Today, there are three stories that would make any PR person proud. “Productivity High In The House This Year, Howell Says” is the headline for the Richmond Times-Dispatch story. “Howell: GOP Agenda Is Succeeding” blares the Fredericksburg Free Lance-Star. “House Pleased So Far” says the Lynchburg News & Advance.

These stories were generated by the daily news conferences held by the House GOP. The GOP must have taken Public Relations 101. The first rule of PR is make it easy for reporters to get the story. Press conferences can do that. All the necessary quotables attend. Reporters can get the gist of how their competitors are slanting the story. (Most reporters hate to be outside the mainstream. They don’t want to run with an angle that no one else does and be considered naïve or goofy.) Press conferences are usually held early enough in the day that reporters have time to get other quotes if need be and a little more time to write. In fact, press conferences are the salvation of lazy reporters, though that I’m not suggesting the reporters of these stories are lazy. They carry the bylines of some of the state’s best journalists. [Italics indicates edit from original post.]

My point is: What’s the House Democratic agenda. How is it succeeding? How about the Senate Dems? Are they advancing an agenda and a vision?

Granted, you can argue that with a Democratic governor presenting his agenda, the Assembly Dems don’t want to appear at odds with the lame duck, not that that has stopped Congressional Republicans from opposing the president on some of his legislative plans.

Without a coordinated plan to promote the Democratic vision and agenda, Democratic House candidates are left with selling the success of the lame duck Governor while giving voters no reason to think they should vote for House Dems. The GOP appears vital, with an agenda and ideas. The Dems are missing in action.

PR Rule 2 is grab the headlines. That’s all a lot of people read. And today they will read “Productivity High,” “GOP Agenda is Succeeding,” and “House Pleased.” Only one of the stories even mentions a Democrat and none of them has a Democratic view of whether the ‘House GOP Agenda is Succeeding.”

Where’s the rapid response team for the Dems, let alone the PR machine to promote Democratic ideals and agenda?

The Dems are a long way from regaining control of the House or Senate. Barring discovery that the GOP caucus is a gay sex club, the Dems will be in the minority next year. If Lt. Gov. Kaine wins, and perhaps even if he doesn’t, the Dems may pick up a few seats. But it will be due to individual candidates running tough, smart campaigns because they get little help from the state PR machine, which must be in the shop for repair. Now is the time, with the session written about almost daily in the papers, that the Dems could be articulating their values, their success, their plans for the future.

Granted, it’s not easy when you have a Governor with high popularity ratings and a Lt. Governor whose running a campaign of his own, to promote what the Dems in the Assembly are accomplishing. But it’s not an unnavigable path. After all, calling a press conference is so easy, even Bill Howell can do it.

The Washington Post Ombudsman Michael Getler assesses fashion reporter Robin Givhan’s critique of VP Cheney’s ski attire at the anniversary ceremony of Auschwitz. She received a lot of critical mail. She did not call the VP’s office for comment. I agree with Getler’s opinion that she should have. But did anyone else find his summation odd?

My view is that the image was fair game for a fashion columnist and that Givhan’s explanation provides a look at how critics bring their critical eye to all kinds of situations in ways that often look harsh to those who disagree or disapprove. I would, however, have voted for a call to the veep’s office to see if there was some special reason for that outfit. When I tried, officials would talk only off the record. My best guess is simply that it was very cold.

One would assume that his “best guess” is better than ours as he actually talked to the VP’s office. So is his guess what was revealed “off the record”? One would certainly not be blamed for interpreting it that way. The VP’s office must be beaming. They got the ombudsman to do what he would most certainly have criticized had a reporter done it: juxtaposed two sentences that give the clear impression of what the “off the record” comments were.

Could you imagine if a reporter wrote “The president would only comment on his reasons for going to war off the record. This reporter’s best guess is that he wanted ….”?

I don’t subscribe to the Wall St. Journal any longer so I can’t link to its story about other countries’ experiences with privatizing social security . But I can give you the Reader’s Digest version, or more precisely the CJR Daily summary.

