O'Neill Addresses Coalition for American Financial Security
June 28
While protestors bussed in by the AFL-CIO chanted outside, Treasury
Secretary Paul O'Neill made one of his strongest statements yet in favor of partially
privatizing Social Security. In a speech to the Coalition for American Financial
Security, O'Neill said that if a private company ran its pension program the way the
federal government runs Social security, "We'd all be in jail." O'Neill pointed out
that the Social Security Trust Fund contains no real assets, and that workers have
no legal rights to Social Security benefits. As a result, the retirement security of
American workers is "vulnerable to the whim of someone else's promise."
According to O'Neill, the debate over Social Security privatization boils down to a
choice between "an account with money in it and an account without any money in
it."
Companies primarily back the Coalition
for American Financial Security from the financial services industry, chief
among them: the Frank Russell Company, State Street Global Advisors, and Mellon
Institutional Asset Management. Although spokesmen denied a report from last
week's Wall Street Journal that the organization had already decided
to launch a $20 million advertising campaign on behalf of individual accounts,
there is no doubt that the organization will be able to bring substantial resources
to bear on the debate over Social Security reform.
Earlier O'Neill held a closed door meeting with Third
Millenium, a Generation X advocacy group that supports individual accounts.
O'Neill's efforts are part of a general White House campaign to enlist support
for their Social Security proposals.
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