Monday, December 8, 2003
Page 7
AFFAIRS OF STATE (Column)
AARP-Bashing Liberals Shooting Their Own Feet
By DAVID KLINE
Those who pay attention to politics are well aware that the AARP is a very liberal organization which has aided and abetted left-wing Democrats at almost every turn since its creation in 1958.
The organization holds itself out to be non-partisan in order to get tax benefits, but historically has sided with Democrats—and against Republicans, vocally—on everything from Social Security reform to national health care spending.
A few years back, the California arm of the organization even opposed a Republican-sponsored tax cut for people over 65. AARP lobbyists somehow kept straight faces while proclaiming that the bill was not in seniors’ best interests.
Moves like that prompted Sen. Trent Lott to call AARP a “wholly owned subsidiary of the Democratic Party,” and led fellow Republican Sen. John McCain to dub AARP “a tool of the Democrats.”
But late last month, AARP took a historic step and actually endorsed a major piece of legislation backed by Republicans and opposed by the Democratic leadership.
This one action, this one step off the Democratic Party reservation, has resulted in a huge outcry from the liberal establishment. Left-wing members of Congress announced they were resigning their AARP memberships, and the Associated Press wire service filled up with photos of liberals cutting and burning their AARP membership cards.
Even the message board on the official AARP Web site, www.aarp.org, is being inundated with messages calling the organization a “sell out” and worse. One message calls for a class-action suit against AARP’s leadership for “conflict of interest—close ties to Republican party leaders” and other alleged misdeeds.
All this because AARP sided with Republicans one time!
The situation becomes even more bizarre when one considers the legislation at the center of the furor.
The bill which AARP endorsed is a Medicare reform plan that adds a prescription drug benefit for seniors and enacts other changes designed to make Medicare more competitive and cost-efficient. The drug giveaway will increase government spending by almost $400 billion to expand a socialized heath care system—not exactly a hard-core conservative idea.
Liberals have been clamoring for a prescription drug benefit for more than 10 years, and they’ve been pushing “universal health care” even longer, so this legislation would seem to be a godsend for them. Why, then, are they opposed to the bill?
For starters, they oppose the bill because it is supported by Republicans, including President Bush. This is a huge factor because liberals are hoping that a left-wing Democrat like Howard Dean will be elected president in 2004, and they don’t want Bush to be able to claim success on an issue that has been owned by Democrats.
During the past two years, the Democratic drumbeat had been that Bush reneged on a promise to create a prescription drug benefit in Medicare. Now that he has fulfilled his promise, the issue has become a positive instead of a negative for Bush. The liberals don’t like that one bit.
Another reason for the liberal opposition is that the Medicare reforms will create competition within the system by allowing the involvement of private companies. The reason for this is obvious—competition is likely to result in lower costs, which may help Medicare survive beyond its projected insolvency in 2026. But liberals are opposed, seemingly despising private enterprise as much as they love government bureaucracy.
AARP was in full agreement with the liberals for a long, long time. Until very recently, the organization argued loudly against “privatizing” Medicare and generally sided with the left-wing Democrats.
But AARP’s leaders apparently realized that with a Republican in the White House and a Republican tide brewing nationally, it might be time to accept reality—without Republican support, a Medicare drug benefit was an impossible dream. The group could either compromise now to help seniors get a benefit, or oppose the Republicans to help Democrats preserve a juicy campaign issue.
AARP begrudgingly chose policy over politics and dealt with Republicans, many of whom were surprisingly willing to compromise their pledges against tax-and-spend policies. The result is a Medicare drug benefit that supporters say will help seniors afford life-saving medications.
Still, the liberals are mad at AARP. They are doing everything they can to discredit the organization, pointing out that while the AARP claims to represent seniors, it really makes most of its money selling insurance, selling membership lists to other companies and publishing the most widely distributed magazine in the country.
Critics also note that AARP’s leaders make their political decisions with zero input from the rank-and-file, then announce these decisions as though they are supported by “35 million members.” Even the membership number is iffy, critics note, since AARP uses a questionable statistical calculation to artificially inflate the number of actual dues-payers.
While all of this criticism is on the money, and echoes complaints that conservatives have been making for years, the liberals might want to rethink their strategy. If they succeed in discrediting or destroying AARP because of one pro-Republican endorsement, they will find themselves without a group that has been a powerful political ally 99.9 percent of the time.
One wonders how many times the liberals will reload before they realize they are shooting themselves in the foot.
— Capitol News Service
Copyright 2003, Metropolitan News Company