— Sweden turned to private accounts in 1991 after projections showed the system in place would eventually require a payroll tax of a staggering 36 percent. The country chose to maximize choice, but over time Swedish workers fled from so much freedom. At the start, two-thirds of Swedes patched together their own private accounts from a vast array of choices. But many got clobbered by an errant stock market, and by 2003, only eight percent of young Swedes were choosing to design their own portfolios. The government “wanted people to take control of their retirement, but people don’t seem to be interested,” says Annika Sunden, a Swedish pension expert.

— In Bolivia, which adopted private accounts eight years ago, crippling transition costs have led to a doubling of the government’s budget deficit, and the system has not been able to pay promised benefits.

— In Singapore, an extremely discretionary program allows workers to disperse their contributions among three accounts, an “ordinary” account, used for housing and education; a medical account for hospital costs, and a third account for old age and disabilities. As a result, fully ninety percent of Singapore citizens own their own homes — but payroll taxes eat up 33 percent of paychecks. In addition, many of the elderly contributed so much of their withheld pay to housing and medical accounts that they find themselves with little money in their retirement accounts — “asset-rich but cash-poor” at retirement.

— In Britain, a social security overhaul in the late 1980s was so thoroughly botched that today “a lot of people look longingly at [America’s] Social Security system,” says Stephen Yeo, a pension consultant. Late last year, the Association of British Insurers mailed six million copies of a brochure with a photo of a smiling young woman on the cover — and an advisory inside informing older people it had become “very unlikely” that the personal pensions they had chosen would match the modest payouts from a basic state pension.

— In Chile, assets in private pension accounts amount to $54 billion, equal to almost two-thirds of annual gross domestic product. Plus, since the system was imposed “at the point of a bayonet” by dictator Gen. Augusto Pinochet in 1981, investors have benefited from high interest rates and a robust stock market. From 1981 through 1995, funds returned an average of nearly 13 percent a year. But since then, annual returns have dwindled to about 6.5 percent, and investment management fees of as much as 20 percent have “taken some of the glitter” off the rose. Furthermore, despite the program’s relative success, there’s widespread evasion; only 60 percent of workers contribute, and many who do underreport wages to avoid taxes.

Dick Black’s bill designed to prevent gays from adopting has been reported to the House floor after a compromise was reached. [Disclosure] It seems the deal is that judges can ask about a couple’s homosexuality (whether it be a man and a woman, married or unmarried, as well as same-sex couples). Their reply presumably can be factor in the judge’s decision.

Deleted from Black’s original bill was: “F. No person under this statute may adopt if that person is a homosexual.” Included instead was: “C. The investigation requested by the circuit court shall include, in addition to other inquiries that the circuit court may require the child-placing agency or local director to make, inquiries as to…v) whether the petitioner is known to engage in current voluntary homosexual activity or is unmarried and cohabiting with another adult to whom he is not related by blood or marriage.”

The yes vote included some Democrats, including caucus leader Brian Moran.

YEAS–Hamilton, Purkey, Orrock, McDonnell, Nixon, O’Bannon, Welch, Marrs, Hogan, Bell, Athey, Nutter, Frederick, Janis, Spruill, Moran, Keister, Howell, A.T.–18.

NAYS–Baskerville, Sickles, Ebbin, BaCote–4.

Maybe the judges should ask what the couple’s favorite color is, as I’m sure that impacts how good they could be as adoptive parents. Or maybe the gay couple could reply, “No, we’re not currently engaged in voluntary homosexual activity, we’re answering these questions, and yes we are married — in Massachusetts.”

Virginia Progressive has been following this issue.

In my car last night I heard two interviews with people on both side of the privatizing Social Security debate. One speaker was from the libertarian Cato Institute, the other from the liberal New America Foundation.

The debate was about the “ownership society.” It seems to me that we’ve lost site of what Social Security was designed to be. The White House perspective is reflected in a comment on my post Wednesday. The writer, who I assume supports Social Security privatization, says “It’s my money! I earned it. I want to keep it.”

All the talk from the White House is about better returns and owning your money. The idea of a social contract that calls for all of us to look out for one another is dormant. Some have argued that Social Security was never meant to be a retirement plan but a retirement insurance program. I agree.

