David Sarasohn tried to highlight this point in his article titled, "For private accounts, it's a down market." Other than using the ABC poll data, which I'll get to below, the article is not that off base. I'm not saying I agree with him, or that I think private accounts are a bad idea, but Bush and the Republicans are trying their hardest to drop the ball on this one. Why aren't they separating this from real SS reform? Private accounts are a good idea, but not designed to reform SS.
Republicans need to separate this because they can embarrass the Democrats on this issue. They have generated enough buzz around the fact that SS does need to be tweaked in order to keep it flush for the foreseeable future, that if they put concrete ideas regarding just that, like tying benefits to prices or something, then they can snare any democrats who says something like "Just say no to reform of SS", as they did out in front of the Capital yesterday.
Otherwise, I agree that Bush is falling down by not pushing something more specific and Republicans are having to deal with a Wall Street that knows while private accounts might be a good thing, it's just a re-distribution of funding. The existing SS is still in trouble.
But it doesn't look like he is going to back down on separating the issue.
On a slightly separate note regarding this poll...
Bush has historically not guided his presidency by using poll data, and I think that he should continue that. One reason is the polls themselves might be biased or have a bad statistical sample. The wording of the questions often produces the poll numbers that the pollsters desire.
Take for instance this poll about the Terri Schiavo issue.
Mickey Kaus, no conservative he, was miffed:
The Shame of ABC: I hadn't realized that the surprising ABC poll about the
Schiavo case--showing overwhelming anti-tube sentiment--was so badly worded and
biased. (For one thing, it deceptively tells pollees that Terri Schiavo is on "life
support." * For another, it leads with the
flat assertion that "Doctors say she has no consciousness and her condition
is irreversible."**) Michelle Malkin and "Captain Ed" Morrissey are onto the ABC
poll. ... Malkin, Morrissey and Powerline also raise doubts about that clumsy Republican talking points memo that
ABC's Linda Douglass first trumpeted.
Powerline shines some light on this poll by ABC regarding the filibuster debate.
Sounds bad. But here is the question the pollsters asked: "Would you support
or oppose changing Senate rules to make it easier for the Republicans to confirm
Bush's judicial nominees?" That is an absurd question, to which I would probably
answer "No," too. The way the question is framed, it makes it sound like a
one-way street, as though the Republicans wanted to change the rules to benefit
only Republican nominees. If they asked a question like, "Do you think that if a
majority of Senators support confirmation of a particular nominee, that nominee
should be confirmed?" the percentages would probably reverse.
It turns out that this, as well as the data that Mr. Sarasohn is using, is all based on the same poll done by ABC. One thing that powerline noticed was the political orientation of the sample set.
Dem: 32, Rep:28, Ind:32. With a seven point swing in political party, do you think you are going to get a representative sample of opinions using that sample in a country where more republicans voted than democrats?
I didn't think so either.
Redstate noticed that the Democrats stance on this has been in a state of flux lately.
No comments:
Post a Comment