Other Columns by Paul M. Weyrich
Paul M. Weyrich Bio

Printer-Friendly Version

Let's see. How does it go again? The president's Social Security plan is dead. Right? I mean popularity of individual accounts has declined in the polls and the Democrats have vowed to lie on the tracks rather than to see these private accounts enacted. So that's the end, right? I mean we know that many Republicans have backed away from the president's plan, right? So it has to be dead. If Democrats are united against it and Republicans are running from it and it isn't popular and congressmen returning from the recess say they saw no demand for changes in Social Security, it has to be dead. Right? Don't you believe a word of it.

I have watched with great interest over nearly four decades in Washington how a determined president almost always gets most or all of what he wants. Lyndon Johnson was rebuffed in the elections of 1966, the year I came to work in the U.S. Senate. By that time the Viet Nam War had grown unpopular. Inflation was rampant. Johnson himself had grown unpopular. Nevertheless, he was able to push a number of his initiatives through Congress.

Richard Nixon barely won the presidency in 1968 and he was faced with a vicious partisan Senate. Albeit with Vice President Agnew breaking tie votes, Nixon was able to get the controversial Alaska pipeline approved as well as the ABM system, which was later negotiated away by Henry Kissinger.

Gerald Ford was the first President in our history who had not been elected by the people. His pardon of President Nixon, which looked to the outside world like a quid pro quo deal, made him instantly unpopular. Yet Ford was determined to bring spending under control. He vetoed more spending bills in his short tenure than any president in modern history. Despite his obvious weaknesses all but one of his vetoes was upheld.

Jimmy Carter turned out to be a weak president. He was not popular. Giving away the Panama Canal was extremely unpopular. Still and all, Carter was able to get it done.

Ronald Reagan got his tax cuts through a very reluctant House of Representatives. George Herbert Walker Bush got his Americans with Disability Act through despite fierce opposition from his own party.

Bill Clinton did suffer a defeat with "Hillary Care." Democrats have examined how the Republicans seized the initiative by having outside groups do TV advertising. Democrats concede that when Hillary Care was defeated it caused the entire Clinton presidency to melt down.

So that is what is playing out now when it comes to Social Security. Democrats figure if they can do in the president's Social Security plan it will cripple his presidency and the Democrats will take back control of the Congress in the 2006 elections.

Close but no cigar, as Groucho Marx might have said. First, the president was in Europe when the Democrats, through the AARP and others, launched their campaign against private accounts. The Republicans were not prepared for the onslaught so the Democrats had the field for themselves for a couple of weeks.

>> Continued -- Page 1 2