WASHINGTON - President Bush's Social Security proposals stirred fresh political worries Thursday among Republicans and brought calls from some lawmakers to abandon the president's central idea: letting people divert part of their payroll taxes to private retirement accounts.
"I've talked to some of my colleagues and they're panic-stricken," said Rep. Mark Foley, R-Fla., who said he welcomes a serious debate over the sweeping changes Bush outlined in his State of the Union address Wednesday.
"Politically speaking, right now it's probably not doable," said Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., citing lack of Democratic support.
Two House Republicans with years of expertise on Social Security offered an alternate plan, saying the Bush proposal is too politically risky. They suggested bolstering the program with money from general revenues rather than the payroll tax.
"I think politically it's the most salable. It's not going to scare anybody," said Florida Rep. Clay Shaw, who for six years was chairman of the House Ways and Means subcommittee on Social Security. "It does preserve Social Security as it is today. If we're going to attract some Democrats, that's the way to go."
The headline on this article, "House Republicans Skeptical on Soc. Sec." leads one to believe that some Republicans don't support Bush's plan based on its merits. The body of the article, however, presents a different story. These Republicans aren't against Bush's plan because they think its a bad plan per se, they're against it because they don't think it will attract enough support from across the aisle to pass.
As far as I'm concerned, that's about as shameful as the Democrats burying their heads in the sand and pretending northing is wrong with Social Security.
The goal shouldn't be to write some Social Security legislation for the sole purpose of getting it passed through congress, the goal should be to make meaningful and substantial changes to the program so that it can remain solvent in the future and not put an undue burden on future generations of workers.
Better to do nothing than to do some meaningless meddling and declare the issue "solved."