Russert Targets Private Accounts as "Stumbling Block" to SS Deal --3/14/2005

1. Russert Targets Private Accounts as "Stumbling Block" to SS Deal
On Sunday's Meet the Press, Tim Russert targeted personal accounts as the impediment preventing a "deal" in Congress on Social Security. Identifying his two guests, Democratic Senator Ben Nelson and Republican Senator Lincoln Chafee, as "independent" on the Social Security reform topic, Russert pressed both about dropping the idea. To Nelson: "Should the Democrats refuse to negotiate until the President takes personal accounts off the table?" To Chafee: "Should the President take private, personal accounts off the table and focus on solvency?" Russert soon decided that in addition to GOP opposition to raising the income level subject to the Social Security tax, "the stumbling block appears to be these private or personal accounts." Russert noted Democratic intransigence on the subject, but saw Bush as the one standing in the way as he fretted: "If the President insists that it is his way, private personal accounts as part of Social Security and anything else is a non-starter, can there be a compromise?" And: "If the administration is saying that anything else other than that is a non-starter, where do you go?"

2. Time's Duffy Blames America: "Why Can't We Run a Check Point?"
Blame America First. In a discussion on Friday's Washington Week on PBS about the shooting in Iraq by U.S. soldiers, of the car carrying a freed communist Italian journalist, and her claim it was unjustified, Time magazine's Washington Bureau Chief, Michael Duffy, held the U.S. soldiers culpable for the incident which killed an Italian secret agent, demanding: "Why can't we run a check point after a year?" ABC's Martha Raddatz pointed out how witnesses said the "car was traveling in excess of 100 miles per hour" and dismissed the Italian allegations: "Certainly the U.S. troops wouldn't have shot her on purpose."

Russert Targets Private Accounts as "Stumbling
Block" to SS Deal

On Sunday's Meet the Press, Tim Russert targeted personal accounts as the impediment preventing a "deal" in Congress on Social Security. Identifying his two guests, Democratic Senator Ben Nelson and Republican Senator Lincoln Chafee, as "independent" on the Social Security reform topic, Russert pressed both about dropping the idea. To Nelson: "Should the Democrats refuse to negotiate until the President takes personal accounts off the table?" To Chafee: "Should the President take private, personal accounts off the table and focus on solvency?" Russert soon decided that in addition to GOP opposition to raising the income level subject to the Social Security tax, "the stumbling block appears to be these private or personal accounts." Russert noted Democratic intransigence on the subject, but saw Bush as the one standing in the way as he fretted: "If the President insists that it is his way, private personal accounts as part of Social Security and anything else is a non-starter, can there be a compromise?" And: "If the administration is saying that anything else other than that is a non-starter, where do you go?"

A rundown of Russert's questions to the two Senators, both of whom appeared in-studio with Russert on the March 13 program:

-- Russert: "You're considered independent, undecided. One Republican, one Democrat. Senator Chafee, Vice President Cheney said this to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, that 'the Bush re- election victory provided a mandate 'for the notion of personal retirement accounts,' and that Democrats would pay a political price among younger voters if they blocked them.' Do you believe that the President has a mandate for personal retirement accounts?"

-- Russert: "Does the President have a mandate for them because of his re-election?"
Chafee: "Well, usually when you talk about a mandate, you're talking about an overwhelming win. I don't think by any measurement the 2004 election was an overwhelming win. It was very, very close. It came down to Ohio. So I don't think he can use the word 'mandate.'"

-- Russert: "Senator Nelson, Harry Reid, the leader of the Democrats in the Senate, eleven days ago talked to the press and had this to say. Let's watch.
[Videotape from March 2. Harry Reid: "The American people do not like privatization. They are afraid of the debt the President's willing to do. And they don't like benefit cuts. And everyone here should understand all 45 Senate Democrats are united. We are not going to let this happen."]
"Are all 45 Democrats, that includes you, united against personal or private retirement accounts?"
Nelson: "Well, I'm not opposed to private accounts that don't involve heavy debt adding to the deficit or significant cuts to the benefits...."
Russert: "So then how do you pay for them?"
Nelson: "Well, I think you start first with the solvency issue and that's where you can talk about retirement age, you can talk about benefits, you can talk about increasing the cap...."

-- Russert: "But the private accounts proposed by the President do include borrowing and it is suggested by members of the White House staff would involve indexing or benefit cuts."
Nelson: "Well, that's one of the reasons why many people have really supported private accounts outside of the Social Security plan, but until we deal with the solvency issue, it's so difficult to have all of these balled together because then I think you can't sort them out and see them as distinct, different issues."

