The end of this week will mark the half-way point of my summer at S4. This far, I have done more at S4 than some interns get to do all summer! I have met many students in DC through the S4 network and have attended three events at the White House and three student conferences—all in just three weeks!
As you know, S4 has been handing out "Missing" posters with a large picture of Senator Clinton. The message to New Hampshire voters is that Senator Clinton is "missing" on the issue of Social Security.
Well, S4 volunteer Timmy McGuire managed to get Clinton to take a picture with him while he was holding a "Missing" poster. Here it is:
Founded in 2005 when Congress was debating President Bush's privatization plan, Students for Saving Social Security now works to put social-security reform back on the agenda in Washington.
(...) When Sen. Hillary Clinton said last year that Social Security wasn't a priority, Evan Dent, the group's 24-year-old grass-roots and public-relations director, walked into the New York senator's New Hampshire headquarters in an ostrich suit to deliver an "ostrich award," a citation given to candidates who avoid the issue. In recent months, the group has adopted a new tactic: dropping in on campaign events in neon-green T-shirts that say, "New Hampshire Cares About Social Security."
The goal is twofold, explains Ms. Dent. "We want the voters to be educated on the issue, and we want the candidates to know that it's a very important issue that they need to fix," she says.
[Executive Director Jo] Jensen has proved herself skillful at the art of getting called on at town hall meetings. At a Clinton event on Sunday, Ms. Jensen wore her bright green T-shirt and held another in the air. "I wanted her to think that I had something to give to her," she said later. It worked.
When Mrs. Clinton nodded in her direction, Ms. Jensen grabbed a microphone and took the floor. "I heard some people say that Obama won the youth vote in Iowa because you don't talk about issues that we care about," she said as Mrs. Clinton and more than 2,000 people listened. "But I know that you do, so I wanted to give you this T-shirt and ask you: What's your plan for Social Security for my generation?"
"'We want Hillary to say something on Social Security,' said 24-year-old Timmy McGuire of Rochester, N.Y. 'We're pro-Social Security reform.'"
Timmy and Mary Zwick (both pictured in our January 5 blog post) came up to New Hampshire to volunteer with S4 prior to Tuesday's primary. For the full story, click here.
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S4 went to campaign events for Clinton, McCain, Obama, and Edwards on Sunday, and we were able to ask two of the four candidates about Social Security reform. Here is the video of Jo talking to Clinton about the importance of addressing issues that young people care about:
Two S4 volunteers, Mary Zwick and Timothy McGuire, went to Pentacook today to find a missing woman. This woman, Senator Hilary Clinton, was last seen avoiding conversations about Social Security reform. Our efforts today of passing out “Missing Posters” are part of S4’s larger statewide movement to encourage Senator Clinton and the other presidential candidates to talk about their plans to reform Social Security for future generations.
We had a great response from the New Hampshire voters that attended the event. Everyone that we talked to agreed that Social Security reform is an important topic and an issue that they had not heard the Senator discuss.
This morning Lifetime Television hosted a women's forum called, "If I were President". Jo and I attended on behalf of S4...after all, fixing Social Security is something every woman voter should be concerned about!!
There are few arguments against personal accounts as pesky as the claim of transition costs, which is the idea that switching to a partially pre-funded retirement system cannot be done without incurring an expense. That a switch to personal accounts costs money is indeed true; what is untrue is that this cost is greater than the liabilities we face further down the road. In economic terms, the cost of achieving solvency with personal accounts is less than the net present value of future liabilities. Such a transition to solvency would therefore save money in the long term.
Of course, most people seem never to make it to the rebuttal which exposes transition costs as fallacious. Instead, they remember that switching to personal accounts costs money. Their attention wanes somewhere between this fact and the second, more important fact that our current system will cost us a whole lot more.
I've been frustrated by this for some time, and so I have been looking for a good explanation of transition costs. Well, I think I stumbled upon an explanation when I opened the mail a few days ago. Inside one holiday-themed card was an offer from a health club that I joined at the beginning of 2007. I wound up not going to the gym that much, and so they offered to let me buy out the remainder of my membership for 30% less than what I owed. Instead of my paying another $100, then, the gym offered to let me buy out my membership for $70 as a measure of goodwill.
Here's the question: Did buying out the membership entail a transition cost of $70? Or did it reduce my future costs by about $30?
In other words, did I face an additional cost by taking advantage of the health club's offer? Or did I end up saving money?
I think the answer is pretty clear: The transition cost argument is bogus. But there's another lesson here too, and it applies to those of you about to make New Year's resolutions: Apparently not going to the gym after you've joined can save you money.
Here's what Fred Thompson said last night during the Republican debate in Iowa:
"Our country has a $9 trillion debt. A good chunk of that is owned by China. We're bankrupting the next generation, without any question. Every economist in Washington who's looked at will tell you that. It affects our national security, for one reason is because we're squeezing military spending. We're spending below historic norms under these circumstances for our defense, and we're spending twice as much for entitlements.
"That's why I put out a specific Social Security plan that'll save Social Security while saving the government $4 trillion. It's all in entitlements. We've got to spend more for the military, as a matter of fact. But we've got to look at Social Security and Medicare and do some things now that won't hurt anybody badly, but will save it for the next generation."
Students at UNH found out yesterday that Senator Clinton is missing...on the issue of Social Security reform!! S4 is passing these flyers out at college campuses across New Hampshire, bringing awareness to the silence of Mrs. Clinton on the problems facing Social Security.
Let me know if you'd like some flyers to hand out at your own campus!
