Bush will fight to Privatize Social Security

Published in Senior Digest on January 2005

The Bush administration and aging groups are about to battle over the privatization of Social Security.

More than four years ago, the 16-member Presidential Commission divided evenly between Republicans and Democrats, voted unanimously to send its 165-page final report to the Bush White House. The charge of the commission was to develop a road map to reform the nation’s Social Security program.

With the commission kicking off the Social Security reform debate by releasing this report in December 2001, the federal panel called for three approaches to change the 70-year-old federal program.  All the recommendations involved personal accounts, with a premise that workers’ investments would yield higher retirement benefits.

With President Bush keeping control of the White House and the GOP retaining control of Congress, Social Security is again under attack and the debate is expected to heat up.

According to recent Business Week On-Line article by Richard S. Dunham, Bush will begin to sell the partial privatization of Social Security by launching a “marketing blitz.”

“Advisors say the president, who sees private accounts as essential to his ownership society agenda, is determined to make retirement reform his top domestic priority for 2005,” Dunham wrote.

According to Dunham, Bush’s “three-phase sales plan” started with his Dec. 12 radio address Bush followed by calling for privatization of Social Security at his economic summit on Dec. 16.

Phase Two, a $ 40 million broadcast advertising campaign underwritten by nation’s corporations will tout the economic benefits of allowing workers to put a portion of their payroll taxes into investment accounts and the negative impact of inaction.  Dunham wrote Phase Three would give the public the specifics.

A Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll found that Bush had his work cut out for him to sell the public. Results showed people are skeptical about any changes to Social Security, and that the public believes it is a bad idea to let workers risk their Social Security taxes in the stock market.

Critics are quick to pounce on Bush for his calls for radical changes to Social Security. They charge that the securities industry which heavily supported Republican candidates in the last election, would benefit financially under the president’s plan.

“Wall Street and big business are seated at the conference table-where are the voices of seniors?” asked Barbara Kennelly, president and chief executive officer of the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare.

“This seems like a repeal of the president’s Social  Security Commission, where privatization wasn’t debated. It was a foregone conclusion – and that is a sure path to bad public policy,” she said in a prepared statement released after the White Houe Economic Conference.

Furthermore, Kennelly said that “a carefully orchestrated conference can’t hide the fact that privatizing Social Security may result in cuts in benefits and will dismantle Social Security, while dramatically increasing our nation’s debt.”

Just blocks away at the National Press Club, a diverse coalition of groups held a press conference on the day of Bush’s economic summit. The assembled groups, including the AFL-CIO, NAACP, National Organization for Women (NOW), disability groups, and the Alliance for Retired Americans, announced their strong opposition to Bush plan.

Those groups are part of the Campaign for America’s Future, which intends to mobilize opposition in every congressional district throughout the nation to Save Social Security benefits that would be slashed by the president’s plan.

At the news conference, George J. Kourpias, president of the 3 million plus member Alliance for Retired Americans,” told the crowd that the Social Security system is not broke or in the dire trouble Bush would have American’s believe.

“Let me remind those naysayers who conspired not to save Social Security but to bury it, that Social Security hasn’t missed a paycheck in almost 70  years, Kourpias said.

“With some changes designed to strengthen and secure the program, Social Security is well positioned to keep delivering monthly checks to millions of Americans for decades to come.”

Adds, NOW President Kim Gandy, “Social Security is not in trouble. George Bush is in trouble. More than half of elderly women would live in poverty without the benefits of this guaranteed insurance program. This destructive proposal is effectively economic violence against women- he’s risking our livelihoods to satisfy Wall Street donors and corporate cronies.

AARP President Marie Smith is also weighing in on the privatization issue by placing an open letter to 33 million plus members, on the nonprofit group’s Web site

Smith counters Bush’s statements that Social Security is in danger of going broke. Changes do not have to be drastic, she says. “Creating private accounts would only weaken Social Security and put benefits at risk for future generations.”

Smith estates that a new Social Security system would cost the nation as much as $2 trillion or more in benefit cuts new taxes or more debt.

In Rhode Island, a quick poll of the state’s Democratic U.S. senators and congressmen indicate that they oppose Bush’s retirement policy gamble. (Republican U.S. Senator Lincoln Chafee’s position could not be obtained). While each oppose the concept of privatization, the lawmakers are waiting to see the specific legislative proposals that will be introduced.

But even with Bush pushing for a major Social Security overhaul, only a bipartisan coalition of congressional lawmakers can either strengthen the existing Social Security program or scrap it through privatization.

