Crossposted to The Next Hurrah
There was a time, oh, perhaps a week or two ago, that Social Security was actually being discussed in the national press. Sure, there wasn't much positive happing for the President, but at least the news was out there. well, since other things have been happening (especially in Florida), the number of repetitive stories has dropped to a trickle. Still, there are some good ones out there.
There's Charles Grassley adding to the president's headaches by asserting there's likely no bill without the AARP:
No organization has more tools or more money to wage such a battle. So both its friends and adversaries agree: AARP holds the key to how or whether Social Security will be restructured this year. "It will be very difficult to do anything without AARP's support," said Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa), chairman of the Senate Finance Committee. "And it would be a heck of a lot easier if they came along."
AARP's 35 million membership base is 10 times the size of the National Rifle Association's, and its $800 million budget is five times that of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the country's biggest business association. In number of members, AARP is surpassed only by the Roman Catholic Church.
Some polls show that a majority of voters reject Bush's plan to make investment accounts part of the retirement program, a result that can be attributed in part to AARP's persuasiveness. "We're behind the curve right now," said Rep. Jim McCrery (R-La.), a Bush ally and chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee's Social Security subcommittee. "The momentum is with the other team."
There's Bloomberg News pointing out that the numbers don't add up for Bush:
Thirty-nine of 58 economists and strategists surveyed by Bloomberg News say that if the economy slows that much, Bush's stock outlook is too optimistic. Over the last 50 years, as the U.S. economy grew 3.4 percent a year on average, almost twice as much as the agency is forecasting, the Standard & Poor's 500 Stock Index returned only 6.8 percent after dividends were reinvested.
``A 6.5 percent real equity return is not realistic'' at the
growth rates being projected, says Thomas McManus, chief investment strategist in New York at Banc of America Securities LLC. ``If it were, we will not have a Social Security problem in 2050 because shareholders will be so wealthy they could easily fund the shortfall.''
...
The possibility of low stock-market returns could undercut the main arguments that Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and Treasury Secretary John Snow are using as they try to convince the public that personal accounts invested in equity and bond index funds can result in bigger benefits for future retirees.
There's the WaPo pointing out that conservatives are backtracking in the face of reality (Laffer curve experts need not apply):
President Bush's proposal to add private investment accounts to Social Security is beginning to create controversy within the one group that has most forcefully embraced the idea in theory: the conservative intelligentsia.
Under Bush's approach, personal accounts "are complicated," wrote Alex J. Pollock, a finance expert at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, in a paper he will present at AEI today. "To many people, they are downright confusing and even frightening, and they require diverting a portion of payroll taxes away from the U.S. Treasury.
Is 'complicated' the same thing as 'hard... really hard'? Well, the prevailing winds are clearly along the lines of drop back 10 yards and punt. Because of this, watch for Bush to deperately cast around for a selling plan ('the Democrats had no plan on Terri Sciavo and they have no plan on Social Security' is probably being tested in focus groups this week) and a way to compromise so as to not be labelled with the abject defeat this really is for the GOP ("Bush ejucated Muricans that Social Security is a problem, so we won"). But in the end, whether in Pinellas Park, FL or Washington, DC, spin can only get you so far.
And lest you think it's silly to tie FL with DC and Terri Schiavo with Social Security, think again.