Surprising moves made in Washington on ethanol, Social Security

THE U.S. Senate voted to stop the ethanol subsidy. The AARP decided to stop screaming about Social Security benefit cuts. What's next, President Obama admitting that his stimulus plan hasn't done much actual stimulating?

He did just that the other day, joking that those shovel-ready jobs weren't as shovel-ready as hoped. Back when the stimulus was approved, we had to get out the shovels to deal with the load of bull being said about the plan.

The Wall Street Journal characterized the ethanol vote as a loaves-and-fishes moment. A miracle of biblical proportions. U.S. Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Muskogee, led the fight to stop feeding the ethanol blenders on your tax dime. But this battle isn't over.

2012 is a presidential election year. The route to the GOP nomination goes through Iowa, where King Corn still demands sacrifices at the temple. It helps that Coburn had the support of liberal Democrats and the Sierra Club. Apparently, the Pharisees and the Sadducees can be friends.

The AARP's decision on Social Security is even more miraculous, akin to turning water not just into wine but into 1945 Mouton-Rothschild. AARP has enormous clout when it comes to issues affecting seniors — as long as AARP members don't get in the way of leadership. That happened when Hillary Clinton's health care plan rolled out 1994: The association's official support for Hillarycare didn't get enough amens from the rank-and-file corner.

No such revolt happened in 2005 when President George W. Bush tried to reform Social Security. AARP treated reform like a leper. It died.

Now the AARP has decided not to join other groups in vigorously opposing Social Security benefit cuts. The shepherds have seen the light. Now they must win over the flock. What many responsible leaders such as Coburn have long recognized is that Social Security is unsustainable unless reforms are made. Ditto for Medicare.

With a new entitlement era looming (Obamacare), the reform procession is afoot. Those waving the palm leaves are not only Coburn-style fiscal Essenes, but pragmatists in the liberal ranks who also know that something must be done. But how far and for how long the AARP will lead this parade depends largely on the blowback from members and the pressure it gets from insolvency deniers.

Every modern effort to do something about entitlements has died on the vine of inertia or from ingesting the grapes of wrath. A resurrected Mediscare strategy (another gospel untruth from the Clinton era) helped elect a Democrat recently in a New York congressional district considered to be a walk on the water for Republicans. This was perhaps an anomaly. Time will tell.

Time is running out on entitlement reform. This stormy sea won't be calmed by inaction.

source: newsok