Squandering
Social Security would seem like a natural issue for the Democrats. Their party created this popular and successful program, after all, and Democrats led the fight to thwart George W. Bush's unpopular and potentially disastrous privatization plan.
But in recent years Democrats have had a knack for giving away the advantages Social Security brings to their party. That's what happened in 2010, after two years of equivocation and deficit-reduction obsession from President Obama squandered their good will on this issue.
Polling figures from that time tell the story: a 20-point advantage on Social Security in 2005 had been turned into a disadvantage of several points by the time the 2010 election rolled around. That's the year the ever-cynical and ever-inventive Republicans invented something called the "Seniors' Bill Of Rights," ran to the rhetorical left of Democrats on Medicare and Social Security -- and recaptured the House.
Changing Places
How is this year shaping up for Democrats? Secretary Clinton had this to say when asked this week about Social Security:
"I think there will be some big political arguments about Social Security. And my only question to everybody who thinks we can privatize Social Security or undermine it in some way -- (is) what is going to happen to all these people? ... It's just wrong."
While that's a firmer defense of the program than she offered in 2008, it's not likely to satisfy voters on the left -- or across the political spectrum. They're likely to remember that Barack Obama offered similar reassurances in 2008, only to reverse himself once elected.
Obama the campaigner talked of lifting the payroll tax cap to protect the program, while then-Senator Clinton said "I don't want to raise taxes on anybody." Clinton called lifting the cap "a one trillion dollar tax increase" and said "I am for getting back to fiscal responsibility." She talked of a plan to "rein in the budget" -- that is, to impose benefit cuts -- and proposed a "bipartisan commission" to ensure that the program was "solvent."
We know what happened next. Obama won the nomination and the presidency. He then pivoted to Clinton's approach, by convening a bipartisan "deficit commission" empowered to look at Social Security (Social Security does not contribute to the deficit) and appointing two longtime benefit-cut advocates to co-chair it.
These reversals may give rise to greater voter skepticism this time around.
Where The Voters Are
That means generalities and vague reassurances are less likely to be effective this year, especially when Social Security has become such a hot political issue. An endorsement of its expansion represents a firmer, more concrete commitment to the program. And expansion isn't just a nod to the "Warren wing" of the party, as pundits have suggested. It's also a nod to voters across the political spectrum.
Social Security expansion has "overwhelming" support, regardless of party affiliation, according to political consultant Celinda Lake. Lake's research on this issue showed that 90 percent of Democrats, 73 percent of Republicans, and 73 percent of independents support "increasing Social Security benefits and paying for that increase by having wealthy Americans pay the same rate into Social Security as everybody else."
To her credit, Secretary Clinton has been talking a lot about wealth inequality this time around. But how is that problem addressed? One concrete way is by increasing Social Security benefits.
Where The Party Is
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