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Lawmakers Vow to Oppose Privatizing Social Security

Marie Terry, a member of AFSCME’s West Virginia Retiree Chapter 77, displays her hand-made sign at the rally.

Marie Terry, a member of AFSCME’s West Virginia Retiree Chapter 77, displays her hand-made sign at the rally.

Protecting Social Security from President Bush’s privatization plan “is the defining issue in the next election,” said AFSCME Pres. Gerald W. McEntee at a Capitol Hill rally on September 7, at which dozens of lawmakers made a commitment to preserve America’s most important retirement safety net.

The rally marked the kickoff of the national “Golden Promise” campaign, which calls on House and Senate members to sign a personal pledge opposing efforts to privatize Social Security. Joined by allies from the Alliance for Retired Americans and Americans United, hundreds of AFSCME members and retirees chanted, “Hands off our Social Security!” as they stood in support of lawmakers who vow to protect the retirement security of America’s workers.

“It seems like only yesterday,” McEntee told attendees, “that AFSCME worked with congressional leaders, unions and senior groups to establish Americans United to Protect Social Security. And it’s a good thing we’ve kept Americans United alive so that we can defeat this President and his congressional allies once more.”

Although Bush dropped his privatization scheme under strong opposition from AFSCME and other groups, he is about to re-launch his assault. In a June 27 speech in Washington, D.C., he said, “As you might recall, I addressed that issue last year, focusing on Social Security reform. I’m not through talking about the issue. I spent some time today in the Oval Office with the United States senators, and they’re not through talking about the issue either.” Click here for the full speech.

At the rally, Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) led about two dozen lawmakers on stage, where they vowed to block efforts to destabilize the retirement security that Social Security provides. “President Bush set out to privatize Social Security,” Pelosi told the enthusiastic crowd, “but you said, ‘No!’ all over the country, and for a while the matter was put to rest. But Bush would not take ‘no’ for an answer. We must save Social Security by winning the election in November.”

“I have a message for President Bush,” Reid said of the President’s plans to revive Social Security privatization. “Because of you, he will never get it done.”

Barbara Franklin, 61, a retired University of Illinois clerical worker from Rantoul and former vice president of Local 3700 (Council 31), was among the many AFSCME retirees who traveled to Washington, D.C., to attend the rally. Privatization of Social Security is a bad idea, she said, because it “will rob millions of people – middle-class and lower-class people – of a decent living for the rest of their years. Most people live from check to check and there’s nothing left over to set aside in private savings accounts.”

 “Privatization will amount to gambling with the accounts,” said Joseph Overton, 67, a former social service worker for the city of Philadelphia and a District Council 47 retiree. “The average Joe, who is not savvy, can lose their life savings” with private retirement accounts invested in the stock market. “Who can they depend on after that? With Social Security, they can be self-supporting.”
For more information on the threat to Social Security, go to: www.americansunitedforchange.org.

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