From Sen. Smith in caucus with conscience?

Sen. Smith in caucus with conscience?
Sunday, February 13, 2005
by DAVID SARASOHN

Gordon Smith sometimes shows up in expected places.

Right now, for example, on the subject of Social Security, he appears on a list called the "Conscience Caucus," kept on a liberal Web site called Talking Points Memo. It's a tallying of "those Republicans who either oppose the president's plan or appear open to doing so," and it counts 19 House members and five senators -- with Smith the only senator west of Ohio.

Is the Conscience Caucus the accurate address for him?

"That's an appropriate conclusion," says Smith. "I have not signed up to anyone's plan.

"I'm open to the debate. I'm keeping my counsel."

Several vital parts of this debate meet in Smith. He's on the key Senate committee on the issue, Finance, along with Oregon Democrat Ron Wyden. Smith is also on the committee's Social Security subcommittee and is the new chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Aging, which held its first hearing on Social Security last week.

Accordingly, he was among a few senators invited to the White House last Monday, to play with President Bush's new dog and to get lobbied.

"We had a very wide-ranging discussion in the residence," he says. "It's nice to have a friend in the White House, but sometimes friends come to different conclusions. I'm not saying I will, but I haven't signed on to anything."

Smith can sound a lot like Bush, talking about the need to do something about Social Security quickly. He also joins the president in rejecting a solution that raises the limit on income taxed for Social Security -- now around $90,000 -- although polls show the idea has heavy support and would make a considerable impact on the system's long-term financial problems.

"I'm not open to that," says Smith. "That's a very regressive, steep tax increase, capturing the broad middle classes."

Actually, it would hit about 6 percent of wage earners -- people who have done quite well by all the rest of the administration's tax policy. Smith does have another, very early-stages idea to reduce upper-income Social Security benefits, which might save some money well down the road.

He does make one point clear that the president doesn't. In 2018, when Social Security starts paying out more than it takes in, it can draw on a multitrillion-dollar trust fund of surplus payments borrowed by the federal government, enough to pay full benefits at least to 2042, probably later.

The president hints that those resources, the U.S. bonds held in the Social Security trust fund, aren't real.

"Some in our country think that Social Security is a trust fund -- in other words, there's a pile of money being accumulated. That's just simply not true," Bush said last week, as his new budget planned to borrow another trillion in Social Security taxes. "The money -- payroll taxes going into the Social Security are spent. They're spent on benefits and they're spent on government programs. There is no trust."

Smith agrees that there is, in fact, no big pile of Social Security funds anywhere. But on the key question of whether the U.S. bonds held by Social Security are real federal obligations, his answer is, "Of course they are."

Understanding that is a good place to begin the conversation.

Last week, Smith differed with the administration on a couple of issues, increasing Bonneville Power Administration rates and cutting $45 billion from Medicaid, another entitlement issue. But neither one will have the high-powered pressure of the Social Security battle.

When Smith sets a position different from most of his party, sometimes he holds it, as on oil drilling in the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge (so far) and on gay rights. Sometimes he abandons it, as on the Clinton impeachment.

In a key position on Social Security, Smith is holding an independent stance, but President Bush will be working on the senator with lots of trips to the White House, and lots of chances to play with the new dog.

"I am clearly his friend, and I like to be helpful," says Smith about Bush, "but I answer to the people of Oregon."

As the debate goes on, and the president ramps up the pressure, the people of Oregon should keep in touch with the senator.

People drop in and out of the Conscience Caucus.

David Sarasohn, associate editor, can be reached at 503-221-8523 or [email protected]