On the very day that a bleak jobs report exposed the feebleness of the recovery, the White House announced that the president will propose cuts in Social Security. This was designed to get Republicans to agree to negotiate a grand bargain on deficit reduction—or prove that they are obstructing a budget deal. House Speaker John Boehner's reaction immediately revealed the folly of Obama's ploy: "If the president believes these modest entitlement savings are needed to help shore up these programs, there's no reason they should be held hostage for more tax hikes."
The exchange has Republicans salivating. Cutting Social Security has now become Obama's choice, not something extorted by the GOP. This could imperil Democrats running for re-election in 2014; those who support Obama's proposal will face the wrath of seniors and a flood of Republican ads accusing them of wanting to cut Social Security. If Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid have any sense, they will organize their caucuses and pledge to oppose any deal that cuts a dime from this popular New Deal legacy.
The economics of the president's proposal are even worse than the politics. The crisis we face isn't that Social Security benefits are too generous; it is that more and more Americans lack the means for a secure retirement. Only about 15 percent of employees have traditional defined-benefit pensions at their workplace, and 55 percent have no retirement plan at all. Decades of wage stagnation and the corporate rollback of pensions have sapped worker savings.
The Wall Street wilding that produced the Great Recession and the housing collapse savaged what little wealth workers had stored in their homes, as well as their 401(k)s and IRAs. And many families are racked by job losses or medical crises that upend their finances, forcing them to pay penalties to tap into retirement accounts.