FDR Stars in Bush Pitch to Alter His Safety Net

Even as he campaigns to alter one of the greatest achievements of President Franklin D. Roosevelt -- a public retirement safety net -- President Bush is speaking in increasingly positive terms about his legendary Democratic predecessor.

“Franklin Roosevelt did a good thing when he set up Social Security. It has worked,” Bush told an audience Friday morning in Memphis, Tenn., the first of two stops designed to build support for changing the system.

“And so the discussion today is not to get rid of Social Security; the discussion today is to build on what Franklin Roosevelt put in place.”

“Let me start off by telling you FDR did a good thing .... It’s helped a lot of retirees,” he said later in Shreveport, La.

Bush then argued that the system must change because “the math has changed since Franklin Roosevelt was the president.”

The president’s embrace of Roosevelt reflects the challenge facing him as he seeks to restructure the popular retirement program. Polls show that many Americans, and seniors in particular, are wary of changing what has long been a safety net against poverty in later life; and Roosevelt was the embodiment of that safety net.

Bush wants to let workers born after 1950 divert a portion of their Social Security payroll taxes into private stock and bond accounts.

Under the current system, workers and employers split the 12.4% tax on wages, which pays for current beneficiaries. Bush’s plan would allow workers to contribute a maximum of 4 percentage points to private accounts instead.

Bush says the new accounts would give Americans more “ownership” of their retirement savings, as well as an opportunity to make up for expected Social Security benefit cuts.

Opponents say that diverting tax revenue from Social Security would destabilize the system and force the government to borrow trillions of dollars to pay benefits to retirees.

Roosevelt’s legacy has already been a point of contention in the Social Security debate.

In January, his grandson, James Roosevelt Jr., publicly objected when an interest group that favored Bush’s private account plan used the late president’s image in television ads.

The younger Roosevelt, who was a senior official in the Social Security Administration during the Clinton presidency, will give the Democratic radio address today.

Many polls show public skepticism of Bush’s plan for transforming the program that FDR designed as a social compact between generations.

A survey released Friday by Associated Press showed that 56% of respondents disapproved of Bush’s handling of Social Security, compared with 37% who approved. The poll of 1,001 adults was taken March 7 to 9 and had a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

Other recent polls have found that support for Bush’s plan has declined since the president launched his sales campaign last month.

Sensing that much of the opposition, fueled by the AARP and labor unions, is coming from seniors, Bush devoted this week’s appearances to trying to soothe their fears.

At staged “conversations” with young people and hand-picked seniors who support his ideas, Bush repeatedly told audiences that he understood the “safety net” aspect of Social Security and was committed to preserving it.

Despite near-unanimous Democratic opposition in Congress, Bush is trying to show that he can relate to those in the other party. For his Memphis event Friday, he invited Rep. Harold E. Ford Jr. (D-Tenn.), who was seated in the third row.

Ford, who is running for the U.S. Senate next year, has said he opposes Bush’s approach, but he favors private accounts as an addition to the current system.

If Bush hoped to change Ford’s mind, the congressman said later he was not impressed by the event.

“That wasn’t a conversation. It was more of an echo,” said Ford, who is viewed as a potential ally by conservative backers of private accounts.

“The president didn’t allow any other points to be raised,” Ford said. “I do hope if the president continues to do this, he will allow some pointed questions to be asked. This format’s going to have to be changed for these conversations to be credible.”

Bush was interrupted several times in Memphis by hecklers, two of whom were removed by police.

Hecklers in recent days have been relatively civil, preceding their shouted comments by saying, “with all due respect, Mr. President.”

Political analysts said Friday it appeared Bush was making headway in convincing Americans that Social Security faced long-term funding problems, but that the more people learned about private investment accounts, the less they liked them.

“People agree there is need for some kind of reform of the system,” said conservative economist Bruce Bartlett, a senior fellow at the National Center for Policy Analysis. “They just don’t think they agree with what the president has proposed.”

Bush’s message, Bartlett said, was “extremely muddled and unclear and not very compelling.”

Greg Valliere, chief strategist for Stanford Washington Research Group, a political consulting firm, said it appeared Bush’s focus on the potential rewards of letting younger workers invest part of their Social Security payroll taxes in stocks and bonds was calling attention to the potential risks, as well.

“People get nervous about tying their retirement to the market. The stock market has been very volatile the last few years,” Valliere said.

“The Bush plan is really on life support right now. I’m reluctant to say it’s dead, but they haven’t made the sale. They haven’t made their case.”

Bush said he intended to continue his campaign with stops next week in Florida and the following week in Colorado, New Mexico and Arizona.

Times staff writer Warren Vieth contributed to this report.