Sometimes, one small action can signal an important political shift on a topic. That happened this week with a brief but impactful utterance from Rep. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland.
"You don't save Social Security by cutting Social Security."
That charge came from Van Hollen at a press conference Wednesday for the
introduction of a bill that would expand Social Security while also shoring it up for the next 75 years, mainly by raising taxes on people with a yearly income of more than $400,000.
It was a very different statement from the one Van Hollen gave Bloomberg Business in 2012 when he endorsed an agreement that sought to cut Social Security (among other programs) in order to "save" it.
"That mix of cuts, but also revenue, is the right way to go," the Maryland lawmaker said.
So what's changed in the last several years?
First—and not to be underestimated—Van Hollen has just thrown his hat in the ring to replace Democratic Sen. Barbara Mikulski, who recently announced her retirement in 2017 from a seat she has held since 1987. Senate seats don't open up very often and Van Hollen wants it bad. And in many ways, he more or less became the Democratic establishment candidate for that seat when Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid officially endorsed his run earlier this month.
But Van Hollen isn't the only person eyeing that seat. Rep. Donna Edwards (MD-4) is also running and she has never wavered on Social Security, which is one reason among many that Daily Kos has endorsed her candidacy. So the fact that Van Hollen is facing a primary against an opponent who has a far stronger track record on the need to expand Social Security clearly helped engineer his change in attitude.
For more on Van Hollen's shift, head below the fold.
Second, progressive groups have been pounding away at Van Hollen ever since he began signaling that he was part of a group of Democratic lawmakers who were willing to bargain away Social Security benefits in negotiations with Republicans. This was a mindset that developed around the "grand bargain" talks between President Obama and Speaker John Boehner in 2011 that would have traded cuts in benefits like Social Security and Medicare (the Democratic compromise) for tax increases to help raise revenue (the Republican compromise) in order to reduce the national deficit.
Those talks basically blew up in Obama's face, though he repeatedly signaled a willingness in subsequent years to cut benefits on the way to reaching a deal. Republicans never took him up on that offer (thank goodness, or it might be law today) and Obama finally dropped it from his budget proposal last year.
So when Van Hollen announced his candidacy for Senate, those same progressive groups—CREDO, MoveOn.org, Democracy for America and the Progressive Change Campaign Committee—weighed in again, calling for Van Hollen to "draw a line in the sand" and "make clear that he no longer supports cutting Social Security benefits."
In some ways, Van Hollen's shift is a more decisive victory than Obama finally removing the cuts from his proposed budget. It signals that a Democratic establishment candidate thought supporting benefit cuts was so problematic from an electoral standpoint, that he changed his position. (Obama presumably dropped it because it so angered his left flank that it wasn't worth the headache since Republicans proved they'd never compromise anyway.)
It also means that whoever ultimately wins the Maryland Senate seat will be on record supporting an expansion to Social Security rather than cuts, though it's worth noting that Van Hollen still hasn't definitively pledged that he would never cut Social Security. Still, no Democrat who enters the race will dare run to the right of the establishment candidate on the issue and it’s hard to imagine a Republican winning that statewide seat in a presidential election year (even given Republican Gary Hogan's upset win against Democrat Anthony Brown in Maryland's gubernatorial race last year).
Van Hollen's statement this week is proof positive that progressives have not only changed the conversation in Washington around Social Security, they have also changed the electoral calculation of Democratic candidates.
And much of that change began with a progressive blogger who refused to accept Washington's slow drift toward cutting Social Security benefits: Dustin Duncan Black (aka Atrios). So it only seems fitting to end with one of Black’s rallying cries from a 2013 USA Today column.
We need an across the board increase in Social Security retirement benefits of 20% or more. We need it to happen right now, even if that means raising taxes on high incomes or removing the salary cap in Social Security taxes.