Both Parties Rally Their Forces Over Social Security

WASHINGTON -- In rooms about 200 miles apart, the two political parties Friday firmed up the battle lines over Social Security.

President Bush sought to rally Republicans to support his plan for overhauling Social Security during an appearance at a GOP retreat in West Virginia.

In Washington, Democrats brought a big name of their own -- a Roosevelt -- to a Capitol Hill hearing designed to rebut Bush’s assertion that Social Security faced a crisis and to portray the president’s proposal as a threat to the retirement program.

The dueling events underscored the bruising fight ahead. Bush will step up his Social Security campaign in his State of the Union speech Wednesday, followed by trips to five states that he carried in November’s election but are represented by Democratic senators.

“I look forward to talking to the country about the need to address big reforms like Social Security,” Bush told about 200 House and Senate Republicans at the Greenbrier resort in White Sulphur Springs, W.Va.

He repeated his pledge to oppose an increase in Social Security taxes to shore up the system. Bush repeated his warnings about the financial problems facing Social Security as the baby boomer generation aged, and stressed the need to act.

The president is pushing a plan to allow younger workers to channel part of their Social Security payroll taxes into private investment accounts. He has argued this would give workers an opportunity to fatten their retirement nest egg while shoring up the system’s finances.

He continued Friday to steer clear of detailing crucial aspects of the plan, such as how Social Security would make up for tax money diverted from the retirement system. Critics of his proposal say that without a payroll tax increase, benefits would have to be cut or the government’s debt would increase significantly.

Some GOP lawmakers have been skittish about tinkering with the retirement system in advance of next year’s congressional elections. But several Republicans who heard Bush on Friday said they were eager to take on the issue.

Rep. Christopher Cox (R-Newport Beach) said, “So many members have been working on this problem for such a long time that there’s a great deal of enthusiasm for getting a bill and getting it done. I did not have a single person tell me, ‘Let’s not tackle this problem.’ ”

As the Republicans met, the grandson of President Franklin D. Roosevelt -- whose administration created the Social Security system as part of its response to the Great Depression -- joined an AARP official and a former Social Security administrator from the Clinton administration to criticize Bush’s proposal at a hearing called by Senate Democrats.

“Privatization threatens to bring about the collapse of the entire Social Security system,” James Roosevelt Jr. said.

Kenneth Apfel, Social Security administrator during President Clinton’s second term, contended that the program’s funding shortfall was “relatively modest and certainly manageable without drastic changes.”

Two Social Security Administration workers also appeared at the hearing to say that the agency used employees to warn the public that the system’s trust fund was expected to run dry by 2042 unless it was revamped.

“It’s not my job as an agency employee to project a political message,” said Debbie Fredericksen, a 31-year Social Security Administration worker who is a union representative in the Minneapolis office.

Social Security Commissioner Jo Anne B. Barnhart responded in a statement: “I have never, nor will I ever, ask or direct Social Security employees to promote or advance any specific proposal for Social Security reform. Our job at Social Security is to provide services and benefits and to educate the American public about the programs and finances of Social Security.”

Sen. Byron L. Dorgan (D-N.D.), who chaired the informal hearing, said the White House declined to send a speaker from the administration.

Not a single Senate Democrat has come out in support of Bush’s proposal. But the president is to travel next week to Arkansas, North Dakota, Nebraska, Florida and Montana to publicize his plan -- and presumably apply political pressure on Democratic senators from those states. As of now, these senators appeared unconcerned, despite the support Bush has enjoyed from voters in their states.

“If the president comes to Arkansas to sell his Social Security privatization plan, I hope he will abandon the typical photo op with his supporters and open his forum to all Arkansans, including those people who speak to me,” Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.) said in a statement. “There are many who are alarmed by his intentions.”

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Times staff writer Sara Clarke contributed to this report.