On American politics and our entitlement programs
Last Friday, Donald Trump recorded a video, saying, “Under no circumstances should Republicans vote to cut a single penny from Medicare or Social Security to help pay for Joe Biden’s reckless spending spree, which is more reckless than anybody’s ever done or had in the history of our country.”
Here is a slice of a report in The Hill:
The former president, who in November launched a 2024 White House campaign, called for cuts to a slew of other areas, including funding for “corrupt foreign countries,” “climate extremism,” “left-wing gender programs from our military” and “waste, fraud and abuse everywhere we can find it.”
The Hill further said,
He lambasted Biden’s spending agenda, though the national debt increased by roughly $7 trillion during the Trump administration.
For reality about the federal budget — where the money is; what might be done — I recommend a piece by Kevin D. Williamson published at The Dispatch on Thursday: “There Is No Painless Way to Balance the Budget: ‘Taxing the rich’ and cutting ‘woke’ programs won’t come close to getting the job done.”
On Twitter, J.D. Vance, the new senator from Ohio, and a leading figure on the Trump right, responded to Trump’s video, saying, “Trump is 100 percent correct.”
I think back to 2016 — the GOP presidential primaries of that year. There were 17 candidates. Fifteen of them acknowledged the need for entitlement reform. A crisis, they said, needed to be averted. The other two were Donald Trump and Mike Huckabee.
Trump said that the government needed to ferret out “waste, fraud, and abuse.” The Democrats had been falling back on the “waste, fraud, and abuse” line for years. The Republicans laughed at them, in those days. “Waste, fraud, and abuse” was just a dodge by people who refused to get serious on spending.
In a column earlier this month, I wrote,
When it comes to defense spending, I can hear a new line developing on the right: “There’s a lot of woke in that budget. There’s a lot of waste, fraud, and abuse.” This is what Larry Kudlow said on Fox. I think we will hear a lot more of this in the months and years ahead. What will the Democrats be arguing? Current political times are dizzying.
Back to the 2016 presidential primaries. Trump was one of the candidates who ruled out entitlement reform, and Huckabee was the other. His line was different from Trump’s, however. Huckabee said that America had promised its citizens that they would have Social Security, when the time came. They had “paid into the system.” They were owed their money “back.”
As I wrote in a 2019 article,
He did not really disagree with George W. Bush, the great Social Security reformer, or would-be reformer. Bush said over and over that his reforms would not affect people counting on their Social Security. He said that anyone could opt to remain in the current system. But he wanted to give younger workers different options — because those workers, not without reason, were doubtful that Social Security would be there for them.
In his presidential campaign of 2000, Bush would say, “I’m runnin’ for a reason.” He said that again and again. He usually said it in the context of entitlement reform. You were not supposed to touch Social Security, in particular. It was “the third rail of American politics.” Touch it, and you would fry.
Nonetheless, Bush was “runnin’ for a reason.” He wanted to get things done — important and necessary things, as he saw them. These very much included entitlement reform.
Let me quote from a New York Times report, published in May 2000:
Casting the overhaul of the Social Security system as a “test of presidential candidates,” Gov. George W. Bush today proposed a fundamental change in the retirement system that would allow workers to choose how to invest some of their payroll taxes. . . .
Mr. Bush also embraced a bipartisan proposal for Medicare that would reshape it by giving beneficiaries fixed amounts of money to choose from various health plans.
Bush’s opponent in the presidential race, Vice President Al Gore, opposed Bush’s ideas mightily. Said the report I have been quoting, “The sharp debate comes at a time when demographic changes will soon threaten the solvency of Social Security.”
One more chunk:
“I am here with a message for America and to put my opponent on notice,” Mr. Bush said. “The days of spreading fear and panic are over. The days of delaying, dividing, demagoguing are over. When I am elected, this generation and this president will solve Social Security.”
He said that President Clinton and Mr. Gore had squandered eight years when they could have addressed the problems posed by the baby boomers. “At a time for leadership, for long-term thinking, my opponent proposes a Band-Aid approach,” Mr. Bush said. “He says and I quote, ‘If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.’ But in the lifetime of some people in this room, it will be broke and we must fix it. With every day of delay this becomes more difficult.”