It is crucial for seniors to send a message to Bush and the Republican congressional leadership that it’s time to go back to the drawing board to examine other approaches to strengthen America’s most popular domestic program.

Let the Spirit Be With You

Religion, Meditation Can Lead to Better Health

Published in Senior Digest on December 2004, p. 1

Owen Mahoney inherited his Catholic faith from his parents. The 78-year-old Warwick resident remembers that his intellectual curiosity helped him to better understand his religion. It also propelled him into taking philosophy and theology courses, attending workshops and having regular contact with priests.

“I knew I was on the right road and the right relationship with God,” Owen says, reflecting how Catholicism had influenced major events in his life.

From age 7 until he graduated from high school at age 17, the youngster would serve as an alter boy at his local parish. Two weeks after his graduation he would enlist in the United States Navy. The young man would find himself steering a landing craft onto the bloody Normandy Beach. His earlier alter boy experiences, gleaned during his teen-aged years, would serve him well during his three years of service during World War II. He would become an alter boy for the chaplains on the aircraft carrier U.S.S. Lake Champlain and during services at bases in England and Italy.

Catholicism would later lead to Owen enrolling at Providence College, a university run by the Jesuit order. It would also influence Owen and his wife Teresa, now married for 53 years, to raise their 12 children in the Catholic faith. Now retired, the Mahony’s attend church regularly and serve as Eucharistic ministers at Rhode Island Hospital, giving Holy Communion to the Catholic patients.

Dr. Ray Whitman, 68, a former economist who taught at the University of the District of Columbia, who now consults with the district’s government, didn’t really begin his spiritual quest until his late 30s. Ray’s desire to understand his spirituality was a long, sometimes painful process, he remembers, saying that a mid-life crisis at age 39 forced him to reevaluate his personal life, including his ties to the Episcopal Church.

“My personal crisis created an interest to explore New Age beliefs and activities,” he says. During Ray’s search, he learned how to cast astrology and numerology charts, attended metaphysical church services, practiced yoga, became a Life Spring graduate and sought advise from psychics and the counsel of gurus.

For over 22 years, the economist studied the teachings and meditation practices of Guru Mayi Chidvilasananda, the current head of the Siddha Lineage of gurus. “I have a much clearer vision of the truth through the teachings of Siddha yoga than I received through the theology of the Episcopal Church,” he said.

With Guru Mayi being less accessible to her devotees, Whitman is now focusing more on the teachings of yoga and the practice of yoga and meditation.

Both the Mahony’s strong Catholic beliefs and their regular attendance and Ray Whitman’s non-mainstream spiritual beliefs would not be a surprise to most researchers. A 2002 Gallup Poll found that “spiritual commitment usually increases as age increases.” Two years later, an AARP survey found older people more likely to attend church regularly than other age groups.

In the trenches, the Rev. Dr. George Peters, pastor and teacher of the Pawtucket Congregational Church (United Church of Christ), agrees with the observations of both polls. He sees a strong commitment to religion in his older parishioners every Sunday at worship.

“The missing generation for us to people ages 25 to 50,” the Rev. Peters says, noting that his church, like many in urban down towns have older congregations. “It’s not that we don’t attract younger members. The children of our members just grow up and move away.”

When asked about why “the greatest generation” has very strong ties to religion, the Rev. Peters said. “The group of people age 75 and older are really the last generation that really grew up in the church, worshiping regularly, being actively involved in youth organizations and attending.

“Seniors really know how to do church. They have a strong record of leadership with the church and are active volunteers,” adds the Rev. Peters.

While family physicians say that regular exercise, a good diet and giving up risky activities such as such as smoking and drinking can improve one’s health and longevity, a growing body of research adds regularly attending religious services to the list of recommendations to improve health and increase life spans.

In a July/August 1999 issue of the Journal of Gerontology, medical science editor, Dr. Harold G. Koenig, a researcher at Duke University Medical Center, noted that those who attended religious services every week were 46 percent less likely to die over as six-year period than people who attended less often or not at all.

In his study examining 4,000 of the state’s residents ages 64 to 100 that accounted for factors such as illness, depression, social connections, health practices and demographics, the North Carolina researcher found regular churchgoers were still 28 percent less likely to die than others in the study.

Dr. Koenig’s findings build on a series of earlier studies at Duke showing that religious people have lower blood pressure, less depression and anxiety and stronger immune systems than those less religious.

Some researchers may say that it is simplistic to believe that being religious is a causal factor that may improve a senior’s health and longevity. By being involved in a church, older persons are put in contact with a large number of people who can be approached for help in person or by phone. A church or synagogue can also provide seniors with many opportunities to stay socially active and engaged in community gatherings or volunteer efforts.

