Apparently they disagree with Markos, who
said yesterday they don't need one.
According to The Hill's Bob Cusack, Democrats from the Senate Finance Committee drafted a document outlining several options designed to shift the policy focus from Social Security--which they don't touch--to providing incentives for lower income citizens to save more.
Democratic senators on the Finance Committee this week quietly floated a document titled "Savings Options," which sources say is designed as a counter to Bush's plan for personal accounts in Social Security. The document, obtained by The Hill, details several legislative possibilities, including a mandate on employers to provide payroll-deduction savings options for all employees.
It also tackles low-income incentives for saving by setting up accounts at birth in which the government would deposit $500 for each newborn and $1,000 for families with below-average incomes. The accounts would allow parents to contribute more money until the child turns 18, "with a government match for contributions from lower-income parents."
Well, technically you could say it isn't a Social Security plan as it leaves that program intact as is. But it is undeniably a counter proposal to all the ideas floating around from the other side.
Apparently the criticism that Democrats can't do anything besides oppose Bush is affecting Congressional Dems.
Top Democratic strategists have recently indicated that having a Social Security reform alternative is better than just criticizing Bush's plan. While polls show that that Democrats have scored political points on the issue for several months, some party operatives say that just saying no to the GOP proposal is not politically feasible in the long term.
In a March 2 memo, Democratic strategists James Carville and Stan Greenberg suggested that Democrats needed to come up with their own retirement savings plan.
Al From and Bruce Reed, senior strategists at the Democratic Leadership Council, echoed that call in an essay on the direction of the Democratic Party: "If Democrats want to make a lasting difference in American life, we have to define ourselves by what we're for, not simply what we're against."
Okay, let's take a head count on this question: