Comission Defends Interim Report
July 30, 2001
As protestors chanted outside and anti-privatization groups held dueling press
conferences, the President's
Commission to Strengthen Social Security approved an interim
report that warns Social Security is facing a financial crisis as early
as 2016, unless the system is fundamentally reformed. The report also points
out the ways in which the program is unfair to women, minorities and the poor.
In addition, the report stresses the importance of wealth creation and of finding
ways to allow low-wage workers to save and invest.
Richard parsons, co-chairman of the commission and chief operating officer
of AOL/Time Warner, summed up the commission's conclusions: "The system is
unsustainable. It cannot go on as it is."
Daniel Patrick Moynihan, the other co-chair and former Democratic Senator
from New York, read a letter from former Democratic Senator Bob Kerrey of
Nebraska, warning that failure to reform Social Security guarantees benefit cuts or
tax increases.
Several commission members expressed surprise and unhappiness with the
level of rhetoric employed by critics of privatization. Commission member Robert
Johnson implored fellow Democrats to "lower the rhetoric and stop the 'kill the
messenger' strategy." Johnson said that Social Security's problems would not go
away just because critics were "calling out names and sticking their head in the
sand."
Meanwhile, down the hall, critics of privatization provided a taste of that
vitriol. Congressman Robert Matsui (D-CA) denounced the commission as "a tool
of the Cato Institute" and demanded that it be disbanded. Henry Aaron of the
Brookings Institution denounced the report as "distorted" and "Chicken Little
analysis." Both Aaron and Matsui denied that Social Security was facing a crisis at all. Elsewhere, Minority Leader Richard Gephardt (D-MO) called the commission
part of "a 65 year campaign to destroy Social Security."
The Cato Institute recorded the commission's meeting. To view: click for morning
or afternoon
session.
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