It is interesting to observe the utter silence of the Bush administration on Social Security these days. As opposed to Presidents Truman and Clinton who both went down fighting with their health care proposals, it seems more likely that this administration might be planning to drop their Social Security reform proposal and let future presidents address the issue.

This is a very big change from the tone that the administration took right after the second term began. If President Bush drops his Social Security proposal, I’ll be curious to see what kind of “feedback” effect, as the political scientists say, this will have on the next attempt to reform the program.

Will the impact be more like President Clinton’s health care proposal, where the failure resulted in a silence on the issue for a decade, or more like President Truman’s health care proposal where proponents of the plan regrouped and focused on a narrower and more incremental approach (Medicare).