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January 02nd, 2006Radio Interview!
January 02nd 11:54:50 AM
Kristin Williamson, our Chapter Leader at Parkland College in Illinois, got a radio interview over the Holidays. (And may I say that she has a great radio voice.)
It was aired in three versions, and we have two below:
Clip One
Clip Two
Great work Kristin!
Posted by Jeremy Tunnell| Comments (0)
December 28th, 2005S4 member Ryan Lynch: published in Town Talk
December 28th 08:13:29 PM
Youths support reform
Marsha Mercer's Dec. 20 column about Social Security reform notes that delegates to the White House aging conference opposed the new Medicare plan as well as personal retirement accounts in Social Security.
It makes sense that seniors are concerned about the new health-care plan and that they would use the conference to voice that concern.
The session on Social Security, however, makes less sense.
Seniors are no longer stakeholders in the debate on Social Security reform. Benefits for older folks are all but guaranteed, while benefits for young people are all but guaranteed to run out.
Those of us beginning to pay into the Social Security program have the most at stake, and we will be most affected by reform.
The issue, then, is not how many old people support personal retirement accounts, but how many young people do.
As it turns out, two out of three young people want personal accounts.
Young people want choice, and we want ownership through personal accounts. But most of all, we want what most seniors already have -- security in retirement.
Let's hope that 2006 is the year that Congress finally deals with Social Security's problems.
Ryan Lynch, Students for Saving Social Security, Chicago, Ill.
Posted by Evan Dent| Comments (1)
December 18th, 2005Lefty Blogs Discuss the New Economy
December 18th 06:48:49 PM
The lefty blog talkingpointsmemo.com discusses the Bai article.
Call me crazy, but I think this might be an occasion where a civil discussion might actually accomplish something.
Back in March I did a few posts trying to get some answer or even an argument to back up Joe Klein's claim that Social Security was a program suited to the industrial age but not to the information age.
At the time on Meet the Press he had told Paul Krugman that "I think private accounts a terrific policy and that in the information age, you're going to need different kinds of structures in the entitlement area than you had in the industrial age."
This argument was beyond my powers of reasoning. And if there's no good argument behind it such talk is pernicious since finding new policy solutions to meet the challenges of the global economy is only impeded by an addiction to buzzwords and sloppy thinking.
I never got a good explanation of what the argument was. So I was surprised and disappointed to see this passage in an article by Matt Bai in today's Times magazine ...
Just as G.M. has protected its outdated products at the expense of its larger mission, so, too, have Democrats become more attached to their programs than to the principles that made them vibrant in the first place. So what if Social Security and Medicaid functioned best in a world where most workers had company pensions and health insurance and spent their entire careers with one employer? The mere suggestion that these programs might be updated for a new, more consumer-driven economy sends Democratic leaders into fits of apoplexy.
Given what he says here, Bai must be talking, as Klein was, about privatization and private accounts when he talks about Social Security.
Please bring me more policy wonks who can think in new ways as befits new times because we are surely in new times. But let's not spin our wheels with the siren song of cool-sounding phrases and poorly thought out arguments.
Bai apparently agrees with Klein that Social Security made for good policy "in a world where most workers had company pensions and health insurance and spent their entire careers with one employer" but not in a world with heavier job turnover and fewer employer-based supports like pensions and health care.
Maybe Bai has a theory to back this up. But it really seems to make no sense to me.
Let's discuss specifics.
As Bai suggests, one of the key challenges we face today is much more rapid job turnover and the decline of employer-based pensions and healthcare. The changes are, of course, tied together and each comes in response to the same economic pressures. If you're going to have four or five jobs over the course of your working life then the traditional employer pension you get after putting into twenty or twenty-five years at a company just isn't going to work -- at least not without some policy tinkering that makes the old system more portable between jobs.
How this makes Social Security less workable or efficient is difficult for me to understand since Social Security is the ultimate in portability. You can change jobs every six months for life and it doesn't matter. And your pension isn't reliant on every company you ever worked for still being solvent when you retire.
Truly, you really don't have to reason through this one very far or very hard to see that if anything has changed over the last few decades it is that Social Security has become more important and more suited to the circumstances of the time rather than less.
There are ideological reasons for changing Social Security or phasing it out. But Bai is saying the structure of our economy today makes it less workable, less efficient. I don't see where that stands up to simple argument. If someone can explain how it does, send me a brief argument to that effect and I'll print it.
-- Josh Marshall
This is the e-mail address:
talk@talkingpointsmemo.com
Posted by Adam Cahn| Comments (0)
December 15th, 2005Greenspan: Reform Social Security
December 15th 11:24:30 AM
From Cato:
"In a speech last Friday delivered at a Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia conference, outgoing Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan made it clear in no uncertain terms that entitlement spending—particularly on Social Security and Medicare-must be brought under control as soon as possible. "In the end," he warned, "the consequences for the U.S. economy of doing nothing [about the programs] could be severe." As an editorial in the Wall Street Journal this week pointed out, "doing nothing" is exactly the course of action Congress seems to have decided on this year."
