Reflections on the Debate (Philadelphia)- no. 2

At the Democratic Presidential debate on 10/30/07 in Philadelphia, Senator Clinton demonstrated yet again that she has more insight than courage. Here is the exchange between Tim Russert and the contenders on Social Security (comments following):



RUSSERT: Senator Clinton, I want to clear something up which goes to the issue of credibility. You were asked at the AARP debate whether or not you would consider taxing, lifting the cap from $97,500, taxing that, raising more money for Social Security. You said, quote, “It’s a no.” I asked you the same question in New Hampshire, and you said “no.”

Then you went to Iowa and you went up to Tod Bowman, a teacher, and had a conversation with him saying, “I would consider lifting the cap perhaps above $200,000.” You were overheard by an Associated Press reporter saying that.

Why do you have one public position and one private position?

CLINTON: Well, Tim, I don’t. I have said consistently that my plan for Social Security is fiscal responsibility first, then to deal with any long-term challenges which I agree are ones that we are going to have to address.

CLINTON: We would have a bipartisan commission. In the context of that, I think all of these would be considered. But, personally, I do not want to balance Social Security on the backs of our seniors and middle-class families. That’s why I put fiscal responsibility first, because we have to change the Bush tax cuts, which I am committed to doing.

We have to move back toward a more fair and progressive tax system, and begin once again to move toward a balanced budget with a surplus. You know, part of the idea in the ‘90s was not just so Bill would have a check mark next to his name in history, but so that we would have the resources to deal with a lot of these entitlement problems.

George Bush understood that. The Republicans understood that. They wanted to decimate that balanced budget and a surplus because they knew that that would give them a free hand to try to privatize Social Security.

CLINTON: I am not going to be repeating Republican talking points. So when somebody asks me, would something like this be considered, well, anything could be considered when we get to a bipartisan commission. But personally, I am not going to be advocating any specific fix until I am seriously approaching fiscal responsibility.

RUSSERT: But you did raise it as a possibility with Tod Bowman?

CLINTON: Well, but everybody knows what the possibilities are, Tim. Everybody knows that. But I do not advocate it. I do not support it. I have laid out what I do believe, and I am going to continue to emphasize that.

I think, for us to act like Social Security is in crisis is a Republican trap. We’re playing on the Republican field. And I don’t intend to do that.

RUSSERT: You call it a Republican talking point. Georgetown University, February 9, 1998: “We are in a—heading to a looming fiscal crisis in Social Security. If nothing is done, it will require a huge tax increase in the payroll tax or a 25 percent in Social Security benefits,” Bill Clinton, 1998.

RUSSERT: That’s recent history. Only two years to go in his term. Is that a Republican talking point?

CLINTON: No, but what he did was to move us toward a balanced budget and a surplus. And, if you go back and you look at the numbers, they really took off starting in ‘98, ‘99, 2000, 2001.

And that would have given a president who actually believed in Social Security—which George Bush does not—the resources and the options to make decisions, but not the kind of draconian decisions, and certainly not the move toward privatization, which is what the Republicans have been advocating for as long as I can remember.

RUSSERT: Senator Obama, you said in May, that, quote, “Everything is on the table when it comes to Social Security.” You now have an ad up in Iowa which says that any benefit cuts are off and raising the retirement age are off.

Why have you changed your mind?

OBAMA: Well, what I say is that that is not my plan.

OBAMA: Now, I just want to go back to what Senator Clinton said, because I think it’s important for us not to engage in business as usual on Social Security and talk straight.

Everybody on this stage is against privatization and we all fought against it—everybody. I absolutely agree that Social Security is not in crisis; it is a fundamentally sound system, but it does have a problem, long-term.

Even if we deal with the issue of fiscal responsibility, the trust fund is no longer being rated—that’s something that all of us are in favor of.

We’ve got 78 million baby boomers who are going to be retiring over the next couple of decades. That means more retirees, fewer workers to support those retirees.

It is common sense that we are going to have to do something about it. That is not a Republican talking point. And if we don’t deal with it now, it will get harder to deal with later.

So what I’ve said, and I know some others on this stage have said, is that among the options that are available, the best one is to lift the cap on the payroll tax, potentially exempting folks in the middle—middle-class folks—but making sure that the wealthy are paying more of their fair share—a little bit more.

OBAMA: Now, it is important, if we are going to lead this country, to be clear to the American people about what our intentions are. And this is part of the politics that we have been playing, which is to try to muddle through, give convoluted answers. Ultimately, we then don’t have a mandate and we can’t bring about change, in part because we’re afraid to give Republicans talking points.

I’m not fearful, just as Joe isn’t, to have a debate about this with Rudy Giuliani because we’ve got the facts on our side. But we’ve got to be clear about those facts and not pretend that those facts don’t exist.

RUSSERT: But when asked by The New York Times whether Senator Clinton has been truthful, you said no.

OBAMA: What I said is that she has not been truthful and clear about this point that I just made, which is we can talk about fiscal responsibility and all of us agree with that. All of us oppose privatization.

OBAMA: But even after we deal with those issues, we are still going to have an actuarial gap that has to be dealt with. It is not going to vanish and if we have a moral responsibility to the next generation to make sure that Social Security is there, the most successful program to lift seniors out of poverty that we’ve ever devised, then we need to start acting now and having a serious conversation about it.

CLINTON: Tim, I don’t see any difference here. You know, my view is we go towards fiscal responsibility, which is hard. It’s not going to be easy inheriting what we’re going to inherit from Bush and the Republicans.

And there are some long-term challenges. I have no disagreement with that.

But I think the best way to handle them is within the context of a bipartisan commission. That’s what worked in 1983 when Social Security was on the ropes. Our colleagues in the Senate had a hearing today talking about how they could move toward a bipartisan commission.

CLINTON: And, once there’s a bipartisan commission, then we can see what we need to do. But I don’t want these decisions to be made in a vacuum. I want it to be made in the face of moving back toward fiscal responsibility, because that will influence which choices are actually better.

And I certainly don’t want to impose a trillion-dollar tax increase on middle-class families, or any kind of additional burdens on our seniors.



Note that the New York Senator not only realizes that talk of Social Security being "in crisis is a Republican trap- we're playing on the Republican field" but also "the Republicans understood that (i.e., the need for resources to avert a crisis). They wanted to decimate that balanced budget and a surplus because they knew that that would give them a free hand to try to privatize Social Security."

Unfortunately, she still advocates a "bipartisan commission" to deal with the problem. Not only is that a way to avoid leadership, but is not likely to promote a progressive solution. A commission, like a task force, never concludes that the problem it has been asked to investigate and propose solutions for really was not as grave a problem as to warrant creation of the commission. A conclusion that the system is "in crisis" requiring "bold," "creative," or "courageous" action, such as increasing the payroll tax, raising the age of eligibility, or decreasing benefits would be likely. And a President Clinton would have clean hands and a claim to bipartisanship as the elderly are victimized.