The Dispatch Podcast - Entitlement Reform w/ Senator Cassidy

Episode Date: May 14, 2023

Louisiana Senator Bill Cassidy joins Sarah and Steve to talk debt and entitlements. The doctor gives a deadly prognosis for the country’s economic (and moral?) trajectory and breaks down what his office is proposing to do about it. Show Notes: -Subscribe to The Dispatch and watch an exclusive live Remnant with Jonah, Steve Hayes, and Chris Stirewalt -Watch: Bill On The Hill -Cassidy says Biden and Trump have ‘same plan’ on Social Security, ‘which is to do nothing’ -Social Security can be saved by investing it in the stock market, says Sen. Bill Cassidy -Refusing to Reform Social Security Is a Plan — and a Bad One Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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And today we are talking to Louisiana, Senator Bill Cassidy, friend of the pod, I think I can say at this point. Senator Cassidy, thanks for joining us. Hey, Sarah, good to be with you. Good to be with you, Steve. Thanks for coming. Senator, let me jump in. I want to go immediately to Social Security. You have authored a plan that you have been pushing, and I want to get to why you're pushing Social Security reform in a bit. But I want to start by just asking you, what's the problem with Social Security today? Why do we need to be pushing legislation on Social Security? Can I say something before I answer that question? Sure. Like my wife's listening to y'all.

She goes, Sarah and Steve are on a podcast, and they're saying no Republican is doing anything about Social Security. And I think she said that just to get my blood pressure up. And I said, oh, my gosh, team call them and say, we're trying to do something on social. So thank you all for having me. I really appreciate it. Yeah, glad to have you.

Glad to walk through this. And Social Security and beyond. I think the complaint was about entitlement reform broadly. and I know Social Security reformers don't like to call it an entitlement. But I'm interested in people who are trying to address long-term fiscal issues that are actually problematic for the country, shall we say. And let me give you two issues. The first issue, the program is going to solve it. Now, folks, I've never heard that before.

No, for 35 years, they've been saying the program was going to go and solve it somewhere in the early to midnight, the 2030s. And now they've just moved it up, so it's going to be, I think, 2030. 33. So it's going in solvent. Well, what does that mean? It means the trust fund no longer has any money in it. And it's a pay-as-you-go program, which is to say that once it goes in solving, the only amount going out will be that which is coming in. And those who are currently receiving social will have a 24% cut. By the way, the law, current law, does not allow borrowing to make up for the shortfall. I suppose you can change the law. That has its own issues, but that means that you're not grandfathered in. It's not like I'm already relying on it and getting it, so therefore my safety net is intact. No, that safety net is torn and you get a 24% decrease. Now, when I say it's torn, the actuaries predict that that will, if we get a 24% cut in the benefit, that will, that will double poverty among the elderly. And I just read that 40,

to 50% of boomers, Social Security is their only retirement plan. So the first issue is it's going and solvent. There'll be a 24% decrease. And if we attempt to borrow a way out of it, by the way, CBO says that we'll end up with a debt-to-GDP ratio, roughly that of Venezuela and Greece. Not a good place to be. The second problem, there is no political leadership. Biden and Trump are both running for president claiming that there's no problem. with Social Security, they're not going to touch it, they're not going to try and fix it, and they criticize anyone who does. So the second problem is it highlights the lack of presidential leadership, and you cannot fix this without a president being involved. We have been hearing about

this for a long time. I remember when I first moved to Washington in the early 1990s, I would read these same kinds of projections. Social Security is going insolvent. The timeline shifted, depending to a certain extent, on whether you listen to economists with the Heritage Foundation or Center for Responsible Budget or with Social Security trust. But we're not there. Why is this urgent now? Why do we have to do something about it now? Why can't we just let this play out and address it when, as you point out, it is an automatic benefit cut of 24%? And then the only thing that could resolve that would be legislation from Congress. Why do we have to address this now?

