DEALING WITH THE DEVIL. Josh Marshall hints that some dastardly Democrat is contemplating a deal with Lindsey Graham wherein "current payroll tax revenues are left in place for now and private accounts are funded in whole or in part from new payroll tax revenues generated by raising or even lifting the payroll tax cap." This is a moderately bad idea on policy terms, and a simply terrible political idea.
Most crucially, the House Republican leadership has already ruled it out. Thus, the only possible effect of brokering a compromise of this sort with moderate Senate Republicans would be to create a conference committee in which whatever concessions the GOP makes to turncoat Democrats will be purged from the bill. Then, having already conceded the high ground on the need to "do something" and on the point that the "something" ought to involve private accounts, turncoat Democrats will be forced to argue that the only problem with the conference report on the phase-out is that it doesn't raise taxes. This will, at best, transform a political winner for the Democrats into a political loser and, at worst, lead to the passage of a bad phase-out bill.
Democrats are winning this fight, and should accept nothing less than surrender. Once the GOP has given up on phasing out the plan, we can either start a serious conversation about finding a balanced approach to Social Security reform, or else move on to addressing more pressing fiscal issues. Until then, trying to compromise with a party that knows no procedural or ethical restraints on its conduct and that's led by a president who's apparently hell-bent on destroying Social Security is a losing deal.
and then this from Josh Marshall:
The real bottom line in this article, however, is the crew of Dems eager to toss a life-line to the president just as the American people are turning hard against phase-out. Take Rep. Shaw's possible compromise deal, as described in the Post: Republicans give Dems some of their add-on accounts and in return the president agrees to phase-out less of Social Security than he initially wanted -- 2 percent of payroll rather than 4 percent.
Such a deal! Republicans at their town halls are getting treated like off-pitch singers on the Gong Show and the Democrats should cut a phase-out deal that gives the president what until a couple months ago was supposed to be all that he wanted (i.e., 2 percent of payroll)?
Whoever these Fainthearted Dems might be, please pass a law barring them from negotiating the price of their next automobile, right? I mean, maybe they think Enron stock is undervalued too and primed for a comeback.
and then, just shut the hell up.