The New Republic

If I were a congressional Republican, the thing I'd worry about most
is ... well, the thing I'd worry about most is the unwritten rule
requiring me to get a really bad haircut. But the second thing I'd
worry about is why my party's leadership keeps lying to me about
the politics of Social Security. My most recent cause for concern
would have been a closed-door meeting between Republican National
Committee Chairman Ken Mehlman and Republican senators last
Tuesday. (No lowly House member I.) One person in attendance told
the congressional newspaper Roll Call that Mehlman claimed the
president's "practical experience" had taught him Social Security
privatization "is good politics and policy." "The water is good.
Jump in," is how the source characterized Mehlman's take on the
matter.Being a faithful Republican senator, I'd want to believe Mehlman
with all my heart. But I'd also worry that privatization could be a
much, much worse issue for the GOP than anyone, Republican or
Democrat, has suggested.

Karl Rove likes to say that no Republican incumbent has lost a seat
in the last six years thanks to privatization. But that claim only
really applies to one person: Louisiana Senator David Vitter. He's
pretty much the only Republican congressional candidate who has run
on a bona fide privatization proposal--that is, diverting Social
Security revenue into private accounts and cutting benefits or
raising taxes to fund the transition costs. And Vitter didn't even
endorse benefit cuts; he just didn't disavow them. (South Carolina
Senator Jim DeMint wasn't in a competitive race until privatization
and tax reform became issues.)

Just about every other Republican in an even vaguely competitive
race has punted. South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham, frequently
cited as evidence of Rove's point, promised not to cut benefits
during his 2002 campaign. "Everybody gets guaranteed their check,"
he said on "Meet the Press." The most specific Bush ever got on the
campaign trail was a vague sentence in the middle of a gauzy riff
on ownership, as when he announced at the Republican convention,
"We must strengthen Social Security by allowing younger workers to
save some of their taxes in a personal account--a nest egg you can
call your own." Proposing to give voters a nest egg without
mentioning the attendant benefit cuts is a bit like promising
voters an endless supply of beer without mentioning the attendant
love handles. In neither case does it take account of the heavily
back-loaded costs.

But, of course, it's the prospect of lower benefits, not
privatization per se, that gives Social Security its "third-rail"
reputation. Just ask the 26 House Republicans looking for work in
November of 1982, six months after Ronald Reagan proposed cutting
Social Security benefits by $40 billion over three years--and
Democrats wrapped it around their necks. (Privatization wasn't on
many people's radar screens back in the early '80s.)

Republicans argue that, thanks to the dramatic rise of stock
ownership since 1982, the landscape for privatization has improved.
There may be some truth to that. But, in other ways, the landscape
has gotten worse. A recent Gallup poll found that people making
$30,000 to $50,000 per year oppose privatization by 19 points;
people making more than $75,000 support it, though only 49 to 47
percent. That difference in the margin is important; it suggests
working-class people oppose privatization much more passionately
than affluent voters support it.

And that would make sense. An affluent voter knows he's going to
retire in relative comfort whether or not Social Security is
privatized; for a voter who sees Social Security as his main source
of retirement income, the prospect of exchanging private accounts
for benefit cuts is pretty alarming. Recall here the political
price congressional Republicans paid when they merely flirted with
"slowing the growth" of Medicare in the mid-'90s. Put it all
together, and it seems possible, even likely, that the practical
effect of Social Security privatization would be to reverse the
now-familiar trend of working-class voters ranking social issues
above economics--a trend essential for maintaining a Republican
majority in Congress.

But don't take my word for it. Just look at the House Republicans
who have expressed reservations about privatization either this
year or in the past. (The blogger Joshua Micah Marshall has placed
most of them on a list he dubs the "conscience caucus.") By my
count, roughly half of the more than two-dozen skeptics represent
large working-class areas. Among them are Candice Miller, whose
district includes Macomb County, Michigan (home of the original
"Reagan Democrats"); Mark Green, Geoff Davis, and Shelley Moore
Capito, who represent important blue-collar constituencies in
Wisconsin, Kentucky, and West Virginia; and Mike Rogers, who hails
from an economically marginal district in Alabama.

Perhaps the most illuminating example is a freshman Republican from
Louisiana named Charles Boustany. Boustany's district boasts a large
conservative Catholic population that tilts rightward on social
issues. But it has traditionally leaned populist on economic
issues; his predecessor, the four- term Democrat Chris John, often
voted the protectionist line on trade. On the campaign trail in
2004, Boustany played up his opposition to abortion and gay
marriage and to cutting Social Security. Later he laid out four
"principles" on the issue: no privatization, no raising the
retirement age, no benefit cuts, and no payroll tax increases.

People like Boustany may be only the tip of the iceberg. A 2001
study by the National Committee for an Effective Congress found
that, of the 88 congressional districts that Republicans won from
Democrats between 1994 and 2000, 59 had incomes below the national
average. Among the 46 seats that Democrats won from Republicans, 29
had incomes above the national average. If Republicans move ahead
with privatization, we're likely to see Democrats win back a big
chunk of the voters who abandoned them in the '90s--the kinds of
voters who live in Boustany's district--without losing many of the
affluent voters they've picked up. (Marshall's "fainthearted
faction"--Democrats sympathetic to privatization--only contains
five House members.) Why Bush would want to risk this kind of
realignment is beyond me. But, then, hypothetical Republican
senators don't get a say in these matters.

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