me that the SS debate has laid the ground work for deep skepticism within the US about Bush's domestic agenda. His credibility has often cycled up and down, buttressed mostly by fear of terrorism. That worm may turn again. It's not time to enjoy the savor of beating back republican's SS phase-out operation but rather take it a step further. Fortunately the Democrats on the Senate budget committee appear to get it .
A final thought. As much as I favor fighting to preserve ANWR, I'm equally sure that putting this in as a budget amendment was a way to divert attention from the real fiscal mess that is the 2006 budget.