Going for Broke May Break Bush [View All]

[truthpusher]

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/06/weekinreview/06conf.html

Going for Broke May Break Bush
By NICHOLAS CONFESSORE

Published: February 6, 2005

ARELY has a domestic policy proposal so monumental come down the pike with so little obvious reason for being.

Opinion polls show no public clamor to change the Social Security system; citizens are not yet marching on the Capitol demanding that they be allowed to invest a portion of their payroll taxes in the stock market. Nor does the program face an imminent threat that demands immediate action: According to the Congressional Budget Office, the Social Security trust fund won't run out until 2052, after which payroll tax receipts will still cover 81 percent of the benefits promised senior citizens. Even many Republicans seem cool to the idea.

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"Presidents tend to attempt big things at the peak of their powers, meaning recently being elected, re-elected or in mode of momentum," says Joel Johnson, a former senior adviser in the Clinton White House. "Bush has made a few big moves that were not necessarily destined to succeed, and has had success in grinding out victories on them."

The question is whether Mr. Bush has the power to persuade Congress again. Most transformative presidents of the past have acted with the wind at their backs. When he set out to birth the New Deal, Franklin Roosevelt enjoyed high approval ratings and Congressional majorities that were gigantic by today's standards. Lyndon Johnson capitalized on the shock of President Kennedy's assassination to pass the Great Society legislation. And the public was already deeply disillusioned with détente when Ronald Reagan set out to upend American policy toward the Soviet Union.

When presidents set out to move a recalcitrant public toward their point of view, they usually took care to lay the groundwork first. Woodrow Wilson won only a 42 percent plurality in 1912, in a three-way election. When it came time to push through large-scale tariff reform through Congress in 1913, he took the radical step of appearing personally before a joint session, which no president had done since John Adams.

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http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/06/weekinreview/06conf.html