Once upon a time, even Republicans thought it was “nutty to fool around with the Social Security system.”
Those words were uttered in 1988 by George H.W. Bush during the Republican presidential primary, in which Republican candidate Pierre Samuel du Pont IV proposed 
partially privatizing Social Security, an idea that fell flat even with the GOP electorate.
But Bush II campaigned in 2000 on the issue of personal Social Security accounts and by the time he was reelected in 2004, he thought it was time to advance the idea beyond campaign rhetoric. In his 2005 State of the Union address he said:
As we fix Social Security, we also have the responsibility to make the system a better deal for younger workers. And the best way to reach that goal is through voluntary personal retirement accounts.
Thankfully, given what happened in 2008, we didn’t “fix” Social Security in the way that Bush II and other conservative Republicans wanted to. Bush’s first major failure—in 2010 the former President said it was his greatest failure—of his second term was handed to him not just by Democrats and the public, who wisely didn’t warm up to the idea, but also by legislators in his own party, legislators who controlled both houses of Congress at the time.
Well, the failures in the past haven’t deterred today’s radical Republicans from attempting to enact their privatization scheme. Paul Ryan’s original budget proposal, the so-called “Roadmap for the Future,” essentially reiterated Bush II’s 2005 idea.
And less than two weeks ago, with not nearly enough media attention, House Republicans introduced more privatize-Social Security legislation, this version with an immediate partial opt-out of Social Security and an eventual full opt-out of the system.
The bill, H.R. 2109, was introduced by the head of the House Republican campaign committee, Pete Sessions (TX). Get that? The head of the House Republican campaign committee introduced a bill that would effectively kill Social Security. How bold is that?
All of this demonstrates what Luke Fuszard at Business Insider (“How Republicans Win, Even When They Lose”) describes as the GOP’s, “remarkable capability for pat
ience in advancing its agenda.” Extremists in the party have done this by continually offering radical ideas and hoping each time that those ideas will get more mainstream support, thus moving the debate in their direction.
It’s all really beautiful, in a macabre sort of way.
Fuszard uses as his prime example of this phenomenon the once-kooky Republican ideas on tax policy and the federal budget, ideas we know today as supply-side economics. Again, once upon a time, both parties, Republicans and Democrats, agreed that tax rates and tax revenues ought to be such that the federal government could pay its bills.
How novel a notion.
But with the rise of Ronald Reagan and the Laffers, what were once fringe ideas became mainstream ideas. Fuszard summarizes them:
Drawing on Austrian thinking, supply-side economists advocated large reductions in marginal income and capital gains tax rates. The resulting federal deficits would be temporary, they argued, as lowering tax rates would raise the needed revenue by causing faster economic growth.
He notes that with the Reagan victory,
Liberated conservatives decoupled tax rates from balanced budgets and no longer had to insist on fiscal responsibility. The theory was political genius that was easily sold to the American public – all the growth with none of the sacrifice. Republicans were transformed from a balanced-budget party to a tax-cutting party. In 1981, Reagan slashed the marginal rates for the top tax bracket from 70% to 50%. Later he further reduced the rate to 28%.
The rest, as they say, is budget history. We are still living with the results of this fiscal foolishness, and Republicans, including current Republican presidential candidates, are still selling it as mainstream economic thinking.
Fuszard uses Tim Pawlenty’s “Better Deal” economic plan as an example:
According to the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center, half of Pawlenty’s $7.6 trillion in tax cuts over the next ten years would accrue to people who earn $500,000 per year or more.
There’s nothing new, unfortunately, about Republicans proposing more tax cuts for rich folks or, God help us, proposing to privatize Social Security and Medicare.
What’s new is that they can be so bold as to broadcast their intentions to the public, seemingly without much hesitation or fear.
That’s how successful their long-term strategy has been.
his gas pumped by Ozark Billy. Putnam was identified only as a “Carthage Republican,” as if his job as GOP honcho for the county was irrelevant.