Democrats need to resurrect, in my humble opinion, a values-based argument for Social Security, instead of focusing the argument that privatization itself will do nothing to prevent bankrupting the system and will raise the national debt. That’s true and shouldn’t be ignored. Thankfully, at least my hometown newspaper, The Washington Post, is not letting readers forget that.

But this is an issue where Democrats can argue values. Social Security was never meant as a forced retirement program. It was a social contract that required every worker to put something in the kitty for those who can’t save for retirement. Proponents of privatization argue that the problem is people won’t save for retirement. Consistent with the “authoritative father” model of right wingers, this argument says that people who don’t make the right investment decisions should suffer the consequences.

There are plenty of people who recklessly spend today instead of save for tomorrow, and they are poor as well as rich. Fortunately, the latter have a lot more latitude. If you’re rich enough, there’s likely to be something left to get you through to old age. The poor won’t, of course.

But the poor — and much of the middle class — can’t save without tremendous — and it a nurturing society, untenable — sacrifices. In the worst cases, that might mean not eating. But even many middle class families will be forced to make painful decisions, such as do I save for retirement or send my kids to college?

Anyone who lives on Social Security alone is not living the high life, so it’s hard for me to imagine that there are many people who are thinking that through their productive working years they can spend freely because they’ll be on easy street with Social Security.

But what of the social contract to support those who supported us all these years? I’m thinking about the people who clean our houses, mow our lawns, serve us food and all the other jobs that do not provide a living wage, let alone offer enough to save for retirement. Until we’re willing to pay $10 for a McDonalds’s hamburger, $40 for a shirt, $200 to clean our homes, etc., they will never be able to save adequately for retirement. Social Security taxes seem a small price to pay to avoid having, as was the case just 40 or 50 years ago, 50% of the elderly being poor. (Today, it’s about 10%.) Yes, it is our money, but it’s our society, and I’d like to think it is compassionate and caring for those who’ve done the work that made the lives of those better off much easier and affordable.

I think two easy and fair ways to secure the viability of Social Security. One is to tax wages above $90,000 a year. (The former is considered by some sympathetic folks to be a bad idea politically.)

If you live to the average life expectancy, you will get back more than you put in, after inflation, and then some. But all that changes if you eliminate the cap. All of a sudden, a worker earning $120,000 is paying almost $15,000 into Social Security (compared to $10,000 with the cap), and the most he will ever get under current law is about $1300 a month. That means, in short, that he will have to be alive and retired for as long as he was working at high wages, in order to get his money back. (Both figures are in current dollars, so don’t need to be adjusted.)

I’m not in the business of feeling sorry for people who earn more than $100,000 a year, but about one-fifth of households earn more than the current FICA ceiling (although if the earnings are from two people and/or from investment income they might not be affected by removing the cap), and the experience with the estate tax shows that people can believe they will be affected by a tax even if the chances are remote. The last thing we need is a backlash from the mid- to upper-middle class.

The other viable reform is to means test benefits. With means testing, anyone who already has a retirement income above a certain amount would see their Social Security benefits decline to another level at which a person would get no benefits. To those who say “It’s my money,” as the Decembrist post states, it’s a relatively young age (I believe the early to mid-70’s) that most people exhaust the funds and accrued interest they put into Social Security. I haven’t easily found how different levels of income come out on this, but the more you encourage people to put money into private account, the more you limit how much they can benefit. What happens when the money runs out? Should people save with the assumption they live to 100. What if they plan on dying at 85 but live to 90?

The administration makes the most out of anecdotes and examples. I’d like to see Democrats parade out individuals who’ve worked hard all their lives but have little to show for it in their retirement years and who must now depend on Social Security. And the question Democrats should ask during every media interview and at every press event is what happens if private retirement investment fails? I’d ask how Enron employees feel about private investments for retirement? What does the GOP suggest we do with people whose private retirement plans fail? The federal organization that insures corporate pension plans (but not 401k plans) is now in debt. What do we do with such people? Let them starve?