-- Russert: "Harry Reid has sent a letter to the President signed by 41 Democratic Senators which says to the President, 'We will not negotiate with you. We will not talk to you until you take private personal accounts out of Social Security off the table.' Do you agree with that?"
Nelson: "Well, I haven't said that anything should be taken off the table...."

-- Russert: "But should the Democrats refuse to negotiate until the President takes personal accounts off the table?"
Nelson: "Well, I haven't refused...."

-- Russert: "Senator Chafee, should the President take private, personal accounts off the table and focus on solvency?"
Chafee: "Well, as a member of the centrist coalition which meets every Tuesday to discuss this issue, we took kind of a pledge to have a completely open mind on all issues, but what we're learning in this centrist coalition is that there are other ways to address Social Security. As Senator Nelson mentioned, raising the caps. It's presently at $90,000. So if Tiger Woods is making $10 million a year, he's only paying that 12 percent Social Security tax on that first $90,000. That's one way. If you raise it-"
Russert jumped in: "How high should it go?"
Chafee: "Well, there's one proposal Dianne Feinstein from California is saying $140,000. Senator Graham from South Carolina saying have a doughnut hole, so it doesn't kick in until $200,000. So we can argue about that, or talk about over $90,000, it won't be 12 percent, it'll be 3 percent, 4 percent, some other percentage."
Russert: "Would you buy into lifting the cap?"
Nelson: "Well, I want to see the whole plan....In 1983 they looked at a lot of different things and they moved a lot of the parts around. That's why they dealt with some benefits, they dealt with the caps, they dealt with a lot of things including raising the retirement age, but you have to do it in the context of an entire plan. I thinks that's one of the reasons why the president said all things need to be on the table. I think they all need to be on the table particularly as it relates to solving the insolvency issue part of Social Security."

-- Russert: "But the stumbling block appears to be these private or personal accounts. And the President's top economic adviser said this, he rejected as, [text on screen] "'absolutely a non-starter' bipartisan proposals that the administration put aside its drive to create individual investment accounts in Social Security and focus first on extending the system's solvency. Allan Hubbard, in an interview Wednesday with USA Today, also dismissed a Democratic proposal that investment accounts be created to supplement Social Security, not as part of the system.'"
"If the President insists that it is his way, private personal accounts as part of Social Security and anything else is a non-starter, can there be a compromise?"
Chafee: "Well, I think we can possibly about separating it out into another argument as Senator Nelson says. Let's address Social Security and there are ways of doing this. I said raising the caps or indexing for inflation...."

-- "If the administration is saying that anything else other than that [personal accounts] is a non-starter, where do you go?"
Chafee: "Well, the debates going forward -- and it does seem as though we're at loggerheads over this -- but there's still weeks and months ahead."

-- Russert: "Senator Nelson, the Democrats are united. You may be the exception, but all the other Democrats have said, 'Mr. President, we are not negotiating until you get those accounts off the table.'"
Nelson: "Well, I guess my difference is I'd like to see the plan...."

-- Russert: "Do you believe that Democrats in the Senate understand there is a problem with Social Security solvency?"
Nelson: "Well, I think so. I think they'd like to focus on that. That's why I've addressed that first. The solvency issue is separate from the private accounts...."
Russert: "Have you told the President that he should deal with solvency first?"
Nelson: "Well, I've spoken to his people and I've told them that...."

-- Russert: "Senator Chafee, one of your Republican colleagues we talked about earlier, Lindsey Graham, who has spent weeks attempting to recruit Democratic support for a plan to restructure Social Security, said that Republicans, 'made a strategic mistake' by initially focusing on a proposal to create individual investment accounts. He said the accounts by themselves will not fix the solvency problem Social Security faces as baby boomers begin to retire. 'We've now got this huge fight over a sideshow. It's always been a sideshow, but we sold it as a main event.' Do you agree?"
Chafee: "Yes, he's making some good points, and as I said, there are other ways to address Social Security: raising the caps, indexing for inflation. These go a long way to addressing the solvency."
Russert: "But Speaker Hastert in the House, Tom DeLay, the leading Republican in the House, have said, 'We will not raise the cap. That's a tax increase. Forget about it.'"
Chafee: "It's a shame if we come to that point, because the sooner we do something, the better it is...."

-- Russert: "Joe Lieberman is also in the centrist coalition. He signed the letter saying private accounts should be taken off the table."
Chafee: "Well, let's, we took kind of a pledge of being open-minded, and he was there for that. I don't know why he signed that letter."

-- Russert: "Do you think there can be a bipartisan compromise?"
Chafee: "I have to hope...."

