Republicans, a party divided

Bull Moose has an interesting post on the rifts in the Republican Party. He has several examples but the division on Social Security is perhaps the most interesting. He references this piece by Fred Barnes in the National Standard.

THERE'S A WORST CASE SCENARIO for Social Security reform that haunts the White House. It goes like this. With great fanfare, President Bush announces his plan for overhauling Social Security, creating private investment accounts for every American worker, and making the system solvent. He touts his proposal in his inauguration speech, the State of the Union address, and his budget. But when Bush unveils an actual bill--probably in February, maybe later in 2005--congressional Democrats scream that it would cut Social Security benefits by 40 percent. Worse for Bush, a number of prominent Republicans agree and criticize the president's plan, especially the benefits change. The result: Social Security reform is dead on arrival on Capitol Hill.

Democrats are a problem. On modernizing Social Security, most of them are reactionary liberals, committed to preserving an antiquated system. But at the moment, Republicans are an even bigger problem for the White House. For a reform measure to win approval in Congress, Republicans must be united. True, the conventional wisdom in Washington is that entitlement reform requires bipartisanship. With only a handful of Democrats likely to sign on, however, that won't happen. So that leaves the matter with Republicans, and they are anything but together.

There are several different Republican groups but perhaps the most interesting is:

There's a third camp, those who would do nothing on Social Security because insolvency won't be a threat for a decade or more. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay has privately questioned whether it makes sense to tackle Social Security now. After all, Republicans worked for years to gain control of Congress. Why jeopardize that by provoking a fight over Social Security?

The Bugman is showing some grasp of the political obvious. Of course insolvency of Social Security in 10 years is not the problem, that's when the trust fund will quit buying treasury bonds and start cashing them in, a problem for the general budget not Social Security. The Republicans have already shown they are willing to go against their megalomaniac "leader" and may turn out to be the ones that kill Bush's reform.