Why can't you just wait until we get there, if we get there, and then legislate at that point? Well, three or four reasons why not? Number one, if we wait to the last minute, which would be an awful thing to do, it costs more to fix the problem. It just costs more. Secondly, it's a true isn't in Washington that this is such a political happening. potato. You should do it when it is divided government. Because otherwise, the other side will claim that the other side will claim that, you know, they'll use it for political advantage. Now, we're kind of banking that just at the right time, we're going to have this kind of divided

government and everybody will come together in a hunky dory movement and we're going to do it. Not that one side is completely out of power and will behavior responsibly. Now, here we have divided government and we have both Biden and Trump. behaving irresponsibly. So I'm thinking, like, we're going to wait and bank that things are different then. By the way, the third thing is people say, well, maybe the House, the Senate, and the president will be more likely to raise taxes or cut benefits if it's right on the cusp of happening.

I'm thinking, yeah, right. I mean, what's going to happen there? Lastly, our big idea is to address 75% of the issue with an investment fund. Now, there's two times to plant an oak tree. The best time was 50 years ago, and the second best time is today. If we have an investment fund and we're going to depend upon the growth of that investment fund in order to address the shortfall, you want that investment fund to begin as soon as possible. And the more you delay it, the more you delay the benefit that that will bring to addressing the issue.

So walk us through the details of the proposal. What exactly are you proposing? Sounds different than several of the other Social Security reform proposals that we have entertained over the years, including George W. Bush's ill-fated attempt to reform Social Security at the beginning of the second term. What exactly would this do? And why is it better than the other reform proposals that have been kicking around? First, I'll say that the way it works is that we take one point. $5 trillion invested over five years. And in that, you invested in the stock market. It could go into other forms of investment. And you would hold it in escrow for 70 to 75 years. So where does that,

if I can jump in, where does that $1.5 trillion come from? That would be a political decision. You could either raise taxes to put it in there. You could borrow the money to put it in there. That's where the political coming together would have to establish that. But if you do that, It's not coming from the trust fund, though. No, it would not come from social. Thank you, Steve. We do not touch social funds. And by the way, Bill Clinton had an idea of investing in the broader economy, but he was

using Social Security trust funds. We don't. So we different from Clinton. So we create this fund, and it's not individual accounts. W had individual accounts in which the beneficiary suffered the risk of stock market fluctuation. In this, it is the trust fund that bears the risk. But over time, you invest money for 70 years and allow it to compound, don't take dividends, but reinvest the dividends, and you end up with a pretty good rate of return. And you do that, and that can address 75% of the issue.

We don't raise taxes on seniors. We don't cut benefits for seniors. Indeed, we even allow promised benefits to be paid that contributes to the deficit. But again, we're addressing 75% of the deficit. with the growth in this fund and that additional 25% we got 75% addressed that additional 25%

is where we need the president, the House, and the Senate to engage. We have strong ideas, the best way to do it, but nonetheless the president has to have input and that's when the president comes in. Senator Cassidy, you were at the State of the Union this year? Yes.

Can I assume you weren't one of the people clapping along when there was this bipartisan moment? about not touching social security, entitlements, not pursuing entitlement reform? Do you remember this? When the president said, since we have been so earnestly working on this

on a bipartisan basis, and he decided to kind of demagogue the issue, I was frankly shocked. Now, naively, I should say I was naively shocked. I was frankly naively. But the point is that the president, or at least his team, knew of this bipartisan agreement. They knew we had something for which we had seven Republicans and seven Democratic senators. We had worked the House of Representatives.

We had buy-in from stakeholders. And they knew that. And he went out and made that statement. Which, you know, at that point, it was clear he was going to run for re-election and portraying himself as the defender of Social Security. That was his ticket to get back. into office. But Republicans responded. What do you mean by that, Sarah?

During the state of the union, Republicans, you know, shouted at him. There were booze. It really, you know, interrupted the speech. And as a result, he said, oh, you guys don't want to cut Social Security. You don't want to touch Social Security. And the answer was an overwhelming yes. And he said, great, we have a bipartisan agreement then. And there was clapping from Republicans, you know, assenting to that agreement.