It seems the response to “ownership” is “collective responsibility.”

And it wouldn’t be a bad idea if Democrats, at every opportunity, would say there wouldn’t be a problem with Social Security if it weren’t for Bush’s tax cuts because right now, we’re taking more money from the Social Security trust fund to pay for general budget items. Democrats, I think, have bought into the idea that the only way to avoid debt is to cut expenses. Such a move is sure to harm those who can least afford it.

In his online column today, Howard Kurtz of The Washington Post quoted from a National Review column by the editors on the impending selection of Howard Dean as chairman of the Democratic National Committee.

The party is displaying an unquenchable thirst for irrelevance. Several theories have been advanced in the wake of Bush’s reelection for the Democrats’ troubles: a lack of seriousness on national security; an out-of-touch liberalism on social issues; an inability to sell its message in terms that connect with ‘red state’ voters. The DNC is about to reject all these theories in favor of one of its own — all that ails the Democratic can be fixed by more of the same, only more so.

…the fact is that Dean did not run as a moderate in the Democratic primaries, when he cemented his national image as a ranter against the Iraq war and tax cuts, even before his infamous Iowa scream. He was so far left on social issues that he pledged — riffing off of Bill Clinton’s status as “the first black president” — to be the first gay president.
…Say what you will about them, at least the Clintons have always been willing to accommodate American realities enough to win elections. But, in the meantime, there will be Dean, who would represent another step by the Democrats into the quicksand of outdated orthodoxies and self-pleasing emotionalism.

I have reservations about Dean’s discipline and organizing skills. But the idea that this guy is some left-wing ideologue doesn’t seem to fit. I would argue, as many conservatives have for decades, that not engaging in unnecessary foreign entanglements, a la Iraq, and fiscal irresponsibility, a la tax cuts, is hardly left wing. It’s not even moderate. It’s conservative.

“Self-pleasing emotionalism” seems to be the calling card of conservatives. Even though the GOP has total control of the legislative and executive branches, it still trades in hyper-emotional rants against gays who want to marry and raise children and women who do not want to bring children into the world when they cannot raise them.

Since when are tolerance and nurturing “outdated orthodoxies”?

And what is a liberal?

Most of you have probably read about the battle the White House has been raging with the press to cow them into using the term personal” accounts for Social Security, because “private” accounts didn’t poll well.

Well, this morning, The Washington Post tried not to offend. All in all, “personal” won by a nose. In the article, “private” was used seven times to describe the accounts, “personal,” six, but “personal” was in the sub-head. The paper, methinks, is trying not to offend the Bushies.

Bush has apparently let it be known that those over 55 years old will not see their Social Security benefits cut. The Dmeocrats say that’s not enough. But listen to arguments of two Dems from this AP story.

Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., said, “The kind of plan the president seems to be suggesting would mean deep benefit cuts for retirees. And it would also mean massive increases in debt for the federal government. That is a bad combination.”

…”The president has to decide whether he wants to take the lead in fixing Social Security or whether he wants to take the lead in effect destroying the most successful social program in history,” said [Sen. Charles Schumer D-N.Y.], who is chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee as well as a member of the Finance Committee.

Now, of course, they could have said more that the writer did not report. But I think the first thing that needs to come out of Democrats mouth is the reason Social Security has long-term challenges are the steep tax cuts Bush put in place. Tax cuts have consequences. And one of the first seems to be that Social Security won’t be there at the same level it is today for those under 55 when you retire. In other words, the younger generation pays the price.

For those parents who think their kids will get into UVa. and get out in four years, one kid’s experience lays out the problem.

“I do not believe that we are here because those individuals who want to defend marriage brought us here,” [Sen. Stephen D. Newman (R-Lynchburg] said. “We are here because there is another element in America today that has made it very clear that going after the current definition of marriage and changing that definition of marriage is a stated goal.”

A lie is a lie is a lie. What are you defending? Mr. Newman. And gays don’t want to change the definition of marriage. They want to keep the definition the same and be able to marry. But lying is what the radical right does. Maybe they’ve discovered that the Bible promotes lying.