Posted by Chris Schrimpf| Comments (1)
December 14th, 2005Bush Not Giving Up on Social Security
December 14th 12:00:20 PM
From the Washington Times:
President Bush will again pursue Social Security reform next year and has been frustrated by Democrats' unwillingness to address ensuring the entitlement's long-term viability, his chief economic adviser said yesterday.
"This president is not going to give up on Social Security," said Allan Hubbard, director of the president's National Economic Council.
White House aides said Mr. Bush was stung by his failure to enact Social Security reform this year -- after he made it his top legislative priority -- and will not decide how much political capital to devote to the issue until he gets closer to next month's State of the Union address.
Posted by Chris Schrimpf| Comments (0)
December 13th, 2005Getting Published
December 13th 09:34:31 PM
S4 continues to make news. Check out the latest, "Students Concerned About Social Security".
Posted by Chris Schrimpf| Comments (0)
RNC showcases S4
December 13th 09:31:23 PM
Check out picture #3 in the RNC photo gallery. S4 and President Bush are working hard to save social security
Posted by Chris Schrimpf| Comments (2)
For Whose Benefit?
December 13th 02:13:50 PM
How governors deal with their pension crises will affect the course of Social Security reform.
Courtesy of OpinionJournal.com
For Whose Benefit?
How governors deal with their pension crises will affect the course of Social Security reform.
BY BRENDAN MINITER
Tuesday, December 13, 2005 12:01 a.m. EST
Social Security reform may be all but dead in Congress, but pension reform is only starting to heat up across the country. And if we are ever going to get any serious reform for the system FDR saddled us with, it will likely develop from the way Robert Ehrlich, Mark Sanford and other governors solve a very similar, if more immediate, problem now facing their states.
To be sure, no one is talking about converting state "defined benefit" pension plans into defined contribution plans, complete with private accounts and self-directed investments. But they could do a lot worse, and, at any rate, governors and state legislatures have to find a way to pay for pension guarantees that will soon swamp their budgets, all while facing down political demagoguery and defeating organized special-interest lobbies.
Maryland's situation, although somewhat tougher than most, is typical. The state has very generous health benefits for state workers--free health care for employees, retirees and their families. But it comes at a steep cost. There are now 42,000 retired state employees. This year the government will pay approximately $311 million for health benefits. But in the coming decade, as the 77,000 employees now on the payroll retire, that price tag will more than triple, to $1 billion. In all the state has about $20 billion in long-term liabilities just to pay for health care for current and retired employees and their dependents.
What's more, the Governmental Accounting Standards Board, which sets accounting rules for state and local governments, is mandating that state governments put long-term health care obligations on the books each budget year starting in 2007. Maryland doesn't need to have all $20 billion on hand in a little over 12 months. But the state does need to have a plan in place by then, or shortly thereafter, or risk losing its good bond rating.
Gov. Ehrlich, a Republican, facing a Democrat-controlled Legislature, hasn't yet put his plan on the table. Likewise, South Carolina's Gov. Sanford, a Republican facing a much friendlier Legislature, hasn't publicly released a pension proposal to match his plan for private Medicaid accounts. But any credible plan will likely have to include setting aside hundreds of millions of dollars each year in a reserve fund. If states have any sense of money management, these funds will be invested in a mix of stocks and bonds and will thereby grow to meet liabilities in the coming years.
As states create these funds, it won't be too long before someone somewhere thinks about steering the money into individual private accounts for state employees. That would take the long-term liabilities off the backs of state governments, convert their pension plans into defined-contribution plans, and prevent rising health-care costs from ever eating up funds in the budget for other political constituencies. It would also remove a compelling reason for government employees to unionize--the fact that long-term benefits depend on flexing political muscle in the state legislature. If these accounts prove successful and popular, they would open the door for Congress to think again about personal Social Security accounts.
That, of course, is the rosy scenario. It's more likely that states will retain control of these funds, invest the money themselves and use the proceeds to pay their liabilities and keep their defined benefit pensions. That was one fix for Social Security that AARP officials mentioned they'd support when they dropped by The Wall Street Journal's offices earlier this year. The result would almost certainly be an increase in the politicization of investments, as government officials bully corporate America by threatening to dump stock.
But the fight over pension reform isn't limited to states, and increasingly the private-account genie is getting out of the bottle. And that has broad implications for how powerful labor unions will remain in the coming years. Surprisingly perhaps the opening skirmish in this more parochial fight is already under way in Congress. The president is pushing legislation that would force companies to put enough money aside to fully fund their pension plans--a no-brainer for most Americans and something the Senate has already passed.
There is trouble, however, in the House, where, The Wall Street Journal reported last week, the United Auto Workers union has teamed up with General Motors to oppose any move to force companies to put more money aside for pension plans. UAW and other union leaders are worried that such a mandate will compel more companies to drop their defined benefit plans altogether and instead offer 401(k) plans, in which the company makes a defined contribution to an employee's personal investment account.
