Burnt Orange Report

It's that important

By Nathan Nance

Guest post by Nate Nance

I've been focusing on Social Security the past few days because I think it is vitally important that we all understand what is sure to come up in the very near future. The Republicans have been waiting for a long time to finally go after Social Security and get rid of it, and with all three branches of the government and comfortable leads in both chambers, they finally can do it.

Josh Marshall is also thinking about Social Security and he has some ideas on strategy.

I've said before that there are two wings on this; my wing that is totally opposed to this privatization scheme and a wing that is open to privatization, like Andrew. I think the better of both worlds would be to defeat Bush's plan with a unified Democratic front, then we can talk about whether or not privatization is the way to go. I'll be more than happy to listen to the conservative element of the party when we are discussing the Democratic plan for privatization. One of the many points Andrew and I agree on is that Bush is too incompetent to carry this out in a succesful way. Better to stop him now and argue the merits later.

The question will be how to enforce discipline at the margins. And here Democrats should take a page from the Republican playbook in 1994 (on health care) and 1998 (on impeachment).

I think Democrats should consider pulling together the major funders of the party, the official committees, the major organizations, basically the entire infrastructure of the Democratic party and making clear to individual members that if they sign on to the president's plan to phase out Social Security, those various institutions and individuals won't fund their campaigns. Not in 2006, not ever.

Similar committments can come from voters, activists and volunteers. And free rein to primary challengers. If a couple folks lose their seats because of underfunding or tough primaries, so be it. (In a subsequent post, we'll discuss how this compares to what the House Republicans did in 1998).

It's that important. And there is an importance to unity on this issue that transcends the particular debate over Social Security.

There is lot's more in Josh's post, and you should read all of it. The point is, though, this is a fight we cannot lose and it is going to take all of us to do it.

This is a guest post from Nathan Nance. Nate is a sports/news clerk at the Waco Tribune-Herald and writer/editor of Common Sense a Texas-based Democratic Web log. He can be reached at nate_nance@yahoo.com.