No Social Security Plan A Tactical Masterstroke?

I had parts of President Bush's presser on while I was working yesterday evening, but I was too busy to pay a whole lot of attention to it. Press rumors yesterday afternoon were that he was finally going to put forth his formal plan to reform Social Security. This is consistent with the pretty much universal spin that the reason that Social Security reform is supposedly "sinking" is because the White House's refusal to get specific and provide leadership (i.e. political cover) for the Republican majories on Capitol Hill.

Yet Dubya didn't add anything new to that debate last night beyond a proposal to means-test Social Security benefits. Otherwise, the status quo is unchanged.

Powerline's John Hinderaker thought Bush did a "great job," even as he was less than thrilled with the means-testing idea, though willing to accept it in exchange for private accounts.

But on NRO today, Kevin Hassett turns the conventional wisdom on its head by suggesting that avoiding any Social Security reform specs is "tactically inspired":

Since Social Security is in big trouble, it is not hard to convince folks that some kind of fix is in order. Once voters are convinced, then a politician has put a tremendous amount of pressure on his opponents.

Well, according to most polls, a majority of voters are convinced that Social Security is in big trouble. On the other hand, those same polls, even adjusted for press bias, produced mixed results at best on the degree to which voters have been sold on the general theme of Bush's reform vision. That suggests that the public is persuadable, but needs to hear more specifics before they'll buy into it.

If the President is conciliatory and reasonable, then perhaps the policymakers in Washington are obstructionists if nothing happens. The President wants to work with Democrats and get something done. He has his principles, but he wants to hear theirs.

IOW, "perhaps Republicans AND Democrats are obstructionists if nothing happens." Is that the depiction the White House wants to portray?

As to "working with Democrats to get something done," that's a nonsensical pipedream absent some means of coercion, which can only come from a popularized reform plan that they oppose at their peril.

So the Democrats have two choices. They can oppose any compromise, in which case they may pay a politically price because they are the ones who are unwilling to be flexible. Or they can compromise and fix Social Security. If the President put forward a plan, the Democrats could claim that the fix did not occur because of the weakness of the plan. Without a plan, they see pressure to go to the table and work one out with their Republican colleagues. If they do not, perhaps there will be many more Tom Daschles in the next election, and then Social Security can be reformed.

Here we see the gist of Mr. Hassett's position: use Social Security as a political truncheon against the Dems in the '06 elections in lieu of actually trying to fix it now. I don't know any other way to interpret his argument, because in the context of passing a reform plan in this Congress, it makes no sense. Democrats are going to demagogue this issue with or without a plan simply because the President has made it the co-#1 domestic issue this year. But without a plan, which is the logical next step in the process, that guarantees that the minority's demagoguery can be indefinitely open-ended. Where, in this instance, does the "pressure to go to the table" and "compromise" come from? Shouldn't that "pressure" already exist after Mr. Bush spending the past few months barnstorming the country? Sure doesn't seem like it. Which is why so many of his own supporters are fretting that he hasn't put forth a formal plan.

Mr. Hassett concludes thusly:

By managing the politics in this way, President Bush has reduced the political risk associated with Social Security reform, and probably maximized the chance that something positive can happen.

I disagree. By leading with this issue so prominently, the President has raised the stakes sufficiently that he has to have something to show for it besides just having the issue again in 2006. He's got to get a reform plan passed, with personal accounts, and have that Rose Garden signing ceremony. Anything less will be a failure, and that will hand the issue to the Democrats in the next election cycle.

Having said that, I do freely acknowledge that Senate Democrats, if/when confronted with such legislation, will filibuster it to death. As with their obstruction of the President's appellate court nominees, this is a matter of political survival for them. Like the courts, Social Security is at the core of their remaining national political viability. Take that away from them and they'll have so little policy ground left to stand on as to be all but pushed off the proverbial chessboard altogether. That's why the notion of the President "wanting to work" with these people is absurd. They're not going to do that. They're never going to do that. Even if they didn't hate his guts, they would be committing ideological suicide.

The only way to ensure that the Donks would be committing political suicide would be to place them squarely in the nakedly visible position of obstructing a plan that the people want. Without a formal plan to oppose, they're free to demagogue as much as they want, cost-free.

Did GDub do a "great job" last night? Perhaps in terms of style. But without more substance, style will be rendered increasingly irrelevent - if it hasn't already.