U.S. Sen. Brian Schatz wants to make Social Security a defining issue in the Democratic primary against U.S. Rep. Colleen Hanabusa, a tactic Hanabusa contends unnecessarily alarms seniors.
In his first television advertisement, Schatz said he has stood up against cuts to Social Security on behalf of the 200,000 residents in Hawaii who receive retirement benefits, including George Kwok, his father-in-law, who has relied on the program since fading eyesight caused him to give up Kwok’s Chop Suey.
"So I understand personally how important Social Security is from a family stability standpoint," Schatz said by telephone from Washington, D.C. "And I want to make sure that we protect the program but also increase the benefits."
Hanabusa, who has also pledged to keep the promise of Social Security alive, said she has no real policy difference with Schatz on the issue. The congresswoman questions why the senator would raise Social Security so prominently at a time when benefit cuts to the popular entitlement are falling out of political favor as elements of a deficit-reduction strategy.
"Why would you make Social Security an issue when even the Republicans are not making it an issue? It’s not going to happen," Hanabusa said by phone from Washington.
Social Security — with 57 million recipients and $775 billion in benefit payments — is expected to remain solvent through 2033. The congresswoman said the underlying challenge is improving economic growth that will produce the jobs that would help preserve the entitlement.
"So why would you make an issue of it now except to scare the kupuna?" Hanabusa asked. "Why would you do that?"
Both Schatz and Hanabusa oppose raising the retirement age for Social Security or converting to an alternate Consumer Price Index, called a chained CPI, which presumes that consumers make less expensive choices when prices rise, a formula that would likely lower the annual cost-of-living adjustments to benefit payments.
But Schatz maintains there are important differences.
Schatz has co-sponsored a bill with U.S. Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, that would expand Social Security benefits. The bill would increase benefits by some $65 a month, improve the cost-of-living adjustment and remove the $117,000 wage cap — the maximum amount of taxable earnings — so that the wealthy would pay a greater share in financing the program.
The changes could extend the trust fund’s solvency to 2049.
But the bill has not moved out of the Senate Finance Committee in the year since it was introduced by Harkin and, even if it were to pass the Senate, would have no chance in the Republican-controlled U.S. House.
Another co-sponsor, U.S. Sen. Mark Begich, D-Alaska, is also campaigning on expanding Social Security in his difficult re-election battle. National progressive activists have cheered both Schatz and Begich for their boldness, although Greg Sargent, a liberal blogger for the Washington Post, noted when writing about Begich last week that the proposal is "far outside the mainstream of what appears to constitute respectable Beltway discourse on entitlements."
Schatz said the bill is part of shifting the national conversation on Social Security "to make sure that Democrats stand on core principles."
"There are certain things that we as Democrats should just never do, and I think reducing Social Security benefits is one of them," he said.
Hanabusa said she too would like to see Social Security benefits expanded. The congresswoman also favors raising the wage cap so that the wealthy would pay a greater share. But she questions whether Schatz’s bill is realistic.
"I do not believe that anybody wouldn’t want to see some kind of an increase in Social Security," she said. "The question that we’ve always had to deal with is, How do you pay for it?"
Hanabusa said, for example, that raising the wage cap may help keep the trust fund solvent longer but would not cover the increase in benefit payments.
"It would depend on how we’re going to pay for it, because I don’t want to see something else cut — like Medicare or something like that cut — to pay for another benefit," she said.
Hanabusa said she thinks "this may be more of a political statement than it is a real belief that this bill would proceed."
The second difference Schatz raises is Hanabusa’s February 2013 vote on a failed amendment by U.S. Rep. Kurt Schrader, D-Ore., that would have urged President Barack Obama to use the Simpson-Bowles deficit-reduction plan as a model to address the deficit. Hanabusa was one of 75 House lawmakers — and 54 Democrats — to support the unsuccessful amendment.
Obama had created a national commission, led by Alan Simpson, a former U.S. senator, and Erskine Bowles, a former chief of staff to President Bill Clinton, to develop a deficit-reduction strategy. The Simpson-Bowles plan contained tax reform and entitlement changes — including some cuts to Social Security — to reduce the deficit.
Hanabusa and other economically centrist Democrats in the New Democrat Coalition were open to Simpson-Bowles, but Hanabusa said she never supported the cuts to Social Security.
The National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare had urged House lawmakers to reject the Schrader amendment, arguing that Simpson-Bowles relied too heavily on benefit cuts that would hurt millions of Americans. But leading Democrats, including U.S. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and U.S. Rep. Steny Hoyer, D-Md., the minority whip, voted — like Hanabusa — for the amendment.
"I don’t believe the people that signed on to this — voted for this amendment — believe in everything Simpson-Bowles has to offer," Hanabusa said. "But it is a starting point for discussion. And it’s a discussion that was necessary."
Schatz said he would not have voted for the amendment.
"That’s not a vote I agree with. For me, Social Security is a core principle, both as a Democrat, as a senator for Hawaii, and as a son-in-law," he said. "This is personal for me. And it’s just an area where the congresswoman and I have a disagreement when it came to her vote."
Part of the rationale behind Obama’s creation of the Simpson-Bowles commission was to have a bipartisan discussion on the deficit and move beyond what had become a stalemate between Democrats who would not consider entitlement cuts in programs like Social Security and Republicans who would not entertain new tax increases.
Obama also embraced chained CPI for Social Security in an effort to win a compromise with Republicans on the deficit, a move that angered many Democrats. The president dropped chained CPI from his budget this year, but the White House has said that the proposal remains on the table for future negotiations with Republicans.
"I think we need to move away from this talk of a ‘grand bargain’ and move more towards our core principles, which are that — right now — we need to make sure everybody’s got a fair shot economically, but also that we keep our promise to seniors," Schatz said.
Hanabusa said it is odd that she would be criticized by Schatz on Simpson-Bowles, which did not pass and did not lead to any actual entitlement cuts, when Schatz voted in December for the Bipartisan Budget Act, which extended Medicare cuts and reduced the cost-of-living allowance for working-age military retirees. Hanabusa was the only one in the state’s congressional delegation to vote against the budget deal.
"We didn’t take a vote to cut Social Security," she said. "But he took a vote to cut Medicare, and that’s part of Social Security."
