AARP: DON'T MESS WITH SOCIAL SECURITY
Sun Jan 30, 9:40 AM ET
Top Stories - Chicago Tribune
By Jill Zuckman Washington Bureau
Pittsburgh retiree Jack Heim is eagerly looking forward to Congress'
break for Presidents' Day next month, when both of Pennsylvania's
Republican senators, Arlen Specter and Rick Santorum, will be home
from Washington.
Heim has a blunt warning for Specter,
Santorum and any other lawmaker who will
listen: Hands off Social Security .
.
"We can give them our message, which is,
Don't destroy the greatest program in the
world," said Heim, 84.
Heim, who retired years ago from his
family's saw company, is one of thousands of volunteers who have been
mobilized by the AARP against President Bush (news - web sites)'s
Social Security reform plan, even before it is fully formed.
Bush is set to provide more details of his plan in his State of the Union
address to be delivered Wednesday.
Heim's message is especially potent in a state with one of the highest
proportions of elderly voters. But AARP, the nation's largest senior
citizen lobby with 35 million members, is playing a central role
nationwide in the debate over Social Security. The group has already
launched a multimillion dollar campaign to defeat Bush's plan using
newspaper ads, phone banks, pollsters and an army of activists.
AARP is planning an all-out assault when lawmakers return home to
their states for the Presidents' Day recess. Already, activists have
contacted members of Congress more than 130,000 times since
December, and the group's Web site is encouraging senior citizens to
e-mail their congressional representatives and urge them to oppose
Bush's plan for private retirement accounts funded by a portion of an
individual's payroll taxes.
Lawmakers openly acknowledge AARP's power.
"It's going to be very difficult to get Social Security [reform] without
them," said Sen. John McCain (news, bio, voting record) (R-Ariz.).
"They're very well-organized, and we all know they turn out to vote."
Scare tactics alleged
Not everyone is happy with the group's monster clout and the way that
power is being used. Some who support Bush's plan accuse AARP of
trying to scare seniors with the false specter of benefit cuts or even the
abolition of the New Deal-era program created to keep seniors out of
poverty.
"We haven't seen screaming hysteria yet, but we will," predicted Bruce
Josten, executive vice president for government affairs of the U.S.
Chamber of Commerce (news - web sites), a key ally of the White
House. The chamber and other business groups are mobilizing on the
other side of the barricades from AARP and are expected to contact
lawmakers with equal urgency.
As the debate begins in Congress, the pressing question is whether the
president can persuade nervous senators and representatives to impose
changes against the overwhelming opposition of such an important
constituency. While Bush has run his last presidential campaign, many
of the lawmakers whose support he needs will be running for re-election
next year.
Bill Novelli, the CEO of AARP and a former public-relations executive,
said his group is eager to address the program's long-term financial
challenges--just not the way Bush envisions.
"We are dead-set against carving private accounts out of Social Security
money," Novelli said. "We are speaking out now, while the agenda is
being set."
Novelli argues that Social Security needs to be adjusted only slightly in
order to remain solvent, that there is no crisis, as the White House has
insisted. Novelli said the president's idea--taking some of the money that
workers pay into the system and using it to create private investment
accounts--would put retirees at the mercy of the stock market.
By diverting some of the money that streams into Social Security, AARP
argues, Bush's proposal would weaken the current system, while
creating a risky plan that has no fixed income guarantees for future
retirees.
AARP has not held back in letting its views be known.
The group this month ran ads in 53 daily newspapers
and six Capitol Hill publications slamming Bush's
Social Security plans. "Winners and losers are stock
market terms," declares one ad. "Do you really want
them to become retirement terms?"
Another, featuring a man and woman in their early
40s, also focuses on the uncertainties the group sees
in the Bush plan. "If we feel like gambling, we'll play
the slots," the couple says.
Last Monday, the group released a poll that AARP said
showed that "the more Americans learn about diverting
Social Security taxes into private investment accounts,
the less they like the idea."