That tells you a lot about the tenor of the times, or at least of that Bush campaign.
In 2000, I was the managing editor of National Review, but I took a leave of absence in the last six weeks of the presidential race. The reason: to assist the speechwriting team of the Bush campaign.
A few days before the election, Bush committed a gaffe. I will quote from a Washington Post report on November 4:
Defending his plan to allow younger workers to divert a portion of the Social Security payroll taxes they pay into private retirement accounts, Bush said, “This frightens some in Washington because they want the federal government controlling Social Security, like it’s some kind of federal program.”
It is a federal program, of course. But I knew exactly what Bush meant (and I suspect his hearers did, too): Social Security is different, in that workers pay into the program, expecting that this money is an investment, which will pay off in the form of a healthy pension. Social Security is different from, say, welfare.
In any case, Gore went to town on Bush’s gaffe, naturally. And the chairman of the Democratic National Committee, Joe Andrew, was explicit: He said that his party would “fry” Bush on the third rail. Much of the frying was done in Florida, Land of Senior Citizens. On Election Night, Florida was essentially tied, between Bush and Gore. The race wasn’t settled until mid-December.
Bush was elected by the skin of his teeth. But he was sworn in on January 20, and he was ambitious. He had been “runnin’ for a reason.” One of the things he said in his inaugural address was, “We will reform Social Security and Medicare, sparing our children from struggles we have the power to prevent.”
In Bush’s mind, entitlement reform was not merely a budgetary or housekeeping issue; it was a moral one. There was a responsibility, thought Bush.
During the first term, Bush & Co. did not do much about entitlements. They were preoccupied with something unexpected: the War on Terror. Bush was reelected in 2004. And he decided to spend the first part of his second term on entitlement reform. “I am spending my political capital,” he said — the capital earned from his reelection.
He hit the stump — a policy stump — doing event after event. I covered one, in Maryland. (Bush was with an ally, the Maryland governor Robert Ehrlich). The campaign went nowhere. Bush had very little support. The Democrats were against him, of course. And the Republican politicians hung back. If they touched the third rail, would they be denied reelection, which is the No. 1 goal of almost every officeholder?
The pols, I could understand. But the “conservative movement” — the groups, the media outlets — was not supportive either. The movement was not hostile, mind you; but it was not especially vocal. This was a bit of a puzzler. Conservatives had been crying for reform for ages.
There’s an old saying: “No one will fix the roof while the sun is shining.” No, people wait until a storm comes, then they scramble up onto the roof, for a desperate repair. I believe that something like this will happen with Social Security and Medicare. The public won’t budge until our backs are against the wall. Until the house is swamped by the storm.
And make no mistake: The politicians follow the public. Leaders are thin on the ground. “Followership” is much more common than leadership. A leader will say, “This is what we need to do, though you may not want to do it.” How many people are willing to say that?
I admire George W. Bush for his reform efforts. I think he will be regarded as ahead of his time.
There will be a reckoning, soon or late. “The facts of life are conservative,” said Margaret Thatcher. I’m afraid that’s true. Math is stubborn, too. If the numbers don’t add up . . .
Another bold politician is Mitt Romney, and still another is his running mate in the 2012 presidential campaign: Paul Ryan. Romney was caustic about “kicking the can down the road” — running up our debt now and leaving future generations to face the consequences. This was “immoral,” he said. (He would, wouldn’t he?)
And you may remember an ad against Ryan. This headline, from August 2012, tells the story: “In Attack Ad, Paul Ryan Kills Grandma In Wheelchair.” (Article here.)
There is no issue more vulnerable to demagoguery than entitlements. (International trade is another such issue.) To the demagogue, it is effectively candy.
The anti-Ryan ad, by the way, was run by a left-wing group. But does the Right — today’s Right — hate Bush, Romney, and Ryan any less? The Republican Party and its associated groups have been pretty thoroughly Trumpized, Buchananized, Orbánized (take your choice).
My eyes widened at something I read in the summer of 2019: A caller to Rush Limbaugh said, “There’s gonna be a $1 trillion deficit. Trump doesn’t really care about that. He’s not really a fiscal conservative.” Rush responded, “Nobody is a fiscal conservative anymore. All this talk about concern for the deficit and the budget has been bogus for as long as it’s been around.”
