EVAN BAYH Had Some Good Comments on Social Security

[liberalpragmatist]

Personally I'm not that interested in Bayh as a presidential candidate. I think he's too centrist to define the Democratic Party. But I'm keeping open-minded and will give him a fair chance in '08. And I'd vote for him as the nominee, certainly.

Anyway, I think it's clear that after tacking right to stay popular in a VERY RED state, he's tacking left in order to make himself more acceptable to national Democrats.

His comments on Social Security were great and regardless of what you think about Bayh, I think they're a great outline with which to speak of social security:

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com

STEPHANOPOULOS: OK. Let's turn, then, to the president's agenda. In his State of the Union address Wednesday, of course the focus is going to be Iraq and Social Security reform.
And a lot of Democrats are wondering where you stand on Social Security reform. You've supported President Bush on his tax cuts. Let me ask you about these Social Security reform proposals, and there are three answers that could be: yes and no (ph).

Number one, would you support diverting the payroll tax into individual accounts?

BAYH: No, I would not, George.

And, look, the president is probably going to talk a lot about ownership and individual choice. I think those are great concepts, and I can support those -- but in addition to the current Social Security system, not as a replacement for it.

Look, you may own your home; a lot of Americans do. I bet you have insurance. Ownership and insurance have to go hand in hand.

Social Security is the insurance. Senior citizens in our country can always rely on it to make sure they're not desperately poor in their old age.

Should we have ownership and choice in addition to that? Yes, we should. But we should never do anything to undermine that insurance. That is one of the bedrock principles of our country.

[jpgray]

1. Not a bad frame there

Though such a plan doesn't make much sense--we'd take out another SS tax for personal accounts in addition to the one for the standard system?--the house insurance bit is a good frame.

[elsiesummers]

4. Gore wanted an additional account and a lockbox.

Bayh is basically saying the same thing in a better way.

A matching plan, in addition to social security, would reduce any Republican induced fears of Social Security eventually reducing benefits, would help solve the lack of US citizen saving, and would only provide an additional reward to savers (so costs only increase as American savings increase). This would probably cost less than Bush's proposed loan to transfer to privitization and Social Security bankruptcy.

Bayh is practical. Back in 2001 on MTP I just loved John Edwards' passionate arguements against the first Bush tax cut, but Bayh, in a rather unimpressive way, suggested that the tax cuts would be fine as long as budgets balanced, but should be shut down (cancelled or postponed) if they didn't. He wanted a legal balanced budget trigger mechanism attached to the tax cut. Too bad he didn't inspire on that one because it was the smartest way to argue against the first Bush tax cut - he was all for it as long as the budget is balanced. Bayh saw the writing on the wall that the tax cut would pass so was trying to create a way to stop them after the fact.

Bayh is sort of dull but he is very smart about how government actually works.

[moggie12]

2. tough, easy to understand defense of SS

Not bad at all!

[papau]

3. excellent framing of the issue- now let us get all Dem's singing that tune

:-)