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SS 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
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