NR GETS RESULTS!

Social Security to loom large in Bush ’04 drive (Peter Savodnik, 7/09/03, The Hill)

Reforming Social Security is almost certain to figure prominently in President Bush’s reelection campaign next year, pitting pro-privatization Republicans against Democrats worried about the ups and downs of a market-based pension system.

A source close to the president’s reelection campaign said Bush will run “big time” on revamping the Social Security system, a longstanding conservative goal.

And last month White House spokesman Ari Fleischer buttressed that remark, saying Social Security reform “remains a very important priority for the president.”

Fleischer indicated that now may not be the right time for that debate, given that Congress has been preoccupied with Medicare and AIDS legislation.

Asked if the right time is after the 2004 elections, Fleischer said: “I think the president will make that judgment as he works with the congressional leaders to determine when they believe the time is right so that it can actually do more than be debated but actually can be enacted.”

Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), a member of the House Social Security Subcommittee of the Ways and Means Committee, said reform could come in the 109th Congress. “What we’d like to do is run on it … so we have moral authority to act on it in ’05,” Ryan said.

A staffer for Rep. Sam Johnson (R-Texas), who also sits on the Social Security Subcommittee, agreed. “It will be, I predict, the big issue in the presidential campaign, on domestic [issues].”

Presidential politics and overhauling Medicare have stymied any genuine reform in 2003, Ryan said. And no one expects Congress or the White House to tackle a huge entitlement program such as Social Security in 2004, an election year.

That National Review editorial is already paying dividends as President Bush is forced to advocate entitlement reform and, radically transform the entire Federal government, Compete, Or Else (John Maggs, July 11, 2003, National Journal):

The early money says that George W. Bush's primary legacy to the federal government will be his creation of the Department of Homeland Security, the largest reorganization of government resources in 50 years. Even though the government's top law enforcement agency, the FBI, was left out, and even though the department's pieces won't become an effective whole for many years, the stitching together of the Homeland Security Department is reshaping Washington -- again.

But in a decade or two, the verdict on Bush's legacy to government might well be a little different. Not because the creation of Homeland Security will seem less important, but because another Bush initiative promises to remake the government in even more fundamental ways. The president's radical aim is to eventually make upwards of 850,000 federal workers -- nearly half of the civilian workforce now protected by bureaucratic tradition and civil service rules -- compete against private contractors for their jobs every three to five years. So far, Bush has demanded that 425,000 face competition in the next few years, but he's also said that number won't be a ceiling for his administration. The administration seeks both to reduce the federal workforce by hundreds of thousands of workers and to force half of the government to justify why it should even be part of the government.

Past administrations' attempts to control the growth of government have been piecemeal -- defunding programs, or consolidating or eliminating agencies. Almost all have foundered on Capitol Hill, where committee chairmen derive power from the size of the bureaucracies they oversee. Significantly, Bush can put his plan into place through policy changes, without a moment of debate in Congress.

Not bad results for one editorial. Posted by Orrin Judd at July 11, 2003 12:55 PM