-- Russert: "Senator Nelson, if the President's chief economic adviser is saying 'We must have private accounts,' if Speaker Hastert and Congressman DeLay are saying, 'We will not support raising the cap, it's a tax increase,' and if 41 Democrats in the Senate are saying, 'We will not negotiate as long as there are private accounts,' where are we?"
Nelson: "Well, it sounds like a classic series of negotiations in Washington, D.C. Everybody's stating their position in the most extreme way possible...."

-- Russert: "Do you think the President made a mistake by leading with private or personal accounts?"
Nelson: "Well, I think it's, what it did is it crystallized some opposition that might not have existed to begin with...."

-- Russert: "Some Democrats are concerned that the Republicans want to co-opt the issue of Social Security, that Franklin Roosevelt created a loyal generation of Democrats because he established it, and here comes George Bush trying to reform it, which will make young Americans who invest in the market Republicans. How concerned are your Democratic colleagues that they're going to lose Social Security as a political issue?"
Nelson: "The only place I've ever heard that is when it's been asked to me by a journalist. I've not heard any of my colleagues talk about that...."

-- Russert: "Senator Chafee, I noted you invoked the name of George McGovern, and I started thinking about an article I read in the Providence Journal how you did not vote for George W. Bush for re-election. You wrote in his father's name. As a protest?"
Chafee: "Yes. On the issues that I care deeply about, the environment, Roe vs. Wade, the war in Iraq, with no weapons of mass destruction, the tax cuts that are now leading to deficits, I've got some deep issues with the President. But it's nothing personal. And so as a Republican, I support the Republican Party, but I did write in another Republican."

After some discussion about whether Chafee will switch parties and Bush's nickname for Nelson, "Benator," Russert returned to Social Security:

-- Russert: "Will we get a Social Security deal this year?"
Nelson: "If not this year, next year. But I don't think it's outside the realm of possibility yet this year."
Chafee: "I think with these caps, the longer we look at these caps, and addressing the indexing for inflation, it seems as though we can get a long way just there. They're good proposals."
Russert: "You think we're going to deal?"
Chafee: "We're going to have to work hard, really work hard on it, and then on to Medicare."

Time's Duffy Blames America: "Why Can't
We Run a Check Point?"

Blame America first. In a discussion on Friday's Washington Week on PBS about the shooting in Iraq by U.S. soldiers, of the car carrying a freed communist Italian journalist, and her claim it was unjustified, Time magazine's Washington Bureau Chief, Michael Duffy, held the U.S. soldiers culpable for the incident which killed an Italian secret agent, demanding: "Why can't we run a check point after a year?" ABC's Martha Raddatz pointed out how witnesses said the "car was traveling in excess of 100 miles per hour" and dismissed the Italian allegations: "Certainly the U.S. troops wouldn't have shot her on purpose."

The relevant exchange on the March 11 Washington Week on PBS:

Martha Raddatz: "This is one of those stories that's very tragic. The U.S. certainly says it was an accident, but the Italians kept upping the ante. The reporter, Giuliana Sgrena, suggested that the U.S. soldiers did this on purpose. So You had the military, the Pentagon, the very first day they put out a statement saying the car was approaching at a high rate of speed, it didn't stop at a check point, we followed the rules of engagement basically which were firing warning shots, giving hand signals and finally fired into the engine block. The Italians came right back and said, once again, no, they were going slow. We told everyone we were here. General George Casey, who's the commander of all troops in Iraq said there was no coordination that he knew of whatsoever, that the Italians did not tell the Americans what was going on, did not tell them they would be on that road that night. Beyond that, they are trying to do an investigation into this."
Michael Duffy, Time: "Why can't we run a check point after a year?"
Raddatz: "You know, I have to say, I have been on that particular road, which is known as the most dangerous road in Iraq, many, many times. And I've thought about it many times because the U.S. troops are necessarily in this very aggressive posture. There have been so many car bombs on that road, so many U.S. soldiers and civilians killed on that road that you drive down it and those young soldiers, when people are coming at you, you think they're going to kill you. Now this particular check point was what's called a tactical check point. They set up extra security that night because Ambassador John Negroponte was traveling on that road to go to Camp Victory to see General George Casey that night. Normally he would fly, it was apparently hailing that night so they decided to go on Route Irish and take this road. So they set up a tactical check point. Again, the soldiers say this car was traveling very quickly. I interviewed a senior official who told me he thought that car was traveling in excess of 100 miles per hour. You do drive fast on that road, again, because it's very dangerous. There are snipers, there are road-side bombs. This is something we'll have to wait and see in the end. But there has been an incredible back and forth. Certainly the U.S. troops wouldn't have shot her on purpose."

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-- Brent Baker