Joe Biden basically made a deal on the floor of the House during the state of the union. Well, he made a deal that he was not going to alter the current framework whatsoever. Now, he also says he doesn't want to raise taxes on people over $400,000, under $400,000, except that he's misleading people on that, by the way. He's misleading people on that. But he's really kind of boxed out any dialogue. Now, he has proposed $4.5 trillion in New York. taxes, but he has not proposed anything for Social Security. He had a plan he talked about

when he ran for president, still on his website as far as I know, but he's never introduced it. So at some point, if you're going to do something positive for social, you've got to introduce a plan, and the plan's got to be reasonable. It has to be able to get bipartisan support. What he was talking about during the State of the Union was don't touch anything, leave it exactly stuck in Amber, and boy, am I glad we all agree off on that. That was incredibly irresponsible. I had Democratic colleagues tell me the same thing, by the way. But I guess my issue is when you had Republicans pushing back saying they also don't want to mess with Social Security, you know, this, again, bipartisan moment where they push back on Biden and say, no, that's wrong. We don't

want to do anything like this. And he says, great. So we all are in agreement. And they all clap. I guess then I'm wondering how there is still what you're describing, which is this bipartisan framework for moving forward when there's no political will, it seems like from Joe Biden, the leader of the Democratic Party, Donald Trump, the leader for the nomination of the Republican Party. And then, again, I didn't take like a headcount of who was clapping and who wasn't clapping, but it sure looked to me from the C-SPAN camera that the vast majority of Republicans were clapping in agreement that this was something that was something that was. going off the table at this point. So where does that leave you? Sarah, you always pack a lot into a question. I mean, let me just compliment you. Let's go back to what Steve asked earlier. Every other reform package has talked about cutting benefits and about raising taxes as a primary purpose of how we get there. We have a proposal in which 75% of the issue is taken care of with an investment portfolio. Now, that is not what the president was talking about.

we actually have a different model, different paradigm, we don't touch social, we don't cut benefits on seniors, et cetera. We take care of 75% of the issue. By the way, we actually help make it a little bit fair. There's some people who kind of get a raw deal from social, and we also work to make it more fair. Now, if you went to the president, if you went to those people who are cheering, and you said, listen, we got an idea that will take care of 75% of the issue indeed also make it more fair for many people. You would get a lot of positive reaction, and I know that you would because I was getting that positive reaction speaking to people.

If you go to them and you say, obviously referencing some of the comments made by Republican senators from times past, that we are going to cut benefits for seniors and we're going to do this and that, that was what people were agreeing we're not going to do. we're not going to take a program, as was, you know, as Rick Scott said, which Rick Scott has backed off on, but nonetheless, the president likes to highlight it. We were saying a totally different model, but the president, to the degree that he was even acknowledging ours, would be trying to conflate the two. I think that's an important distinction. So you keep saying that this solves 75% of the problem. And you're talking about no benefit cuts or tax increases, no broken promises.

But walk me through again where this $1.5 trillion comes from. I mean, that's got to come from somewhere, right? I mean, that will be presumably tax increases or, as you say, borrowing or, but that seems like a pretty big asterisk, no? Just make a decision. You know, by the way, let me say something, Steve. People can say, well, would it be great if we just had the money lying around that we didn't have to make a decision whether to borrow it or whether to tax it or we could sell some asset we could all agree upon or we could add royalties from something or other and put it there? Would it be wonderful?

Free money is always great. But the reality is it takes a political decision. Now, I also say, hey, listen, you got a practical matter then that you're just pushing this decision down because it would be a nons? starter for so many additional people. I mean, what you're trying to do, I think, just to be clear, what you're trying to do, I think, is admirable and necessary. It's a difficult political case to make. Is that what you're doing? Is this just sort of a nod to the practical difficulty of saying to people like, hey, here's where we're coming up with $1.5 trillion. That will give people more reasons not to support it. You know, for people who wish to oppose, they will find something

without offering any alternative whatsoever and never engaging positively as to how to resolve a problem. We can show you how you put $1.5 trillion up, let it sit there for 75 years, you know, an escrow, if you will, invested. We take care of the 75% of the issue. Somebody won't address that head on.

They'll find some other issue, but they won't offer a positive alternative. We're saying, if you don't like what we're doing, offer a positive alternative, but some of this we're leaving wide open because the president may have his own ideas. And we have to have a certain plasticity in here so that the president's opinion can be respected.

