The other co-chair of Obama's debt commission made Social Security pact with Gingrich

madfloridian

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Mon May-24-10 12:29 PM
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The other co-chair of Obama's debt commission made Social Security pact with Gingrich

Edited on Mon May-24-10 12:49 PM by madfloridian

under the Clinton administration. That would be Erskine Bowles, Clinton's Chief of Staff. The deal was made by Clinton and Bowles to work with Newt Gingrich to form a "centrist political coalition" to "fix" Social Security and Medicare.

From US News and World Report in 2008:

The Pact Between Bill Clinton and Newt Gingrich

In the evening of Oct. 28, 1997, House Speaker Newt Gingrich headed to the White House to meet with President Bill Clinton, ostensibly to hammer out final details of the 1998 budget. In reality, Gingrich and Clinton were putting finishing touches on a deal to create a centrist political coalition to fix long-term problems facing Social Security and Medicare.

..."While there were dozens of reform plans circulating around Washington, ranging from minor tinkering to radical overhaul, there was a growing consensus around "middle ground'' proposals that combined some structural changes in the retirement age with some form of private accounts. There were also hopeful signs that the public was ready for a serious discussion about Social Security reform. An August 1997 survey by Clinton pollster Mark Penn found that 73 percent of Democratic voters favored some form of privatization, and support was especially strong among younger workers. Independent polls also showed that many young people believed that without significant change the programs would not be able to provide for them in their old age.

I never heard of that poll by Mark Penn. I trust it about as much as I trust him.

But please note the words "private accounts." Do you remember how our Democrats of all shapes and sizes mobilized to fight George W. Bush when he used those words? He changed the words around, used "personal" accounts, and we still fought him and won.

The exact details would have been worked out later, but the broad outlines were clear. Gingrich was willing to give up the tax cut for a proposal that included private investment in Social Security. "The balanced budget bill was Act I,'' Gingrich reflected. "This was Act II.'' Instinctively, both men still wondered whether the other was setting a trap in preparation for the upcoming elections. Would Clinton leak word that Gingrich was once again trying to tamper with Social Security and Medicare, reinforcing his image as hostile to the old and poor? Would Gingrich tell reporters that the president was ready to accept the centerpiece of Republican proposals for Social Security: privately funded accounts?

Today it appears that the "centrist political coalition" is the "bipartisan commission" set up by President Obama.

Most of the major players on that commission are quite willing to do whatever it takes to allow private business more profit in Social Security in the future.

From CJR in March of this year:

Social Security’s Code Words: Erskine Bowles takes the stage

Those who consider themselves Social Security mavens know the name Erskine Bowles. Bill Clinton’s former chief of staff, and currently president of the University of North Carolina system, Bowles has teamed up with former Wyoming Sen. Alan Simpson to head the newly created deficit reduction commission. The president tasked the commission with finding ways to reduce the federal deficit and reforming the country’s two most popular social programs—Medicare and Social Security.

Both Simpson and Bowles are making their way back into the limelight, so it won’t be long before the media, which we know plays a good game of follow the newsmaker, will soon be covering what they say. Bloomberg began last week when it covered Bowles’s speech to the North Carolina Bankers Association’s annual Bank Directors Assembly. Like his sidekick Simpson, Bowles didn’t mince words, saying:

"We’re going to mess with Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security because if you take those off the table, you can’t get there. If we don’t make those choices, America is going to be a second-rate power, and I don’t mean in fifty years. I mean in my lifetime."

Boy does that sound dire, since Bowles already sixty-four; Simpson, for what it’s worth, is seventy-eight. A live-blog on the Web site of the Charlotte Business Journal shared more of Bowles’s thinking. “We’re going to come out of this commission not very popular. Everything is on the table,” he said.

More about Alan Simpson

Here is more on the Debt Commission and how it was designed to "insulate" those on it from any criticism by we the people who want to keep our Social Security and Medicare unprivatized.

Packing the Debt Commission

In January, pressure from a broad spectrum of activist groups killed an amendment by senators Kent Conrad, D-North Dakota, and Judd Gregg, D-New Hampshire, to create a special bipartisan commission that would submit a broad deficit-reducing plan to Congress for an up or down vote by year-end. The commission's bipartisan makeup, its procedural restrictions in Congress, and the timing of its recommendations – arriving just after the midterm elections – were all designed to insulate the decision-makers from popular pressures that might take entitlement "reform" off the table. Moreover, because the 18-member commission (10 Democrats, eight Republicans) would require 14 votes for in order to report its recommendations, giving both parties veto power, cuts to Social Security and Medicare were widely assumed to be a necessary component of any consensus. In order for the commission to accomplish anything, Democrats would have to concede such cuts to Republicans in return for tax increases.

After the defeat of the Conrad-Gregg commission, groups defending Social Security had little time to rejoice before Obama resuscitated the plan, creating the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform by executive order. While the Commission's proposals will not be limited to an up or down vote in Congress, it's otherwise exactly as Conrad-Gregg envisioned, and Pelosi and Reid have promised to put them to a vote before the end of the current session of Congress.

Obama's deficit commission is actually much older than Conrad-Gregg. Its history as a vehicle for reforming Social Security goes back to 1981, when it was given life under President Ronald Reagan as the Greenspan Commission (guess who chaired it). The commission's first act was to raise Social Security payroll taxes across the board and lower benefits via changes to cost of living adjustments. Bill Clinton revived the commission many times during the '90s, each time with a slightly new name and slightly new members, always stacked to recommend partial privatization, which critics on the left mocked as "a solution in search of a problem." But Clinton thought it politically risky to proceed with its recommendations on his own, and in a little-known chapter to that story, his chief of staff, Erskine Bowles, helped negotiate a secret pact with Newt Gingrich in late 1997 to unite behind the commission's proposals to raise the Social Security retirement age and begin privatization.

It seems like there is just no way to make our voices heard on this.

President Barack Obama signs an executive order creating the bipartisan National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, Thursday, Feb. 18, 2010, in the Diplomatic Reception Room of the White House in Washington, Thursday, Feb. 18, 2010. From left are, Vice President Joe Biden, and the co-chairs, Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak) Debt Commission