June 07th, 2007

S4 has brought its staff, interns and ostrich to New Hampshire (despite the rainy weather) to ask the presidential candidates to play in active role in securing our future by addressing the problems facing Social Security. Our plan is to interview the people of New Hampshire and ask the presidential candidates the tough questions on Social Security and secure their leadership on this important issue.

We are in New Hampshire this week because it is the first in the nation primary state and plays a large role in the presidential primaries. It is our hope that during this week we can take part in New Hampshire's retail politics and talk to the candidates and voters one on one.

Several recent news articles (such as this one in the Washington Post and this one by Bloomberg) have traced the failure to get anything done on Social Security back to a January interview that Vice President Cheney had with Chris Wallace of Fox News. "We don't believe a tax increase is necessary," Cheney told Wallace, a remark that "infuriat[ed]" Senator Kent Conrad and "undercut" the efforts of Treasury Secretary Paulson.

Well, here is the transcript:

CHENEY: And so, we don't believe a tax increase is necessary.

WALLACE: So...

(CROSSTALK)

CHENEY: ... sit down and talk about trying to get people to the table to talk about Social Security, we've said, "No preconditions." And that's exactly what it means: Come to the table, and we'll talk.

The problem with the recent news stories is that they have omitted Cheney's commitment to a discussion without preconditions, which makes it seem as though the Democrats who took the lead on this issue had made their way over to the party with flowers and wine only to have the front door shut in their faces.

It's much more likely that Conrad and others were so upset (or pretended to be so upset) because they viewed tax increases as a necessary part of the reform package, meaning that they were the ones with preconditions. Cheney probably suspected that a compromise plan that included tax increases would come back to haunt the GOP, and you have to give him credit for not ruling anything out despite that suspicion.

The Democrats, on the other hand, were so set on their precondition of tax increases that they refused to engage in further talks. Either that, or the whole thing was an excuse on their part to avoid tackling the issue.

Preconditions or cowardice -- it's infuriating either way you look at it.

June 01st, 2007

After protesting AARP on Thursday, S4's Ostrich will travel to New Hampshire for CNN's Presidential Debates. S4 student activists will be in New Hampshire from Saturday, June 2nd until Wednesday, June 6th. If you are in the area and would like to join in the fun contact Jo at Jo@secureourfuture.org!

May 22nd, 2007

Last week I made 3 of my friends in Salem wear our "Don't Get Screwed" t-shirts...everywhere they went.  Turns out - this is a GREAT marketing technique!!  3 hot guys in matching apparel draws a lot of attention.  Not quite as much as our lovely ostrich costume, but still...it was a super-easy way to get people to stop and talk.  Now these guys weren't incredibly well versed on Social Security reform and all the details, but they were able to communicate the basic message of our t-shirt -- that we need Congress to "secure our future" since right now, we're getting screwed by Social Security!!

Now that it's summer time and we're all going our seperate ways for a few months, I would encourage you and anyone else you know who owns one of our incredibly hot screw t-shirts to wear them whenever you are out and about!!  It might seem intimidating to have to respond to people who inquire about your shirt, but it's nothing to worry about!  Like my 3 friends found out, the shirt makes itself easy to explain...just say: "We're getting screwed by Social Security - you should check out this website, (the one on my shirt) to sign the petition to Congress and to learn more information about this issue!!" 

See?  Bam!  SO EASY to help out the cause and spread the word on reform this summer!!  Let me know if you don't have one of these amazing t-shirts I'm talking about...we can def get you one real quick!  Email me: Evan@secureourfuture.org

May 21st, 2007

From USA Today:

The growing divide between the rich and poor in America is more generation gap than class conflict, according to a USA TODAY analysis of federal government data. The rich are getting richer, but what's received little attention is who these rich people are. Overwhelmingly, they're older folks.

(...)Social Security and Medicare increasingly are functioning as a transfer of money from less affluent young people to much wealthier older people.

Because the older generation hasn't set aside enough money to cover promised government benefits, young people will have to make up the difference or older people will face benefit cuts. The financial shortfalls of Social Security and Medicare over the next 75 years are so large — $340,000 per household — that they dwarf the wealth of every age group. This hidden debt will make it a challenge for young people to accumulate as much wealth late in life as their parents have.