In that same period, there was this, in the Washington Post: “Trump recently told West Wing aides that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) told him no politician had ever lost office for spending more money.” (Article here.)
My comment at the time: “He is a canny ol’ bird, McConnell.” He is indeed. I doubt there is anyone who knows more about how the political game is played than he (and, often, he plays it for the good).
This story, from the Daily Beast, was interesting: “Trump on Coming Debt Crisis: ‘I Won’t Be Here’ When It Blows Up.” The subheading read, “The president thinks the balancing of the nation’s books is going to, ultimately, be a future president’s problem.”
That’s what politicians do, the run of them: kick the can down the road. What happens when we run out of road?
Last Saturday, I jotted a tweet, saying,
In 2005, Bush 43 moved boldly to reform our entitlements, to save the system. He said he was using the “political capital” of his reelection to do so. He had the support of virtually no one. Today, he is regarded as a fossil. J.D. Vance et al. are “new.” Yet they are so … old.
One reply went,
Talk about “old,” it was predictable that Boomers would begin to wax nostalgic about the good old days under … W.
The reply came from Patrick Deneen, a professor of political philosophy at Notre Dame.
According to the trustees of Social Security and Medicare, the funds face insolvency, imminently. Bush and his team had ideas about how to address this problem — this crisis, really. If these are bad ideas, I am happy to hear others, from Professor Deneen or anyone else. But do we not have a responsibility?
As for this Boomer business: Bush said over and over, “The Boomers will be fine.” (I am paraphrasing.) “Boomers like me and Vice President Gore and President Clinton — our generation will be fine. The money is there. It’s the generations coming up whose pensions are in question. Don’t you think it’s incumbent on us to do something about it?”
Let me copy Professor Deneen’s tweet once more:
Talk about “old,” it was predictable that Boomers would begin to wax nostalgic about the good old days under … W.
It seems to me that Baby Boomers, and others, have various views. Some are pro-W., some are anti-W. Some are left-wing, some are right-wing. Some lean pro-market, some lean anti-market. Some are prone to nostalgia, some aren’t. Etc. People are diverse, in the various generations. I don’t think that birth year is destiny.
I wrote an essay about this in December 2019: “Boomers, Millennials, and People.” It began,
Lately, I’ve been hearing a lot of talk about generations: Millennials, Baby Boomers, Gen Xers, and so on. People like to identify themselves with generations, and others with generations, too. “As a Millennial, I feel that . . .” “As a Boomer, you obviously think that . . .”
“Shut the f*** up, Boomer!” people will say to me on Twitter. (Not all tweeters are fans, I regret to say.) According to some tables, I am part of the Baby Boom generation, and according to others, I am part of Gen X. A committee should get together and tell me, once and for all, who I am and how to be.
I quoted my friend Barbara J. Fields, the historian at Columbia U: “The habit of generational generalization shares a fallacious premise with astrology without the entertainment value.” Yes, exactly.
When it comes to our entitlement programs, I don’t think that the status quo is satisfactory, or even acceptable. If I’m wrong, I’m wrong — but it has nothing to do with nostalgia.
So, let me wax nostalgic. On Saturday night, YouTube said to me — you know how algorithms work — “Jay, would you like to see Johnny Carson in a Carnac routine?” “Why, yes, Mr. YouTube, thank you very much.” For 30 years — 1962 to 1992 — Johnny Carson was the host of The Tonight Show. One of his recurring routines — his recurring characters — was Carnac the Magnificent.
Carnac was a “mystic from the East,” who divined answers to questions before the questions were known. What Johnny would do is hold up an envelope to his head — his turban — and meditate a bit. Then he would state an answer. Then he would open the envelope, reading the question.
So, YouTube offered me the Carnac routine from January 6, 1981. See it here, and go to the 12:39 mark. Johnny holds a card to his head and says, “Pennies from heaven.” (“Pennies from Heaven” was a popular song, known to most Americans, probably.) And the question? “In the year 1990, how will the Social Security system be funded?”
As you can see, this has been a concern for a long time. And we have made it a long way past 1990: more than 30 years past. But it’s better to bite the bullet of reform than to count on pennies from heaven.