Dems rally against McCain social security policy

By Britten Chase, PolitickerOR.com Reporter

PORTLAND -- Twenty-five Democrats gathered in Pioneer Courthouse Square Friday afternoon to tell their fellow Oregonians that presidential candidate John McCain’s (R-Ariz.) policy of privatizing social security would be disastrous for their families and state.

Democratic Party of Oregon chair Meredith Wood Smith, accompanied by her three and a half year-old grandson Miles, spoke to the gathering, saying that John McCain’s policy of having personal accounts would leave social security in a highly tenuous position, to the point that future generations would not have the same safety net in place that social security currently offers.

“We know Oregonians have not gotten enough information about McCain’s social security policy,” Wood Smtih said. “There are 643,000 Oregonians relying on social security right now, and under McCain’s privatization policy 105,000 of them would be cast into poverty.”

Wood Smith and Democratic supporters say they want to make sure all Oregonians understand McCain’s policies and how it would affect their everyday. The rallying crowd members held bright yellow signs and handed out fliers to those passing through the downtown square. Protestors said they felt comfortable that Obama would win the Beaver State in November, even though a poll released yesterday showed Obama and McCain in a statistical dead heat.

“We are not taking anything for granted, we are going to be out there getting every single vote,” Wood Smith said. “We’ve got people out on the street canvassing and knocking on doors. The more people that participate in this process, the better off this country is.”

One of those people out on the street and participating in Friday’s rally was Bill Kroger. Kroger has been on social security for the past year, but worries that there will not be anything left for his grandkids, who are as young as one year old.

“It’s been around since the 1930s, but Republicans have been chipping away at it,” Kroger said.

Kroger said he hopes that an Obama win in Oregon can be the starting point for turning the social security crisis around.

“There’s a clear difference between McCain and Obama,” Kroger said. “McCain just wants to privatize it, but Obama believes he can save it. And there’s a lot we can do to save it.”

BRITTEN CHASE is a PolitickerOR.com Reporter and can be reached via email at brit.chase@politickeror.com.

Related topics: John McCain, Barack Obama, Meredith Wood Smith

If you liked this article, subscribe to The Wake-Up Call. It's FREE!

Email this Article

Comments

There is no crisis

posted by JO

Social Security doesn't have a crisis, it is running a surplus.

The crisis is with the government that does not want to pay it back. They are used to taking from the average boomers, not giving anything back.

08/10/08 1:10 am

Fixing Social Security and Health Care

posted by Andy Lang

I just sent this to The Christian Science Monitor:

I just sent this Letter to the Editor and would like to write a longer version for your newspaper:

I am a retired health care and pension-consulting actuary and strongly disagree with the actuaries’ recommendation to fix Social Security by increasing the retirement age. Actuaries are in fact one of the main reasons the system remains actuarially unsound.

The way to fix the system is to make it a real defined benefit pension system, instead of the fake Potemkin Village one it is now.

You do this by (1) changing the way we finance it from PayGo to Actuarial Advance Funding using an Actuarial Cost Method, and invest some of that money in private securities, especially common stock; and (2) pass strong laws with teeth to protect the assets and the past service accrued benefits from being cutback.

This will lower cost by more than two-thirds and stabilize the system, and give great protection to ordinary workers.

It will also benefit the economy, both short-term and long, since the advance funded assets will create national savings and sound investments.

Bill Clinton remains the only head of state to ever say the right things in this area, and I helped him in mid-1998.

The same methodology is also essential for Medicare, and when we finally get to it, the entire national health care system.

***

My views are unique, and long held--43 years in the case of Social Security--and everything I say in the right way to finance both systems I have actually done most of my career.

Similarly, everything I say on the legal side I have observed back in the 1970's and noticed what happens when these laws are screwed up by Congress and accountants, namely that the corporate defined benefit pension industry will collapse along with corporate retiree medical plans, with plan participants being taken advantage of big time

I would also be happy to write a series of articles on this subject and pattern them after the chapters of the book I am working on: Fixing Social Security & Health Care...And By So Doing Also Fixing Capitalism & Saving Democracy.

You may find some of my work by Googling me, Andy Lang actuary and, among other things, looking for the letter I sent to the IRS on Cash Balance Pension Plans and the one sent to the NLRN on ‘Asset Leakage.

08/12/08 9:46 am

Post new comment

Contributors

Wally Edge

Is it contradictory for Smith to run against Wyden in 2010?

It's been a mere two weeks since the November elections and the the GOP is already looking ahead to 2010 and "rebuilding" their party. According to The Next Right, a website ... >

Rob Tornoe

I can see Mexico from my house

Janet Napolitano, the Democratic governor of Arizona and an early supporter of Barack Obama's presidential campaign, is being mentioned for several federal posts, including Attorney General ... >