Another Bush betrayal
"The Social Security surplus is off-limits, off-budget, and will not
be touched.''
"It took the first President Bush three years to break his promise; the second hasdone it in less than a year. More important, the elder Bush was moving in the right policy direction, while the current president is pursuing a course that grows more dangerous as the baby boom generation approaches retirement age."
A BOSTON GLOBE EDITORIAL
8/29/2001
POLITICIANS SHOULD think twice before attaching vivid images to
campaign promises.
In 1991, when President George Bush supported a sensible tax increase to help an
ailing economy, he was forced to confront daily reminders of his famous ''Read my
lips: No new taxes'' campaign pledge.
Now his son, President George W. Bush, is deservedly losing the argument over
the nation's budget surplus, which has rapidly disappeared. The Congressional
Budget Office said yesterday that this will require the government to siphon $9
billion from the Social Security Trust Fund this year. Part of the difficulty for Bush is
that he was so vehement about his commitment to keep the Social Security
contributions inviolate.
''We must protect Social Security benefits for those who receive them'' and
''reserve the Social Security surplus for Social Security itself,'' he told the Greater
Des Moines Chamber of Commerce in December 1999.
His campaign policy book, ''A Fresh Start for America,'' was even stronger.
''Governor Bush is committed to ensuring that all of Social Security's money is
preserved for Social Security,'' it said. ''That is why he is a strong supporter of
Social Security `lock box' legislation, which would wall off the Social Security
surplus from the rest of the budget.... Thus, as president, Governor Bush would
finance his tax cuts exclusively out of the `on-budget' or non-Social Security
surplus.''
The image was adopted by the Republican platform last year: ''That's what we
mean by lock box: The Social Security surplus is off-limits, off-budget, and will not
be touched.''
It took the first President Bush three years to break his promise; the second has
done it in less than a year. More important, the elder Bush was moving in the right
policy direction, while the current president is pursuing a course that grows more
dangerous as the baby boom generation approaches retirement age.
Bush's own estimate last week, from his Office of Management and Budget, was
for an operating surplus of $1 billion. But the nonpartisan Congressional Budget
Office has a better record, and besides, it is official - Congress must use its
estimates in passing appropriations measures.
This week, the OMB director, Mitch Daniels, has been put in the awkward
position of minimizing the importance of the lock box proposal and touting the fact
that there is still a significant overall surplus if Social Security and Medicare
payments are lumped in with other revenues - exactly opposite to what Bush
argued, rightly, as a candidate.
Republicans have tried to blame Democratic spending, but the CBO concluded
that two-thirds of the decline in the surplus estimate came from Bush's tax cut. And
it is Bush who is seeking $18 billion more for the Pentagon.
With these projections, Congress should consider slowing Bush's overlarge,
over-promised tax cut.
This story ran on page A24 of the Boston Globe on 8/29/2001.
© Copyright 2001 Globe Newspaper Company. |