Now, there was somebody who, if I said your name, a former Treasury Secretary we were talking to, and he was nitpicking this name of Mr. Foley, I said so-and-so. This is like foreign policy. This is the least bad option. Now, if you want to tell me something different, I'm open to that, but we're going to give it to you just a core, and then we can work around the edges to where we can agree upon what is the best, least bad option. And at that point, I had an epiphany, and it began to work with this much more positively.

So we're leaving some of these variables out there. I can tell you how I think it would be good, but how I think it would be good doesn't matter. It is what is politically palatable to the people with whom we have to work. Let me raise one final potential policy objection to this. For people who are looking for reasons not to support you, this is one that they would say, even if you have sort of disseminated risk, right? This is unlike private social security accounts where the individuals own the risk. And part of the problem with that, of course, the individuals are taking some of the money out of the system.

And if it's a pay-as-you-go system, that complicates that plan. what you're talking about is disseminated risk, but it doesn't eliminate the risk, right? I mean, if we're investing this, you're still putting that money at some risk. What if the money doesn't do what you hope it will do? A couple of things about the three things about that. You know, yes, there is an existential anxiety of the unknown. It may not go up, it may go down. One thing we know in nine years, there's going to be a 24%

a benefit cut. Period. End of story. That's not a risk. No, that is a risk, which is a fact. It's not an unknown. Somehow I feel like Donald Rumsfeld right now. Secondly, the other thing we know is if you go back from 1929 until now, every 20-year segment since, the market average has been 8. I want to say 8.5 growth, 8.5% growth just in the stock market. And there's higher returns outside of the stock market. Now, that's been since 1929. Now, the past is not necessarily prologue, but as much as you can say, the U.S. economy is going to continue to grow, and we want the average American to participate and benefit from that growth. This is a good plan. Next, this is what everybody does. I mean, the birds do it. The bees.

do it, the Canadians do it, the Norwegians do it, the Norwegians do it, the Japanese do it, Wisconsin does it. Everybody has a, you know, Alaska does it. They've all got these funds in which say sovereign wealth, they put in their pension dollars, it grows over time. It's like working for everybody, but all of a sudden, and by the way, working for the federal government and the federal railroad retirement system, and it's been, they've got an 8.9% return over the last 20 years. But oh my gosh, if we try and do it for social, all of a sudden, existential anxiety has to eat us up. And then lastly, I will say that there should be a backup, that if the market, if it doesn't

quite hit itself, then we should have a backup by which we would supplement those funds. But that's where you have to have the political conversation as to what is an acceptable backup. Now, we have ideas about that. But if the president says, no, I don't like that idea, then we'd have to come up with a different idea. I just want to note that in the order that Senator Cassidy thought we would be persuaded by who else has this system, his order was bird. B's, two foreign countries, and then, then, at the end of the list, Wisconsin. Well, also Alaska. So I threw Alaska in at the very end.

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You can offer services, book appointments, and receive payments directly through your site. It's a single hub for managing your work and reaching your audience without having to piece together a bunch of different tools. All seamlessly integrated. Go to Squarespace.com slash dispatch for a free trial. And when you're ready to launch, use offer code dispatch to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. Senator, I do want to talk about the politics of this a little because I think, you know, you have a pretty sympathetic audience with me and Steve. We think there's a problem and we very much understand the least worst option dynamic here.

But that would seem much more politically feasible in 1985, 1995. 2005, we're not really in that moment anymore because it seems like Congress, individual members of Congress, aren't necessarily rewarded for compromising legislative accomplishments and certainly picking the least bad option. I haven't seen that on an advertisement recently. Long-term thinking. Birds, bees, Wisconsin. So before we even get to this proposal and why you think, politically it will work. I'm curious where you lay the fault at why it feels like Congress is less willing to tackle long-term, intransigent, no-good option problems. I've talked about small dollar donors becoming more prevalent, parties getting weaker, the administrative state

under the president doing so much more that Congress then doesn't have to really take political risks in order to run campaign ads. In fact, you get flanked more likely from one of the two sides. What's your diagnosis sitting there about why this feels like it's become harder? If you do, if you work hard, you keep your word, you can build trust and you can get things done. I can tell you that right now the things that I've been involved with, surprise medical billing. We worked on a bipartisan basis to ban surprise medical billing. And I'm told that since a law was signed, I'm looking at my staff, was that a year ago, two years ago, that a million surprise medical bill claims a month have been, have not been issued a month. Now, that was something we worked really hard on.