Gray Power Can Turn a Campaign Sour

Published in Senior Digest on October 2004

After 24 years on Smith Hill that included a 10-year stint as House speaker, John Harwood’s career came to a surprising end recently when 33-year-old former prosecutor J. Patrick O’Neill’s grass-roots campaign brought home the votes.  The lopsided victory, 758 votes for O’Neill to 352 for Harwood, propelled the political novice into the district 59 House seat.

Two years ago, Harwood barely kept his long-held House seat after a vigorous political campaign by write-in independent candidate Bruce Bayuk.  According to Joseph Fleming, of Fleming & Associates, a Cumberland-based polling and political consultant, seniors casting votes for Harwood at the polling place in Kennedy Manor on Broad Street, played a key role in his victory in that election cycle.

Fleming, who also serves as a political analyst for Channel 12 News said that senior voter support for Harwood was almost nonexistent in the recent Democratic primary.  Senior voters joined with anti-Harwood voters throughout the legislative district to give the former House speaker the boot.

“Harwood lost better than 2-to-1 at the polling place in Kennedy Manor,” Fleming said. “Seniors decided it was a time for a change.”

Over the years, political candidates have made pre-election day pilgrimages to Pawtucket’s senior high-rises.  In District 59, both Harwood and O’Neill courted voters in high-rises, providing food during meet and greet events.

“It’s a myth that a good meal at a senior high-rise will ultimately equate to a vote,” quips Fleming. “Seniors may go down to eat the food, but it doesn’t mean that you’ll get their vote.  Everyone feeds them, but they can’t vote for both sides.” Moreover, he said, the majority of older voters don’t reside in senior high rises.

“Seniors read campaign materials look at the campaign issues and vote for people who reflect their views on these issues,” Fleming says.

Darrell West, a Brown University professor and political pollster, notes that seniors are the biggest voting block in Rhode Island. “Not only are they a sizeable group in numbers, they also are more likely to exercise their franchise to vote,” he says.

Ken McGill, registrar for the City of Pawtucket, agrees with West’s assessment.  McGill says that in any election, political candidates can count on senior voters to turn out in high numbers.

“Seniors were brought up respecting the right to vote and how important it is. They know what is at stake and pay careful attention to the issues that not only affect them, but  issues impacting on members of their family, McGill says.

“Compared to young people, seniors are 30 to 40 percentage points more likely to vote, West said. “Seniors vote because they are invested in their community and come from a generation where it was considered any honor to vote,” says West.  He added that young people tend to be very cynical about politics and more likely to feel their vote does not matter.

West said that seniors voter as a bloc only when they see their issues directly at stake in an election. “If an election centers on Social Security or Medicare, they are more likely to overcome differences by gender, income and ethnicity and cast a ‘senior’ vote,” he says.

Adds Kathleen S. Connell, director of AARP-RI, “There are many reasons why candidates look to the senior citizens for votes. One of them being, the issues that affect the concerned seniors are the same issues that will also affect the candidates and their families now or in the future.”  Also, candidates know that seniors are the most reliable and informed voters, she says.

One of the questions surrounding the upcoming election is whether seniors will support the Rhode Island GOP in its efforts to increase the numbers in the General Assembly?

“Seniors lean Democratic because the elderly typically has seen democrats speak out most forcefully about the need to take care of seniors and protect Medicare and Social Security,” says West. However, Republicans have made in-roads with moral or ethical issues, he says.

Aging groups are gearing up for the upcoming November elections to send educated voting seniors to the polls, Connell says.

“This year, some of our volunteers are participating in presidential debate watches with Rhode Island College, and we are distributing voter guides for them to track the candidate responses to issues of importance to AARP members.  They can use these guides to further study the issues before going to the polls.”

Richard Bidwell, executive director of the Rhode Island Gray Panthers, also sees the value of getting educated senior voters to the polls. With the backdrop of the upcoming elections, the Senior Agenda Consortium (SAC), founded by the Gray Panthers and now comprised of 20 aging groups, is working to improve seniors’ knowledge of issues and develop strategies to pressure candidates to support SAC’s legislative agenda.

 As it did two years ago, SAC, which is funded by the Rhode Island Foundation, will organize three regional forums, to prod the candidates to support its legislation positions on issues ranging from ensuring access to low-cost prescription drugs, better funding for community long-term care services and protecting RIPTA bus routes.  The results will be released to the media.