WHAT, YOU'VE NEVER HAD A SAUSAGE AT FENWAY PARK?:

Bush's Social Security plan may hinge on the House (Carl P. Leubsdorf, August 25, 2005, Dallas Morning News)

As Ronald Reagan might have put it, there they go again.

Congressional Republicans, persisting in hopes of enacting some form of private Social Security option despite opposition from the public and the Democrats, are considering the same kind of maneuver that enabled them to pass a controversial Medicare drug bill two years ago. [...]

The White House and its congressional allies have gone back and forth on whether to try to pass a Social Security bill first in the Senate or in the House.

But insufficient GOP support in the Senate Finance Committee and a solid wall of Democratic opposition that ensures enough votes to sustain a filibuster have forced them to look first to the House.

Solid Republican discipline there has enabled the party's narrow majority to prevail on vote after vote in recent years, most recently on the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA).

None had as torturous a path to enactment as the bill to create a prescription drug program. It only passed in 2003 after three hours of early morning arm twisting and the help of misleading cost estimates that soon proved to have been understated.

Because the Senate had passed a similar bill, Republicans could take the measure to a Senate-House conference. By excluding most Democrats from any role, they crafted the kind of bill they wanted in the first place.

That would appear to be their hope for private Social Security accounts – pass a bill in the House authorizing private accounts, accept any Social Security vehicle in the Senate that gets the issue to conference and write a final version letting the White House proclaim success.

Winning ugly still counts as winning.

Posted by Orrin Judd at August 25, 2005 9:04 PM