May 17th, 2007

S4 had two letters to the editor published this week.  The first letter appeared in the Daily Sundial, a campus newspaper in California that printed an article unfairly attacking recess appointee Andrew Biggs.  Here is an excerpt:

The Social Security Administration does an excellent job of scoring reform proposals and predicting funding shortfalls, and there is no indication that any reports have been mathematically incorrect.

On the contrary, we should pay more attention to the work that comes out of the SSA. One professor in your article is on record suggesting that raising the cap on payroll taxes would solve Social Security's funding problem, but this simply isn't so. Eliminating the cap entirely would push the funding shortfalls currently forecast to begin in 2017 back to only 2025, a meager gain for such a huge tax increase.

The second letter is in the Miami Herald.  Here is part of the response to an opinion piece which suggested that we should be happy the Social Security trustees pushed back the trust fund exhaustion date one year:

One extra year of life in the Social Security trust fund is no cause for celebration. The mistake Fields makes is to look at the extra year of life (which is subject to revision when the trustees revisit Social Security again in 2008) and completely forget that there is a problem that needs to be addressed.

...[I]t is unfair to suggest that politicians do not understand that people are ''owed'' their Social Security money. Indeed, it is exactly because no generation should be unfairly burdened by Social Security that some in Washington have worked hard toward fundamental reform.

May 15th, 2007

Politico had an interesting commentary Friday on the inclusion of economist Jeffrey Liebman among Sen. Barack Obama's campaign brain trust.  Liebman was one of the contributors to the nonpartisan LMS plan (so named for authors Liebman, Maya MacGuineas, and Andrew Samwick), a Social Security reform proposal that recommended personal retirement accounts.

What, Politico wants to know, does this mean for Obama?  Is he going to embrace personal accounts as part of a reform package?  The short answer is that we don't really know, though an aide to the senator did respond to the article with an anti-privatization excerpt from Obama's book.

Still, you have to wonder if Obama will slowly move toward a creative compromise on the issue, as it would be rather audacious to suggest that what young people really want are higher taxes and lower benefits.   

May 08th, 2007

Gallup Poll News Service announced the results of its annual personal finance survey yesterday, and "not having enough money for retirement" ranked as the top concern for adults.  Fifty-six percent of  respondents said that they are either "very worried" or "moderately worried" about retirement security.

Oddly, 3 percent of the survey population said that "not having enough money for retirement" does not apply to them (rounding makes the percentages not equal 100).  Are these the hard-core supporters of Chris Buckley's Boomsday who will "voluntarily transition" to a more peaceful place in order to reduce the burden of Social Security? 

Probably not, though I'd be interested in talking with them if they are.  Gallup may therefore want to consider moving this 3 percent into the "very worried" section, simply because these people ought to be very worried if they think retirement security doesn't apply to them. 

If you watched last Thursday's presidential primary debate, then you already know that not nearly enough attention was paid to Social Security reform.  Sen. John McCain was the only candidate brave enough to even mention the topic, though we're hopeful that all candidates will discuss retirement security in future debates.  In order to accomplish this, we will all need to work together. 

The leading vote-getter of all video questions submitted last week asked candidates whether they plan to reform Social Security, but Politico and MSNBC opted not to air the recording.  In order to get the candidates to commit to change, we need to increase our efforts by submitting more questions and more videos for the next round of debates.  And we'll need to get even more votes.  We need to let our future president know how important reform is to the future of this country.     

May 06th, 2007

Many of the candidates have been vague so far about their views on Social Security reform, but that may change Thursday night during the first Republican primary debate. We hope that tomorrow's debate gives candidates a chance to make a commitment to change, such as this one from Sen. John McCain:

"No government program is the object of more political posturing than Social Security and Medicare. Here's the plain truth: there are too few workers supporting too many retirees, and if we don't make some tough choices today, Social Security and Medicare will go bankrupt or we'll have to raise taxes so drastically we'll crush the prosperity of average Americans. Too many politicians want to ignore the problem, and run for re-election by threatening anyone who wants to fix it. That's not good enough for America. And when I'm President, it won't be good enough for me."

Other candidates such as Sen. Sam Brownback and former Sen. Fred Thompson have gone beyond recognizing the problem and have made explicit reference to personal accounts. The rest of tomorrow's candidates would likewise do well to offer a specific solution in the event a Social Security question is posed.

Be sure to tune in to hear how the next president will fix Social Security!