2016 Postmortem

Two powerful foes secretly plot to reform Social Security and Medicare.

In the evening of Oct. 28, 1997, House Speaker Newt Gingrich headed to the White House to meet with President Bill Clinton, ostensibly to hammer out final details of the 1998 budget. In reality, Gingrich and Clinton were putting finishing touches on a deal to create a centrist political coalition to fix long-term problems facing Social Security and Medicare. In his new book, The Pact: Bill Clinton, Newt Gingrich, and the Rivalry That Defined a Generation, Steven Gillon, resident historian of the History Channel and a professor of history at the University of Oklahoma, reveals the behind-the-scenes machinations that led to the meeting and how the potentially historic effort was derailed in an instant by the Monica Lewinsky scandal.

U.S. News & World Report, May 29, 2008

While there were dozens of reform plans circulating around Washington, ranging from minor tinkering to radical overhaul, there was a growing consensus around "middle ground'' proposals that combined some structural changes in the retirement age with some form of private accounts. There were also hopeful signs that the public was ready for a serious discussion about Social Security reform. An August 1997 survey by Clinton pollster Mark Penn found that 73 percent of Democratic voters favored some form of privatization, and support was especially strong among younger workers. Independent polls also showed that many young people believed that without significant change the programs would not be able to provide for them in their old age.

SNIP...

The real problems would be on Capitol Hill, however, where the president's efforts would once again pit him against the leadership of his own party in the House. Relations between the parties were more cordial, less partisan in the Senate, making it easier to build a centrist coalition of Democrats and Republicans. In the House, Clinton hoped to bypass the party's liberal leadership and reassemble the coalition of suburban "New Democrats,'' who tended to be socially liberal but fiscally conservative, and "Blue Dogs,'' largely rural, southern conservative Democrats, who passed the balanced budget bill.

Despite being pushed by the two most powerful political figures in America, a massive overhaul of Social Security would be an uphill fight. Clinton always said that he needed at least 100 Democratic votes in the House to support a bill. Could he muster that many votes on an issue as controversial as Social Security? Could Gingrich, who had already suffered one rebellion and seen his hold on power seriously eroded, bring along enough moderate Republicans to seal the deal? All the key players—Clinton, Gingrich, Bowles, White House congressional liaison John Hilley, and Bill Archer—were cautiously optimistic. ''It wasn't crazy for them to think that if they could do the impossible and pass welfare reform and the balanced budget bill, they could do Social Security,'' reflected Bruce Reed, the president's chief domestic policy adviser.

The plan was for Clinton to make his bold initiative for reforming Social Security and Medicare the centerpiece of his State of the Union address in January 1998. Gingrich would follow the president's speech by making positive comments about the initiative. He would then ask Archer's Ways and Means Committee to make specific recommendations. Both sides would try to keep the issue off the table in the 1998 congressional elections, before pushing it through a lame-duck Congress in December. The president asked the American Association of Retired Persons and the Concord Coalition, an influential lobbying group that advocated fiscal discipline, to organize four regional forums to discuss the issue. The national ''dialogue'' would conclude with a White House conference on Social Security in December 1998—the same time that Congress would be voting on a reform proposal.

Just weeks before the State of the Union address, the administration started signaling that it would support some form of privatization. ''Given that we have to work with the Republicans, it's hard to see a plan passing without some individual account piece,'' a Clinton adviser told Business Week. Gingrich revealed his hand in a speech at a local Cobb County event. The goal was to strike a bipartisan note while positioning himself to come out in favor of Clinton's Social Security agenda. "There's no crisis, but there's a long, steady problem unless we invent a better model,'' he said.

SNIP...

http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2008/05/29/the-pact-between-bill-clinton-and-newt-gingrich?page=4

PS: You are most welcome, Dragonfli. I very much appreciate you grokking -- and standing up against the hypocrisy and all the rest.