WaPo: Clinton Slips Social Security Questions

[ariesgem]

Tracking Hillary Clinton's views on Social Security is becoming a full-time job. Over the past two months, she has been tantalizingly explicit in her views, deliberately vague about what she thinks, publicly steadfast in saying she doesn't want to talk about specific ways to ensure solvency and privately willing to share her thoughts when the situation has suited her.

Thanks to an alert Nedra Pickler of the Associated Press, another piece of the puzzle fell into place recently -- although it has been largely ignored as the Democratic candidates have sparred over Iran and the political cognoscenti have been distracted by changes in the Republican race and debates over whether Clinton's lead in national polls truly reflects her strength in the Democratic race.

Pickler was at an event in Iowa recently when Tod Bowman, a teacher at Maquoketa Community High School, asked Clinton for more details about her position on Social Security. In the public forum she demurred, which she had begun to do earlier when pressed as to her positions. She said she preferred to put the federal government on a more disciplined budgetary footing as the first step to dealing with the Social Security's financial problems.

When the forum ended, according to Pickler, Bowman went up to Clinton to have his picture taken and asked her more about the future of Social Security. In that conversation, Clinton said she was open to asking workers to pay payroll taxes on more of their earnings, but wanted to protect middle-class workers at the same time.

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Clinton had to be pressed by moderator Judy Woodruff of PBS before she affirmatively rejected the idea -- only to suggest to Bowman that she is quite receptive to the idea, if not all the details.

In an interview with the Post recently, Clinton was asked specifically about the Edwards proposal and whether she thought it had merit, perhaps in altered form. She stepped back from that question to say that she did not think the Social Security system is in crisis, would appoint a bipartisan commission as president to make recommendations for a long-term fix, would not talk about specific ideas during the campaign and would resist doing so as president until the commission offered up its proposals.

A few days later, she shared with Bowman her thoughts about the Edwards idea. Her receptivity to subjecting more earnings to payroll taxes was not entirely a surprise. There have been hints from her camp that she was at least open to the kind of donut strategy Edwards had outlined, but with a different income level as a trigger for resuming payroll taxes.

That continued her twisting path that included a stop in Boston in early September in which she was quite explicit about what she would not accept as part of solution to fixing the government retirement program's long-term financial problems. At a forum there, she made a point of differentiating herself from rival Barack Obama, who had said earlier this year that everything should be on the table when it comes to dealing with the problem.

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Her selectivity suggests that she has real views about the system that would shape her policies if she ever becomes president -- unless she is truly prepared to accept whatever her bipartisan commission proposes. One of the values of talking about those ideas in a presidential campaign is to begin to build public support for them. Instead, Clinton has engaged in an on-again, off-again conversation that appears more designed to suit her own purposes. She owes voters more than that.

http://blog.washingtonpost.com/the-trail/2007/10/24/post_148.html#more

[still_one]

1. clear as mud /nt

[madfloridian]

2. I posted this, which is the Dream Initiative from the DLC

of which she was in charge. She put it together.

I questioned the way the Social Security section was worded, and I am still recovering from my bruises.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=132&topic_id=3629987

We really need to question this. I feel these think tanks do plan to gradually privatize Social Security, but have learned not to say that word. If they do that it will at once mean less money for those already in the system.

We need to question it.

[antigop]

3. I agree. Look at the Wall Street money. n/t

[AtomicKitten]

4. "deliberately vague" is wearing thin

[rinsd]

5. Remove the cap, Hillary. Simple as that.