Baumbach excoriated Barney
Delaware State News.
LETTER TO THE EDITOR: Why is public so skeptical of politicians?
Sep 4th, 2016Delaware is in the midst of a primary election, with several important races with many candidates. In heated elections, candidates can use empty campaign promises. This leads voters to be skeptical of all politicians. If elected officials wish to be held to a higher standard, then, we need to speak up.
There are six Democratic candidates working to be our next Representative in Congress. (In full disclosure, I have endorsed one of them, [state] Sen. Bryan Townsend, with whom I have served in the General Assembly since 2012.) A mailer from Sean Barney, one of the three leading candidates, proposes a plan to boost annual Social Security benefits by $11,669 a year. Does that seem too good to be true? Of course it is!
This promise is irresponsible. As Mary Poppins said, it is a “pie crust promise, easily made, easily broken.” A second of his mailers notes that the other two leading candidates don’t support this plan. Of course they don’t — it is absurd!
Almost 40 million Americans receive Social Security retirement benefits. The increase being promised would cost $460 billion annually.
A newly elected freshman congressman from Delaware, amongst 434 colleagues (over 55 percent of them Republicans), plans to add $460 billion annually to the program? I find it hard to envision an emptier campaign promise. Taking advantage of senior citizens, offering them a 100-percent false hope, just to get more votes, is the sign of a very desperate candidate, and one that should not be elected.
I know this topic. I have been a professional financial adviser in Delaware since 1996. I have studied the solvency of the Social Security system, and the reports of the trust fund, to ensure that our clients understand how secure, or insecure, this portion of their retirement is. As a financial advisor, I get fired up when commentators inaccurately describe Social Security’s stability. As an elected official, I am furious when a candidate such as Sean Barney makes such dangerous campaign promises, about an issue as critical to our state and country as Social Security.
Why don’t voters believe politicians? Because some politicians don’t deserve to be believed.
State Rep. Paul S. Baumbach
D-District 23 (part of Newark, and adjacent unincorporated areas
Is he calling him out because of moral outrage or because he’s running against Townsend?
Anyone who knows Rep. Baumbach knows how much integrity he has. This is not a campaign hit job. This is the candid statement we need from politicians. Wish you could rejoin us on the wagon of optimism, AQC. Hop on.
I’m a fan of Rep. Baumbach, but he is full of it here. Social Security B is a thing and a thing that is definitely in discussion in progressive policy circles. It is meant to start addressing the massive shortfall in retirement savings (and the underfunded pensions currently held by the Goverment, etc.). This retirement savings shortfall might be a bigger and faster train coming down the track than the SS funding problem. Some people ARE thinking about this and proposing solutions. Barney coming out to support this is pretty serious to people like me who follow Social Security pretty closely.
Is the Congress likely to take this up any time soon? I doubt it. But there is nothing at all wrong with being this forward on a solution we’ll wish we had considered now.
” I find it hard to envision an emptier campaign promise.”
Don’t you have to make one to keep one? Lotta guilty GA do nothings on that front..equivocating and fence sitting is high art down in Dover.
The big picture is Barney wants to reverse the current system which has been bleeding off pensions and wages in order to pump up the portfolios of the rich. If you are going to soak the rich, go big and then settle for something more reasonable. If Baumbach thought about it that way for a minute he’d probably agree too.
I agree with Puck. This makes me like Barney. Also Baumbach knows full well that the system is as stable as congress wants it to be.
@Jason: “This makes me like Barney.”
You have fallen into his trap.
Empty suit … empty promise … and you love it.
I’m shocked.
We need to be encouraging candidates to be proposing bold, progressive ideas. And that’s what Sean Barney has done here. I am disappointed in Rep. Baumbach’s tut-tutting incrementalism on this issue.
“Is he calling him out because of moral outrage or because he’s running against Townsend?”
This was my takeaway after reading it as well. Also, how many Democrat primary voters are actually reading the Delaware State News? And of those who are, how many of them care what a two term state representative they’ve never heard of has to say on the matter?
If I recall correctly, wasn’t Baumbach elected after winning a primary against several other qualified candidates? Seems like he should know better than to insert himself in a race to take a shot at one of the candidates. Judging by the comments on this thread so far, no one was impressed with his attempt to take down Barney and it might actually have had the opposite effect of what was intended.