It took us two years. We got it done. the bipartisan infrastructure bill, which was paid for, which is having incredibly positive effects in my state and across the nation. The Safer Communities Act, the response to Uvaldi. Now, those are just things I've been involved with. I'll give you a list of three or four more, mental health bills that we've, Chris Murphy and I worked on the, it got passed, the mental health bill of 2016.

So I would argue that you can get it done. It doesn't hit a headline. You got to work hard. You got to really do your homework, but you can bring people on board. Now, I will also say, by the way, though, that we had 14 senators, and we were adding senators, and it was evenly divided between the two parties. And we had House members in both sides who were actively working for this bill. And then the president made a state of the union speech. I was, believe it or not, I was optimistic that we could pass this.

I was going to get criticized that I was going to give Joe Biden a win. But I think it more of a win for the American people than anybody else. So I'm willing to take that risk. If you had a magic wand, there's anything you could think of to do to make Congress more effective, more likely to pursue policies that you're talking about? You know, I don't deal in theoretical. I'm a physician. I mean, I'm just very very candid. Yep.

Ifs and butts are candies and nuts would all have a Merry Christmas. The reality is that this is the cards I'm dealt with and I'm just going to work really hard and try and build the relationships to get things done. And I think we've shown that you can actually get things done. It just takes a lot. When our founding fathers said they were going to make it hard to get things done, they did a really good job. When I look at the top 10 most unpopular senators in their states with their constituents, Mitch McConnell's first, that's, I think, because he's sort of very famous and, you know,

cocaine Mitch. I get it. But five of the 10 are sort of these more bipartisan senators. It's Joe Manchin. It's Kristen Sinema. It's these senators that are, you know, quote unquote, it's Mitt Romney, heretics within their political parties that would, I think, say something very similar. They're getting things done. They're on these pieces of legislation that are actually moving through, but yet they're the most unpopular senators that we're talking about, maybe not surviving primaries or general elections coming up. You know, you're pointing to pieces of legislation that got through. But that doesn't necessarily mean they were politically popular or that you're able to bring along vulnerable members in different states? So the founding fathers gave senators six years' terms so they would have time to explain their message. Now, Susan Collins, I think at one point, may have been upside down in Maine, and I think she won 58 to 42.

And Lisa McCalsky at some point was probably upside down in Alaska, and we know Lisa did pretty well. She just got reelected. Now, we can't say that for everybody. Joe was dead man walking last time, and he ended up pulling it out. I think, as I understand it, his vote for the Inflation Reduction Act is kind of what's hurting them right now. So that's a particular piece of legislation that folks feel just, in fact, he now says he would vote to repeal it if he had a chance to repeal it.

So, yes, you can see that when you try and do something, every now and then for a while, people don't like you. But you can also see that people overcome that. John McCain at some point, I recall, was unpopular in Arizona, but he always got reelected. If you do something, sometimes you take hits. I get that. But my state in which there was some concern about the bipartisan infrastructure bill, now they see that that infrastructure bill is going to make sure that everyone in Louisiana has access to high-speed affordable internet. It has become very popular. We're building over 300 bridges are redoing over 300 bridges in Louisiana. We've got lots of bridges.

And so people are recognizing this is the bipartisan infrastructure bill. So over time, you've got to be able to explain what you've done. Talking a little bit about sort of picking up on that point and then broadening it out to broader electoral politics. Obviously, we've seen Donald Trump make arguments that I think are reminiscent of the arguments that Elizabeth Warren has made on this issue. except that he hasn't called for increasing taxes, in a way, I think, making her policy proposal more honest in some ways. The progressive policy proposals call for raising taxes to keep Social

security solvent are more honest than the sort of pure demagoguery that we've gotten from the president. If he's the leader of the party, does it change the dynamic as you make this case to other senators to members of the House? Does your optimism diminish further? Is that sort of a weight on top of your efforts? You know, I can't spend my time thinking about the former president. But all I can do, sort of, you know, I'm a, I used to teach with the LSU med school. I used to say that if your, if your doctor was less than 55, she had heard my lectures on diarrhea in hepatitis. And it gives me a certain perspective.