The problem with that, of course, is that 401(k)s give workers greater flexibility to change jobs and more power over their own finances--neither of which is good for increasing union membership. Rather than joining the new economy and finding ways to offer employees portable, self-directed benefits, the UAW is fighting to keep old pension plans in place, and in the process making it more likely that taxpayers will eventually pick up the tab when companies go bankrupt and flip their pension plans to the Pension Benefit Guarantee Corp.--for which GM, Ford and union-heavy airlines are all prime candidates. When that happens, maybe we should all start looking for the union label on our tax bills.
Mr. Miniter is assistant editor of OpinionJournal.com. His column appears Tuesdays.
Posted by Adam Cahn| Comments (0)
December 09th, 2005Supreme Court Further Limits Rights To Social Security Benefits
December 09th 03:39:49 PM
The Supreme Court has shown once more just how insecure Social Security benefits really are.
On Wednesday, December 7th, the Court ruled in the case of Lockhart vs. the United States that the government has the right to withhold a portion of an individual’s Social Security benefits each month in order to pay outstanding student loan debt of retirees.
When the Social Security Act was first passed in 1935, benefits were explicitly protected from debt collectors. Congress changed all that in 1996 when it passed the Debt Collection and Improvements Act which gave government the right to withhold a portion of an individual’s Social Security benefits in order to pay his or her outstanding debts.
James Lockhart, a 66 year old disability beneficiary, began having money deducted from his Social Security benefits in 2002 to pay back his outstanding student loan debt. He sued the government contending that a 1991 law, which placed a ten-year limit on the time period in which the government can collect its debts, ought to protect his benefits from seizure. He lost.
Forget the fact that the insolvency of the current system means that scheduled benefits of future retirees will be cut by at least 24%, Lockhart will now continue to have $143.10 deducted from his monthly Social Security check every month.
Concurring with the decision of the Court, Justice Scalia wrote "[Congress] flatly contracted and thereby effectively repealed part of the Social Security Act." Those are chilling words that should leave all college students with student loans wondering "what part of my Social Security benefits are they going to cut next?"
Posted by Nicola Moore| Comments (3)
December 08th, 2005SS Reform Update
December 08th 10:57:36 AM
Last Friday members of S4 attended a Social Security panel discussion hosted by Campaign for America’s Future (a group that joined with AFL-CIO, moveon.org and other organizations to form the umbrella group Americans United to Protect Social Security). The panel was entitled “The Anatomy Of A Victory And What it Means For 2006”, Why Americans Rejected Bush’s Raw Deal on Social Security in 2005 and Why Privatization Supporters Will Pay in 2006. Quite unexpectedly, it turned out to be informative and encouraging. We wanted to share what we learned with you.
Joe Conason, author of The Raw Deal: How the Bush Republicans Plan to Destroy Social Security and the Legacy of the New Deal was the first panelist. Mr. Conason’s remarks were rather unexpected because all he could talk about was how impressed he was with the “other side” (Social Security reform supporters). He said that conservatives had been trying to push Social Security reform for almost 40 years, and anyone who expected them to just give up was dreaming. In fact, he admired the tenacity and organization of the pro-privatization movement. Interestingly, he compared Social Security reform with Clinton's health care reform -- if the Democrats had put together an equally effective coalition then “we all would have universal health care today”. Mr. Conason said he expected Social Security reform to come back as an issue again in 2007 at the latest.
Next up was Celinda Lake, pollster and author of What Women Really Want. According to Ms. Lake, adults under 35 have a much higher support for personal accounts than any other age group, especially college-educated men. This fact led her to quip half-seriously that it made her wonder what was being taught in college these days.
Her polling data was interesting. Ms. Lake said many of the people she polled were in favor of the concept of ownership. To address this, she suggested framing the current Social Security system as a “mutual ownership society”. Also, according to her, people opposed personal accounts mainly because they were afraid of losing the disability and survivors insurance portion of Social Security. As we are well aware, personal accounts would not affect either of these programs, and with some education we can easily reassure people and work to dispel the myth.
The moderator of the panel, Roger Hickey- co-director of Campaign for America’s Future, stated that he was there to “claim credit” for the victory against personal accounts this year. (A reporter at the event pointed out that while opposing many plans, the democrats have failed to provide their own). Fortunately, he reiterated that the fight was not over -- he specifically wanted to make SS reform a key issue in 2006 swing elections. He mentioned a few politicians that had campaigned on SS reform and how their support would hopefully cost them their re-election, namely Sen. Sununu and Sen. Santorum. Ironically, Senator Sununu is a great example of someone who had a very close election and won on SS reform (and his seat is not up until 2008)! Furthermore, Mr. Hickey attempted to portray Senator Santorum as someone destined to cut benefits for seniors— a difficult undertaking because Senator Santorum’s proposed legislation does quite the opposite.
Well folks, it looks like we have another fight brewing, and it will be sooner than we all expected. Who would have thought that a victory party for the anti-reformers would end up as a pep rally for Social Security reform supporters? We should thank the panel members for convincing us that with just a little more education we can turn SS reform into a winning issue in 2006.
Posted by Jo Jensen| Comments (0)
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