If the Townsend camp knew this letter was coming out, they should have asked him not to send it, or at the very least not written the way it was. I don’t think it helped their efforts whatsoever.
There’s bold and progressive, and there’s pie in the sky. Barney’s already demonstrated a tenuous grasp of the truth during this campaign season and it seems he’s willing to say just about anything if it gets him more votes. Like Mediawatch said, Sean’s an empty suit making empty promises.
“Empty suit … empty promise … and you love it.”
Don’t worry, I’ll still need to hear more from Barney to be convinced is no longer a Third Way operative. But still, he needs to be rewarded and not mocked for his position on Social Security. If enough candidates make those kinds of promises, one day they won’t be empty anymore.
There’s bold and progressive, and there’s pie in the sky.
Big ideas to solve big problems are *always* pie in the sky. Just ask the supporters of single payer.
When Democrats make bold progressive proposals, too often the reason they can’t get done is – other Democrats (see: public option). We already have Tom Carper filling the spoiler role, who else is with Carper?
You have to think that Paul’s letter got the okay from Townsend’s team. So Townsend is the “serious” candidate now? I wish seriousness wasn’t determined by how many progressive goals you’ve thrown under the bus.
And again, this “social security is in crisis so the recipients have to take it on the chin” is a nauseating argument, more worthy of John Carney than Paul Baumbach.
Cassandra is right. Paul is amazing but wrong on this one. The SS Plan B is a seriously thoughtful proposal from a seriously respected economist on the populist left-Michael Lind. We have a retirement crisis in the country with disappearing pensions, stagnant saving rates and the raiding of the SS fund by Congress over the years. Both a SS funding fix and ideas like Plan B can restore some security for seniors like me.
And I want to be clear that I’m not so much defending Social Security B than I am defending serious policy thinking that gets to our bigger problems. I think that is supposed to be what progressives do, right? The coming retirement train wreck won’t be solved by making SS solvent. Still, I would agree that the Barney Team should have contextualized this proposal better (if it needs me to explain what is going on, then it’s not working, period) because then this kind of big thinking wouldn’t have been so available to the attempts to make it radioactive.
“A newly elected freshman congressman from Delaware, amongst 434 colleagues (over 55 percent of them Republicans), plans to add $460 billion annually to the program? I find it hard to envision an emptier campaign promise.”
But this standard, every policy proposal by every candidates is an empty promise. Do you have any idea how hard it is for a freshmen to get ANY bill passed during their first term? Their best hope is to nibble around the margins through amendments in committee and pushing the executive branch to act through rulemaking. And, of course, fight to stop bad things from happening.
Barney presented a bold idea which I imagine he will fight for over the long(er) term. I don’t remember any of his mailers saying “I will accomplish this on day one.”
I have a ton of respect for Rep. Baumbach, but this letter is very very misguided.
I’m popping so much popcorn over here right now. What a great way to start the week.
Anon: “Anyone who knows Rep. Baumbach knows how much integrity he has. This is not a campaign hit job.”
No doubt that Baumbach has a lot of integrity… BUT… to say that this isn’t a campaign hit job, please. These things are not mutually exclusive. If you’re a political practicioner, it’s not immoral to make political statements and moves. If you’re not comfortable with that then go work for Unicef. I *still* don’t think Barney is going to win (I think it will be Lisa), but this is clear evidence that the Townsend camp is losing or else they wouldn’t be attacking.
Perhaps Baumbach just woke up one day and wrote out this letter, but if you really get the vapors at the mere suggestion it could come from Townsend’s camp, then you really, really don’t know how this works.
What I find interesting is that all three are running on liberal promises rather than promises to find consensus across the aisle, which would be the usual Delaware Democratic sales pitch.
Seems like Baumbach elevated Barney’s stock far more than Barney’s 18 lit drops so far. This ‘Social Security B’ thing is interesting.
“…all three are running on liberal promises rather than promises to find consensus across the aisle,”
The primary is the election. Markell our maneuvered Carney among liberals and I’m sure all three have studied that race.
What I don’t get is how centralized all three campaigns seem to be. As I recall, a big part of Markell’s strategy was to decentralize the campaign and turn it into a series of local/RD races. He did a bunch of house meetings in the 9th, and I’m sure the 9th wasn’t special.
Cassandra, I don’t think we actually disagree that much actually. I agree that it’s important that progressives work towards a bold vision of what government can do for the people, and I think that Social Security B is an good goal to work towards.