This fierce opposition stands in stark contrast to the
group's steadfast support for Bush's recent plan to add
a prescription drug benefit to Medicare. AARP's stance
on that legislation, which passed in late 2003,
prompted many members to quit in protest.
Despite the current GOP unhappiness with the
organization's assault on Bush's plan, some
Republicans remain grateful for the group's support on
Medicare.
"I owe the AARP so much thanks for their help on the
prescription drug bill that if I have a disagreement with
them on Social Security, it's not going to get my wrath,"
said Senate Finance Committee Chairman Charles
Grassley (R-Iowa).
Seniors speak, Congress listens
And senior citizens are used to having Congress listen
to their opinions.
"They know seniors vote," said Evelyn Gooden, the
president of Illinois AARP. "If we can get enough people
out there to get the message out, I think they will
listen."
In 1988, Congress expanded Medicare to provide
health-care and prescription drug coverage for
"catastrophic" medical conditions.
But seniors were furious when they found out that the
new law required them to pay the entire cost of the
benefits, including an income surtax of up to $1,000 in
some cases.
So only months later, lawmakers did an about-face,
repealing the law to appease their constituents.
"I would come home and, whoo, you would really get it,"
recalled former Rep. Barbara Kennelly (D-Conn.), a
member of the House Ways and Means Committee that
crafted the legislation. "When people really get that
mad, you shouldn't force it down their throats."
Now president of the National Committee to Preserve
Social Security and Medicare, the second-largest
seniors' advocacy group, Kennelly spends her mornings
talking to drive-time radio hosts about the perils of
diverting Social Security revenue into private
investment accounts.
Kennelly's group opposed Bush's prescription drug plan,
even as AARP supported it. Now she said she's happy to
be on the same side as the much larger group.
"With their numbers and their money and their
strength, they're a good ally," she said.
The last time Congress changed Social Security in any
significant way was in 1983, when its trust fund was
facing insolvency in a matter of months.
Congress passed a law to raise the retirement age from
65 to 67 by the year 2027, delayed retirees' annual
cost-of-living adjustment for six months and increased
payroll taxes for employers and employees.
This time, there is no agreement about how dire the
circumstances are as the Baby Boomer generation
begins to retire and the Treasury is forced to pay out
more in benefits.
AARP proposals
AARP officials say they are eager to work on a
bipartisan solution, as long as it does not tamper with
the traditional approach to supporting seniors. As
possible alternatives to Bush's proposal, the AARP lists
raising the payroll tax by a half-percent; raising the
total wages that can be taxed for Social Security; and
raising the retirement age yet again.
"We do not think Social Security is in a crisis," Novelli
said. "We do think it has long-term problems, and if we
address them now, there will be a lot less pain later."
Novelli said AARP is reaching out to younger
people--those under 50, which is AARP's minimum
enrollment age--and considering a television
advertising campaign, in addition to its other outreach
efforts.
"We expect to spend the whole year at this," he said,
describing Social Security as the organization's top
priority.
And he denied that the group's aim is simply to
obstruct.
"I don't think there's a `Hell, no, we won't take benefit
cuts' attitude out there," Novelli said, calling his
members realistic about the demographic changes
affecting the program's fiscal soundness.
Proponents of personal investment accounts are looking
askance at AARP's opposition.
"I find it remarkable that they say investing in mutual
funds is risky, and yet they offer mutual funds
themselves," said Santorum, one of the leaders in the
effort to revamp Social Security, referring to one of
AARP's services.
Others say it's too soon to get so worked up without a
detailed proposal on the table.
"We haven't even got our teeth into what the argument
is," cautioned Sen. Richard Lugar (news, bio, voting
record) (R-Ind.).
Sen. Jon Kyl (news, bio, voting record) (R-Ariz.) has
already met with members of the local AARP chapter at
home and describes himself as "intrigued" by private
accounts. Asked if the AARP members he met were
equally intrigued, he smiled and said, "Not so much."
Even so, with a campaign for re-election in 2006, Kyl
said he hoped to keep lines of communication open.
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