Democrats Supporting Social Security Reform

Churlish Democrats now naysaying President Bush's Social Security reform proposal should heed advice from electable leaders:

When I left office, there was enough money to keep Social Security going till 2053, enough money to keep Medicare going tail 2027, through half the life of the baby boomers. I don't know what the latest numbers are going to show but they won't be good. If we don't modify the tax cut to have more tax cuts now but we reinstate fiscal responsibility over the long run, we're going to be in real trouble there. So, what's our option? If you don't like privatizing Social Security and I don't like it very much, but you want to do something to try to increase the rate of return, what are your options? Well one thing you could do is to give people one or two percent of the payroll tax, with the same options that Federal employees have with their retirement accounts; where you have three mutual funds that almost always perform as well or better than the market and a fourth option to buy government bonds, so you get the guaranteed social security return and a hundred percent safety just like you have with Social Security.

You can't just attack the other guy's ideas unless you have something to say.

Indeed, the media agreed:

An effort "to craft a bipartisan bill to assure Social Security's solvency," says the Los Angeles Times.

"A bold move to put the future of the massive retirement program at the top of his agenda," says The Washington Post.

"They still must resolve an emotional ideological debate over whether the government should continue to take money from the working-age generation and transfer it to retirees . . . or whether Social Security should be transformed so that individuals would have more freedom and responsibility to save for their own retirements," says the New York Times.

Who was this wise man? William Jefferson Clinton.

And don't forget this endorsement:

In the important field of security for our old people, it seems necessary to adopt three principles: First, noncontributory old-age pensions for those who are now too old to build up their own insurance. It is, of course, clear that for perhaps 30 years to come funds will have to be provided by the States and the Federal Government to meet these pensions.

Second, compulsory contributory annuities that in time will establish a self-supporting system for those now young and for future generations.

Third, voluntary contributory annuities by which individual initiative can increase the annual amounts received in old age. It is proposed that the Federal Government assume one-half of the cost of the old-age pension plan, which ought ultimately to be supplanted by self-supporting annuity plans.

The speaker? The father of social security, FDR, in a January 17, 1935, Message to Congress.

Of course, the mainstream media now savages Bush without mentioning its change of heart, much less justifying the reversal.

(via Instapundit, Polipundit)