The Democrats may have gotten a temporary win against Bush's social security privatization plan, but it is almost inevitable that with their current approach, they will lose the battle eventually. Why?
Let me explain with an analogy. Consider a man living with his family (wife and kid) in a desert that is about a 100 miles from the nearest perennial river (water source). He blows his minimal savings and maxes out his credit card buying expensive high-definition televisions and home entertainment systems - neglecting to fix faulty electrical wiring that he set up. The faulty wiring, not unexpectedly, results in a fire and threatens to raze his house to the floor. In response, he demands that his wife turn over the small sum she had secretly saved so that he can purchase flood insurance with it. (You read that correctly - flood insurance).
[Continued below the fold!]
The wife, seriously engages him in a debate about the merits of buying flood insurance - while the house keeps burning - and finally agrees to a compromise: if he promises not to use the funds for recklessly buying gizmos, and actually uses it for flood insurance, she agrees to give him the money. The child is left helplessly wondering why flood insurance is even required when there is a fire raging. In the end, the man decides to invest the money buying stock in a company that is building a massive dam on the river. (BTW, no analogy is perfect - so don't hold me up to perfection here :-))
Key:
Man = George Bush and many in the Congressional GOP
Woman = Many Congressional Democrats (especially those in the Fainthearted Faction)
Child = Most American citizens
House = United States Treasury
Faulty Wiring and Fire = Massive Budget Deficits due to Bush tax cuts and out-of-control GOP pork-barrel and corporate welfare spending (not to mention no bid contracts in Iraq)
River = Social Security
Floods = Social Security "crisis"
Dam = Increases chances of floods (Social Security "crisis") = Using Democratic compromise to find a creative way to destroy social security
Why this analogy?
Well, the very fact that many Democrats (especially the Fainthearted ones ) are even entertaining this so-called debate on social security indicates clearly that they are helpfully framing Social Security as something that is a serious problem that requires some kind of urgent solution - rather than say the General Fund deficits, Medicare, tax cuts, or pork-barrel spending, to name a few things. When you assign the terms of the debate to Bush and GOP, you have already committed a cardinal sin - and this opening will be used by the GOP to chart the Democrats' path to failure.
I say that because, after all, we do know a few things about Social Security . Among other things, it is and will be extraordinarily, fiscally sound and robust for decades hence even if we nothing (really). It is on more sound footing than it has been for most of its history. The day of "insolvency" has actually been pushing out more and more with every passing year - and this is no surprise because the long-standing myth of a social security "crisis" is based on the projection that the economy and productivity will grow much slower in the future than it has in the past. For some reason, reality always seems better than the pessimistic projections that Social Security's "doomsday" is based on...imagine that! What is really in crisis is the Federal Budget excluding Social Security - the Bush administration doesn't want people to know that massive Social Security surpluses are being used to finance the record deficits due to Bush's massive tax cuts for the super-rich and out-of-control spending on Iraq and GOP pet projects (contrary to Bush's 2000 campaign promises). The programs that are really raising the prospects of bankruptcy and "crisis" (in a shorter time span) are President Bush's tax cuts and the Big Pharma Welfare Bill, aka the Medicare Bill.
So, why reinforce the GOP frame that we need to do something drastically now to "save" Social Security? Why even provide Bush a "compromise solution" which he and the GOP will use repeatedly in 2006 and beyond to claim they somehow "saved" social security - even when they will not? Why lose the confidence and trust of the public to dishonest ideologues over an issue whose importance is not even remotely in the same league as that of others I have mentioned above? Instead, why not raise the facts about the egregious budget deficits and tax cuts, offensive pork-barrel spending, and bloated corporate welfare, every time that social security is brought up and point out that the way to save social security is to stop spending the Social Security surplus to finance the General Fund deficits (as Bush promised in 2000 and flip-flopped)? That the way to save Social Security is to get rid of some of the Bush tax cuts (as some Democrats have indeed proposed)?
The point, folks, is that reinforcing the GOP frame that something needs to be "done now" to "save" Social Security will only lead to eventual defeat for the Democrats. You simply do not win battles (especially against a determined enemy that has openly declared war on the Left and the Democrats) by agreeing with their false definition or framing of issues. You win by creating an alternative, factual frame and fighting for it. (Indeed, if you look at the business sector, good companies never let their competition define the market or their own products for their customers; rather, they take charge and define it for the customer.)
If the Democrats do not ensure that Bush's social security dreams go down in flames without any "compromise" Bill, then they will have only themselves to blame in 2006 and beyond. For, make no mistake, the GOP will loudly advertize through the Republican Misinformation Machine that they "saved" Social Security.
Hesiod, by the way, has similar thoughts on how Bush and the GOP will claim to be saviors. Go read his posts here and here.
I would love to be wrong, but I see this as a classic battle that is being waged to sink the Democratic party for a long time to come, by preventing the Party from being considered the only one worth trusting on Social Security. There has been a lot of speculation why Bush seems so determined to push his Social Security agenda even though it is unpopular. The answer is exceedingly simple, folks (and give him and Rove some credit here) - they are thinking just like a very aggressive competitor would. Namely, they understand that you destroy your competition by undermining its areas of strength, not just by focusing on its known weaknesses. That's what this social security battle is all about.