Rahm Emanuel wants to take leadership of the Democratic Party and capture its nomination for president in 2028.

He shares his thoughts in a recent Wall Street Journal op-ed. It’s the first time a Democrat has made me smile since President Bill Clinton announced in his 1996 State of the Union address that “The era of big government is over.”

Emanuel has a stellar political resume that includes senior adviser in the White House to Clinton, chief of staff to President Barack Obama, member of Congress, mayor of Chicago and ambassador to Japan.

He has a reputation for political astuteness, being a tough fighter and being the father of the oft-quoted, “You never want a serious crisis go to waste. And what I mean by that it’s an opportunity to do things that you think you could not do before.”

These instincts are raising his finely honed political antennae that his party has badly, and destructively, lost direction.

And here he could not be more right.

Emanuel seeks a “politics based on values.” Not a politics of “identity, grievance, or victimhood,” of “oppressors” and “oppressed.”

He says he is talking about values that say, “government’s proper role is to clear a path so those who put in the elbow grease can earn success.”

Hey, he is sounding like a Republican.

Emanuel should take cues from his former boss Clinton who, in 1992, announced his intention to “change welfare as we know it.”

“For too long our welfare system has undermined the values of family and work, instead of supporting them,” Clinton said in his 1996 State of the Union. And then, working with a Republican Congress, he signed historic welfare reform into law, replacing the disastrous Aid to Families with Dependent Children with Temporary Assistance for Needy Families. Work requirements were introduced and welfare rolls were dramatically reduced.

Clinton also urged, in that 1996 State of the Union, that “permanent deficit spending must come to an end,” and he was the last president to leave office with a budget surplus.

However, one reform to which Clinton aspired that sunk in the political swamp of his impeachment in the wake of the Monica Lewinsky scandal was reform of Social Security.

In December 1998, Clinton convened the first-ever White House Conference on Social Security.

Clinton wanted genuine reform that would fix a broken and flawed system. Among options that captured his attention was the reform done in Chile, in which a system much like ours was transformed to one of ownership and personal retirement accounts. The White House invited José Piñera, the architect of the Chilean reform, to come speak at the conference and share the success they had in Chile with this reform.

In his 1999 State of the Union, Clinton proposed creation of personal retirement accounts that individuals could seed with funds with a tax credit and then qualify for additional matching funds.

Emanuel says his party “needs an economic agenda rooted in American values.”

“Everyone should feel they have skin in this game and all citizens should feel they can contribute to the nation’s renewal,” he says.

Our existing Social Security is not viable in its current form. Cash flow from the system will be insufficient to meet obligations by 2034, just nine years from now, per the latest Trustees report.

Nothing can give every American more “skin in the game” than participating in ownership and growth of our nation’s economy.

Let every American invest rather than pay taxes. Let every American become an owner and share in the experience of capitalism and growth.

Let’s not let the crisis of our broken Social Security system go to waste.

Emanuel should pick up the ball from his former boss, Clinton.

Nothing could be greater for the American people than Democrats and Republicans competing to make every American an owner and a capitalist.

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