Evangelicals Cool to Bush's Focus on Social Security Accounts
April 19 (Bloomberg) -- Phil Burress, who helped President George W. Bush win the battleground state of Ohio last November by leading the charge among religious groups to pass a gay- marriage ban, isn't pleased with the president's focus on Social Security.
``How come he's not stumping across America defending marriage?'' said Burress, 63, an evangelical Christian and president of Citizens for Community Values in Ohio. ``Marriage is a whole lot more important than Social Security.''
Burress's dissatisfaction illustrates one of the hurdles Bush confronts by putting at the top of his second-term agenda the effort to overhaul the Social Security program and let younger workers invest their payroll taxes in private accounts.
Voters who identify themselves as conservative Christians were a crucial part of the coalition that gave Bush a second term and Republicans a bigger majority in Congress. Some evangelical leaders, though not all, now express dismay with both Bush's priorities and his Social Security proposal, which they say could hurt their predominantly working class constituency.
``We're wising up to the fact that we're very important nine months before an election and we're not very important nine days after that election,'' said Don Wildmon, 67, an ordained minister who is chairman of the American Family Association in Tupelo, Mississippi.
There is ``a lot of disappointment'' among those who voted for Bush expecting him to make his primary focus in a second term a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage and other social values issues, Wildmon said.
`Conflicted'
Then there is the matter of the private-accounts proposal itself. Many religious voters are ``conflicted about whether this is something that would be good for them and their families,'' said Gary Bauer, president of American Values, a self-described conservative religious advocacy group in Arlington, Virginia.
He cited concerns about how stay-at-home mothers would fare under a private-account system, and the loss of benefit guarantees workers now receive under the current program.
``A lot of these folks work 40-hour weeks, and over the years they see Social Security as something that helped their parents or their neighbors,'' Bauer, 58, said.
About two-thirds of Social Security beneficiaries 65 and older receive 50 percent or more of their income from the program. The 70-year-old retirement-income insurance system is the only source of income for approximately 22 percent of the elderly, according to the Social Security Administration.
Base of Support
With Democrats so far united in opposition to Bush's proposal for personal accounts carved out of Social Security taxes, and with polls showing declining public support for the president's plan and his handling of Social Security, the White House recognizes the importance of maintaining and energizing its core coalitions in this fight.
In his 60-day campaign to promote the proposal, Bush has concentrated on states such as West Virginia and Arkansas that he won in the last election and where there are higher-than-average proportions of both self-identified evangelicals and Social Security beneficiaries.
``Much of Bush's political capital comes from the fact that he has a rock-solid base that's with him on every issue,'' said Evans Witt, a nonpartisan pollster based in Washington and president of Princeton Survey Research International.
Since there is a precedent for evangelicals backing Republicans on issues with ``no obvious link'' to their agenda, Witt said, it is ``unusual'' that Bush isn't receiving more support.
Helping Reagan
When President Ronald Reagan pushed for more defense spending to develop a new intercontinental ballistic missile called the Peacekeeper, ``he got the religious right to come out behind him,'' Witt said. ``It was less because of the religious and cultural issues than because Reagan needed the support.''
A unified Republican base helped Bush in his first term pass three tax cuts totaling $1.85 trillion, a bill to require new testing standards in public schools and a prescription drug benefit under Medicare, among other items.
Not all cultural conservatives are critical of Bush's focus on Social Security over issues like gay marriage. ``I do not see that this administration has abandoned these issues,'' said Tony Perkins, president of the Washington-based Family Research Council, which promotes what it calls traditional family values.
``It may be they wanted to leverage the political capital they have off that election to move the biggest mountain they saw on the horizon,'' Perkins said.
`Great Progress'
White House spokesman Trent Duffy said Bush's Social Security drive isn't in trouble, because the president's first goal is to educate the public on the need for changes.
``The president's made great progress in the first phase of the campaign,'' he said. Regarding an amendment banning gay marriage, Duffy said the president is ``totally behind that.''
Some Christian conservatives say that's not enough. ``Which way do we go?'' said Wildmon. ``I think that's a debate that's beginning now. Without us, Republicans are going to be in pretty bad shape.''
In the November presidential election, 23 percent of U.S. voters identified themselves as evangelical or born again, according to exit polls published by CNN after the November election. Of those, 78 percent voted for Bush. Bush beat the Democratic presidential candidate, Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts, by about 2.5 percentage points.
Bush could win more support from cultural conservatives by guaranteeing that senior citizens will receive the same level of benefits under a private-account system, said Bauer. ``It would have made a lot of sense, and it would have eased some of the anxiety,'' he said. |