My problem is that Barney is very clearly using this proposal as a cynical tactic to get votes from SS recipients, who are the most reliable voters, while having no way (and no intention) of following through. He has no record to point to and no experience to speak of so he has to resort to underhanded tactics to increase his standing. *That*, more than the proposal itself, is what I have a problem with.
^^^Calling Bullshit on this Josh.
There are very few candidates who don’t try to craft a set of policy positions that 1) he or she wants to be known for; 2) that he or she wants to work on; 3) are on hot topic issues; 4) that will get him or her elected. I’ve been on a few policy teams and candidates who are worth their salt are listening to a bunch of people and taking ideas and possible solutions from the best of what they hear.
Keeping this at Social Security you could make the same observation about both Townsend and Blunt’s positions to raise the Social Security payroll tax cap to fund Social Security. This idea is not unique to either of them and certainly meant to speak to voters who think SS is vulnerable. Who are the most reliable voters. While I have no idea if they’ll follow through on this idea, what is clear is that this idea doesn’t have a snowball’s chance in this Congress. Still, the calculation is that there are people who want them to fight for this and I expect that would happen.
Everyone is using the same playbook on this bus. It is not cool to excoriate one for doing the exact same thing the others are doing. Even if this one has blown right past the CW on this topic.
I’ve gone round and round on this one. Of course it is a political hit–Paul has been in Bryan’s corner from the beginning, and Townsend needed somebody else to call out Barney on this issue, and who looks better to do so than one of the more avowedly liberal members of the GA who also happens to be a financial planner.
On the other hand, cassandra makes a good point about the existence of the program Barney supports as having been kicked around progressive groups for years, meaning that it’s legit to have it as an aspirational goal and campaign promise.
Why Barney is vulnerable on this tactic is that you lose credibility when, on the one hand, you throw out a major pie-in-the-sky progressive goal as your agenda, and on the other hand tout yourself as a work-across-the-aisles-get-thing-done Democrat. I’m a former (wounded) Marine, I get shit done no matter what the party. There’s a basic dissonance there. I’m not saying it isn’t there for Townsend as well, promising to go into what will probably still be a GOP controlled House and work for gun control.
What I think we are watching is the inherent difficult with the Delaware House seat: we elect one Representative who will be a Democrat to go into a marginalized position in a Republican controlled House. You can pretty much promise anything because everybody knows you can’t deliver, probably not even if the Dems take back the House (because it will be a narrow majority and because most of the Dems will still be more conservative than you).
So, cassandra’s view aside, I think that this is a pretty good body blow back at Barney’s big media buy, supported by Paul’s liberal and intellectual credentials, and I also think he’s right: nobody should seriously believe that Barney will even introduce this Social Security Plan in the House, any more than anybody seriously believes that he had much if anything to do with the minimum wage going up in Delaware (because if it came down to Delaware’s Governor’s Policy Advisor to get it done, then the people working in fast food restaurants and cutting that grass need to be seriously worried).
Promising the improbable, and proposing the unlikely is a strategy that Republicans have gotten a great deal of mileage out of. I’m frankly pleased to see Democrats trying to nudge the overton window.
If it is a body blow, it was delivered in the Delaware State News and doesn’t seem to have gotten much traction. Even though the Delaware State News deleted my own comment to Paul’s LTE. My own responses to this everywhere are largely about not letting a solid progressive idea get killed by progressives. Frankly, neither campaign had to respond to this since they were the only people who saw the proposal.
Proposing the unlikely is how big ideas eventually get done. You have to talk about them over and over until it becomes a thing. Once again, the people who are advocating single payer get this completely.
Good for Paul Baumbach. Barney will say anything to get elected to anything.,
^^the initial publication is not where this will count.
As for the “big proposal” strategy it is only one way things get done, and quite often not most effective. Single payer advocates are still waiting for their moment. On the other hand, the incrementalists in marriage equality have won and the can ibis legalization folks are winning.
Let’s not pretend that this big idea stuff is the only way stuff gets done. It’s often counterproductive.
You need a big idea to have an incrementalist plan to get to. I’m a fan of single payer, but am really clear that this will not happen all at once, unless one of the states implements it. Gay marriage was a big idea and it took steps like legalizing adoption and civil unions to pave the way.