My perspective is that our obligation is attempt to communicate honestly to teach, if you will, that which the people have to know. I need to go out there every day and say, if we do nothing, this program is going and solve it in nine years and you're getting a 24% cut. And that's why I so appreciate y'all having this podcast. So appreciate it. I'm just trying to bang the drum to raise it in a number. issue. If the third rail in the past has been to discuss Social Security, I want the third

rail to do nothing when you're about to get a 24% cut. Now, if Trump wants to be dishonest with the American people in order to get reelected, knowing that his bully pulpit is bigger than mine, I'm just responsible for what I can do. And that's to tell people, you're going to get a 24% cut. And he's not telling you the truth. And so, let's come together around this plan, which is going to make it better for us all. What response do you get when you make exactly that point that you just made? I mean, this is math. This is inevitable, 24% cut, and you're talking to fellow senators trying to get them on board.

Do they dispute your facts? Not at all. In fact, we had 14 senators. Sure, 14, but you didn't have. 14 senators and we're adding them on. But there's a majority of Republicans who are not on, right? So when you have conversations with fellow Republicans about this, you're right on the math. You're right on the argument.

How do they respond to that? Do they not find it persuasive? Or are they just being chicken? Are they just being chicken? I truly think our legislation would have passed. I truly think if the president had got on board, I was getting Republicans. They got it. They know there's an issue, and they saw this as a way to invest in the economy.

I thought you're going to ask how do people react. I have a young, talented woman in my office, and she said, let's do a Bill on the Hill, Bill Cassidy on the Hill. So I went around and just kind of randomly asked people, kind of like Jesse Waters does on Fox. And I would say, hey, man, like what do you think about this? And I would explain the deficit. And they go, oh, my gosh, I've heard about that. I didn't realize it was almost about to happen.

And then I'd say, what about creating this investment fund? And they said, boy, that sounds good to me. I like that investment fund. And then I would say, what if I told you that both Biden and Trump, are acting like there's no problem, and they don't want to do the investment fund. And one woman said, I don't know whether to laugh or to cry. But every one of them had a reaction of, you've got to be kidding me. So partly my hope is that if we can get the message out, that will drive the political debate.

And the two, hopefully, I don't want either one of them to be our leading candidates. But if they are, they'll be forced to confront the issue. All right. Last question, Senator. I just got back from three days at Gettysburg walking each day of the battle. And I thought of you because Wayne Mott, who is the founder and CEO of the Gettysburg Foundation there, gave us an hour lecture on medicine at Gettysburg and how doctors worked on the battlefield and in the days after. So I thought of you obviously immediately. And I'd asked you before this interview if you'd bent any of these battlefield sites. And you mentioned a couple books you'd read. I wanted to make sure people. got your book recommendations? Well, so I just read a great biography of William DeCumsey Sherman, who, by the way, was one of the first superintendents of LSU. And so when LSU was in Pineville, then moved to Baton Rouge, just before the war, Sherman was the head of the school.

And so I always tell people that big statue of Sherman outside of Central Park that is dedicated to the first president of LSU. Somehow, I don't think they'd buy that. Secondly, the interesting factoid, John Hickenlooper, the senator from Colorado, when you read the book about Sherman, and I think it's just Sherman as a title of the book, really well done. Hickenlooper's great, great-grandson thing was the engineer that built a lot of the things that allowed Sherman's March to the Sea. And so on one side, Hickenlooper's got this great general who was 33 years old that enabled the

the desolation of the south. And on the other side, he's got some Quaker pacifist. And so he's got this kind of mixed genetic baggie. He manages very well. And so I really recently read my Sherman book. Again, it had Vicksburg and all the other battles. Vicksburg, in some ways, I think, was a greater general than Grant, losing far less people, yet still accomplishing even more than did Grant.

So, anyway, how can you grow up in that? the South without thinking something about the Civil War. Pretty neat. Thank you, Senator, for coming to talk to us about this. Really appreciate you laying it out there on where entitlement reform is within the Republican Party and within Congress. Hey, thank you both for having me. I really appreciate it. Thanks, Senator. You know,