Bill Thomas Gives the Game Away

The best minds of my generation profess to being mystified by why House Ways and Means Chair Bill Thomas would declare Social Security privatization a "dead horse."

It's twisted, but not impossible to figure out. Here's the key section from the Washington Post article citing Thomas's remarks:

"Every breath that's spent on discussing that plan [the Bush privatization plan] is an attempt to lay a political ground war for the next election," Thomas said. "Save those breaths. Talk about what we need to do now that the president's plan is on the table so that we can address, in a legislative way, a solution on a bill the president could sign. That would be, I think, a positive gesture.

What Thomas was saying is exactly the point I've been trying to make: that the Bush/DeLay goal is not primarily to privatize Social Security, although they would be happy to do that if they can. Rather, the goal is to create a political dynamic over the next one to two years in which the Republicans appear the party of opportunity, ownership, dynamism, and forward thinking, while the Democrats appear to be the defenders of old, boring, inadequate safety net programs. As Gingrich said, going for the biggest privatization of Social Security has the biggest political payoff, but only if it doesn't actually become law. (If it were to become law, the global financial markets would write off our debt and we would go begging to the IMF, not an event that is likely to redound to the benefit of the party in power.)

I had some doubts about this when I made this argument a week ago, drawing on White House "resident thinker" Peter Wehner's memo to conservatives. But Thomas's comments leave no doubt. He is a prickly, stubborn, unpleasant man, but I happen to know one thing about him: He likes to legislate, not play political games. That's why he so often antagonizes his colleagues. And what he is saying here is that he knows full well that the Social Security proposal is a political game. Like Wehner, he's trying to pull them back to the zone where they might pass something. But just as Wehner's argument seemed desperate, so does Thomas's. This is not about legislating. It's about positioning. (If it all works out so well that they get Social Security privatization, that's a bonus.) And failing to recognize that game -- or at least the strong possibility that it is a game -- is a fatal mistake. Liberals might "win" on Social Security by defeating privatization, but we might easily lose the very different war of ideas.

The problem for the White House is not that they will lose the legislation. They were prepared for that. The problem is that they can't even get to the starting point of credibility on their legislation, even befor they offer it. If they can't get to the debate they want, they will lose control of the agenda, and it will disintegrate into a bunch of nutty and hugely embarassing ideas like Thomas's plan to "gender-adjust" Social Security to reduce benefits for women because they live longer. (Putting all this together, Social Security is, according to Republicans, unfair to African-Americans because they die young and too generous to widows because they live too long.) If you can remember not to panic about any of this actually becoming law, it will be highly entertaining.

This sorry game is over. The challenge for Democrats is now to drag it out, to inflict maximum pain, to drag this out at least as long as the Clinton health care debacle was drawn out.