Ryan J. Sorba stands before a table covered with mini-cupcakes and
whoopie pies, calling out to students as they pass. A sign lists the
prices: $6 for customers under 18; $3 for 19-year-olds; $1 for
20-year-olds; 25 cents for 21- to 39-year-olds; and free to those 40
and over.
"Don't get screwed by Social Security, support private accounts," says
Mr. Sorba, a conservative activist who has come here to Bentley
College's Student Union to help recruit new members for a chapter of
Students for Saving Social Security.
On the floor beside him stands a poster of a wizened man with a scruffy
white beard and a speech balloon that reads, "If my generation had
private accounts, maybe I wouldn't have to eat Alpo."
(...) The group's Social Security reform campaign is not all slogans. David
Finch, a freshman from Bangor, Me., shows students statistics on the
ratio of workers to retirees, and Immanuel Gilen, a 17-year-old Belgian
sophomore whom the other recruiters consider a genius, delivers the
economic argument for privatization.
"If you look at the history of the stock market, the lowest rate of
return has been around 4 percent," he says. "The rate of return on the
current system for a young worker is only around 2 percent."
By the end of the day, the group has collected 83 signed petitions and
75 cents. A success, Mr. Sorba declares.
