Bush Takes Social Security Plan to States

FARGO, N.D. – Facing stiff resistance, President Bush began searching state-by-state for support for his plan to overhaul Social Security and conceded Thursday that not all lawmakers believe the program has a serious problem.

“The math doesn’t work,” Bush insisted, saying Social Security would pay out more money than it brought in beginning in 2018. “And in 2042, it’s bust,” he said. That’s the year in which the system would be able to cover only about 73 percent of benefits owed unless it is changed, according to Social Security trustees.

Bush spoke at the Bison Sports Arena at North Dakota State University, the first stop on a two-day, five-state trip to try to build support for diverting Social Security revenues into private investment accounts for younger workers. The initiative would reduce guaranteed retirement benefits but create the possibility of bigger checks from stock market investments.

“We’re not going to play politics with the issue,” Bush said. “We’re going to say, `If you’ve got a good idea, come forth with your idea.’ Because now is the time to put partisanship aside and focus on saving Social Security for young workers.”

But politics played a part in his trip to North Dakota and Montana on Thursday and Nebraska, Arkansas and Florida on Friday. Each state is represented in the Senate by at least one Democrat who GOP strategists believe might back Bush’s Social Security makeover plan.

“You take what the president said in his address last night, he’s talking about more tax cuts, more spending, more borrowing for private accounts,” Kent Conrad, D-N.D., said in a telephone interview. “It doesn’t add up.”

Conrad said at least five Republican senators have approached him in the last 10 days looking to form a bipartisan group that can offer an alternative to the president’s politically risky proposal.

“The plan that’s been outlined, they know it can’t pass,” Conrad said.

In outlining his plan Wednesday night in his State of the Union address, Bush said private accounts would provide younger workers with retirement money above the check they’d get from Social Security, but he didn’t mention that the check would be smaller.

And while he mentioned that younger workers could accumulate more money in private investment accounts, he didn’t say that some would not reap more because volatility in the market would affect their nest eggs.

“I went to Congress last night and said, `I see a problem,’” Bush said Thursday.

“Some of them didn’t see the problem, evidently,” he said, possibly a reference to the hoots he received when he talked about how Social Security had a serious solvency problem. “I expect people in Congress, when they see a problem to then come up with solutions.”

“A lot of really good people on both sides of the aisle recognize that we have a problem,” Bush said. “I’m going to spend the next couple days going around the country, explaining to people as clearly as I can, the problem.”

Many Republicans are nervous about tinkering with the 70-year-old government retirement program, and Bush needs to convince them as well as skeptical Democrats.

As evidence that Bush’s plan is not a shoo-in in Congress, opponents of the idea are shadowing the president on his travels, with ads and rallies to drum up public support against the accounts.

North Dakota is the home turf of Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., who has pledged to wage an aggressive fight against the accounts. But the real focus of the president’s attention was Dorgan’s colleague, Conrad, a top ranking Democrat on the subcommittee overseeing Social Security.

In Great Falls, Mont., Bush was trying to sway Sen. Max Baucus, ranking Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee that has jurisdiction over Social Security. Before Bush arrived, Baucus held a town hall meeting in the city and said the majority of the several hundred people present opposed Bush’s plan.

“They’re against it because it undermines Social Security as they know it,” Baucus said in a telephone interview. “They’re afraid of the plan. They’re afraid of private accounts.”

Baucus said he had sided with Bush on trade legislation, the Medicare prescription drug benefit and tax cuts but was against the president’s private retirement accounts. Baucus said he was concerned about “huge benefit cuts” for future retirees and the money the government probably would borrow to pay benefits during the transition to a new system – he estimated $2 trillion.