A Remembrance Of The Extraordinary Bob Ball

From Gene Sperling:

During the battle over President George W. Bush's plan to partly privatize Social Security, many of us engaged in the debate received long, lucid memos from a former Social Security commissioner. I used to receive similar notes from this particular person years before, when I was in the Clinton White House.

What was extraordinary was that the individual pounding out and faxing these memos was at the time 91 years old. It just didn't seem like a big deal to most of the Washington policy community, because everyone had just come to expect that from Bob Ball, who died four weeks ago at age 93. ...

Nostalgia for Ball's accomplishments -- or even for his energy level -- doesn't do justice to his future-oriented spirit. Even in his 80s and early 90s, Ball was putting forward plans that were designed to both ensure Social Security's long-term solvency and its guaranteed benefit.

The whole article is worth reading.