Sneak Peak: Thompson Floats Social Security Fix

October 5, 2007— -- With Fred Thompson's first debate coming Tuesday, the former Tennessee senator started putting some meat on the bone Friday on the issue of Social Security.

His idea: tie the rate of growth of initial Social Security benefit levels to prices rather than to wages.

"Benefits plus inflation would probably solve the problem for 75 years," Thompson told Americans for Prosperity, a group which favors lower spending.

The non-partisan Concord Coalition called Thompson's informal proposal, which he first floated to the Des Moines Register earlier this week, "a serious idea."

In fact, if Thompson were to apply his idea to all Social Security beneficiaries, "it would slow the growth of benefits more than needed to put the program on a sustainable path over the future," according to Concord Coalition senior policy analyst Josh Gordon.

This, in turn, could open him up to the charge that his plan unnecessarily "cuts" the Social Security benefits going to the most economically vulnerable seniors.

All of this -- and more -- could come up Tuesday when Thompson joins his Republican rivals in Dearborn, Mich., for a CNBC/MSNBC/Wall Street Journal debate focused on economic issues.

Rudy vs. Hillary:

One week after Hillary Clinton floated the idea of a $5,000 Baby Bond in front of the Congressional Black Caucus, the Clinton camp seems to be moving the former first lady away from the $5,000 figure and back to the $500 figure she used while speaking to the Democratic Leadership Council in 2006.

Clinton aides tell the Wall Street Journal that she was thinking of a "long-standing legislative proposal for $500 in federally matched savings for Americans at birth, to earn returns and be tapped at adulthood."

Friday's Wall Street Journal report comes on the same day that one-time McGovern supporter Rudy Giuliani stepped up his attack on Clinton's allegedly McGovernesque ideas by releasing a "Hillary Baby Bond" graphic to the press and by pillorying her while speaking to Americans for Prosperity.

"Tell me this isn't a socialist idea," said Giuliani. "This comes out of a well-spring of thinking that has its roots in socialism."

Weekend highlight:

On Saturday, Johnson County Democrats hear from four Democratic '08ers.

Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, Bill Richardson and Chris Dodd will all be on hand for the BBQ at the Johnson County Fairgrounds.

The local Democratic Party event gets underway at 6:35 pm ET.

The kicker:

"He has zero expectation about the national press corps getting it right." --Thompson Adviser Rich Galen on Fred Thompson (shortly after Thompson canceled what was supposed to be his first DC availability as a presidential candidate).

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