What Bill Clinton proposed: Can it possibly help progressive interests when progressives let themselves go dumb? Here is Digby, who is increasingly losing her way due to her tribal loathing:
DIGBY (5/23/11): So I've been hearing that conservatives can't be racists because some of their best candidates are black. I wonder how this fits into that thesis. Here we have a major social conservative on the subject of Obama's trip to Ireland:
She then played tape of a dumb, lost soul. But the gigantic dumbness of her own statement, the one we’ve highlighted, represents a major fall.
Can it possibly help when our intellectual leaders succumb to the lure of The Dumb? Earlier yesterday, we were struck by a Digby post about Bill Clinton and Social Security.
In her post, Digby listed the names of some of the people who will appear at the “Peterson Foundation’s 2nd Annual Fiscal Summit.” Participants will include Bill Clinton and Gene Sperling, who served as National Economic Adviser during Clinton’s second term. Speaking of the listed participants, Digby then wrote this:
DIGBY (5/23/11): Gosh I wonder what they're going to say? It's a little bit odd that they were unable to find even one person who hasn't advocated cuts and partial or total privatization of Social Security but I guess it's possible that all 70 percent of the American public who are against that already had plans.
*Yes Bill Clinton certainly did entertain that idea.
Dear lord, how good the snark felt! As proof that Clinton did “entertain that idea” (an instant step back from “advocacy”), Digby linked to this fuzzy, 2005 report by the San Francisco’s Chronicle’s Carolyn Lochhead.
Question: Did Bill Clinton ever advocate “partial or total privatization of Social Security?” In fairness, Digby’s post let progressives enjoy a good solid cry; in response, some commenters blustered and yelled about the vast vile perfidy. But Lochhead’s report is very fuzzy, especially when she makes this very dumb claim: “Although their approaches differed, what Clinton said then and Bush is saying now—about the program's condition and what it will take to fix it—are strikingly similar.”
Please. Since Clinton made a formal proposal about Social Security during the period in question, we thought progressives might want to review what he actually proposed.
Clinton’s proposal was made in the 1999 State of the Union address. The next day, Amy Goldstein made some classic misstatements about Social Security in her front-page Washington Post news report. (“Social Security is expected to run out of money when the trust fund that pays retirees' checks is depleted in the year 2032.” Then as now, utterly hopeless.) But here is Goldstein’s account of Clinton’s actual proposal, in which he recommended how to use those looming federal surpluses.
Please note: The savings accounts Clinton proposed would have been in addition to regular Social Security benefits:
GOLDSTEIN (1/20/99): The largest part of the plan would pour nearly two-thirds of the federal surplus into Social Security over the next 15 years, and invest a portion of that money in the market. While shifting some money into stocks, this approach would satisfy liberals by leaving intact the program's basic character as a safety net that provides a guaranteed monthly retirement check to all Americans.
The other part of the initiative would create a new type of individual savings program, devoting $500 billion from the federal surplus to give most working people seed money to open their own retirement accounts. The government also would help match people's personal investments as they built up those accounts over time, giving more money to those with low incomes. This approach might satisfy GOP desires to rest more of the nation's retirement system on private savings accounts, though it would not go so far as to privatize the Social Security system itself.
[…]
The plan Clinton laid out is the most recent phase of an effort he began a year ago to find a way to safeguard the long-term future of Social Security—and to make reform of the nation's largest entitlement programs, including Medicare, a part of his legacy.
In last year's State of the Union address, he challenged Congress not to spend any of the budget surplus until the government dealt with Social Security, an idea resented by many Republicans who favor using at least a portion of the money for a tax cut. Clinton then began to try to galvanize public support to restructure the retirement system by convening a series of "town meetings" and a White House conference last month.
Started in the depths of the Depression in 1935, Social Security is expected to run out of money [sic] when the trust fund that pays retirees' checks [sic] is depleted in the year 2032. The program is funded through payroll taxes and right now has more money coming in than it pays out to retirees. But that will change once the baby boom generation begins retiring in about a decade.
With the shift of $2.7 trillion from the projected surplus to the trust fund, and the expected higher earnings from the stock market, the White House estimates the program would remain solvent until 2055.
Clinton said he would like to find ways to make the program last until 2075, but White House officials did not name any of the more painful steps that would almost certainly be required to do that, such as cutting benefits or making people wait longer to enter the program.
In fact, the White House plan would make the basic program more generous and presumably slightly more expensive. It would increase benefits for widows and eliminate a provision that now phases out Social Security payments for beneficiaries who continue to work and earn more than a specified amount.
The administration did not specify exactly how much money the government would give people for their private savings accounts, which would be funded using 11 percent of the budget surplus over the next 15 years. The basic idea is that the government would give a flat sum to everyone who decided to open an account. Then, trying to address liberal beliefs that the poor deserve more help, the program would create a sliding scale to match some or all of the personal money that people invested in their accounts.
Gene Sperling, Clinton's top economic aide, said that the program would not be available to those with the highest incomes but that most working families would qualify.
Even relatively liberal policy experts who praised the concept said it had a flaw. "My biggest concern is, how do you keep such a program going if the surplus goes away?" said Marilyn Moon, an Urban Institute economist and public trustee of the Social Security system.
Let’s review:
In the 1998 State of the Union, Clinton said the projected federal surpluses should be applied to Social Security’s long-range balance sheet. In this way, he blocked the House GOP’s proposal for a large tax cut.
In 1999, he made his full proposal: 62 percent of those federal surpluses would be used to strengthen the program’s finances, thus extending the life of Social Security by some twenty years. Some of that money would be invested in the stock market—but it would be invested as a federal fund under federal direction, not as part of individual “private accounts.” Other funds would be used to help citizens establish savings accounts—savings accounts which would operate in addition to their regular Social Security benefits, which would not be cut.
That was Clinton’s proposal for the use of those looming federal surpluses. After Chris Matthews sent George Bush to the White House, this new president had a different idea; he used those projected federal surpluses for his massive tax cuts. Whatever one thinks of Clinton’s proposal—Candidate Gore didn’t agree with several parts of the plan—the Clinton proposal was vastly different from anything Bush ever did.
Yesterday, Digby treated progressives to a good solid cry; in response, some commenters bellowed and wailed. Question: Does anyone know what progressives gain when we take this self-pitying route?
Who is Carolyn Lochhead: We’re not familiar with Lochhead’s work, although the piece which provided Digby’s “evidence” is hopelessly weak. That said: In 2009, a Daily Kos poster complained, in some detail, about Lochhead’s “history of articles that slant slyly to the right.”
“Carolyn Lochhead…misleads on Health Care Reform.” So said the Daily Kos headline. To review the piece, click here.
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