The National Committee To Preserve Social Security and Medicare Goes Over The Top With Its Hype

     The National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare (NCPSSM) is putting out press releases about the White House Senior Community Leaders Summit today. The press releases have gotten into a number of newspapers. However, the White House isn't involved in this "summit" unless you want to count a tour of the White House as involvement. I think a lot of groups visiting Washington for a conference manage to wangle a White House tour. I don't think that many of them try to imply that this makes their Washington conference an official White House event.

     I have written before about the NCPSSM's somewhat checkered past. If they wanted to be taken seriously, you'd think they'd avoid anything as questionable as this.

     Update: I am told that this NCPSSM event included a meeting with White House officials at the White House. In my opinion, it is misleading for NCPSSM to label this as a White House "summit." NCPSSM implied that this was a major event set up by the White House. It wasn't. The White House website makes no mention of this event.
     The truly major national organization formed to lobby for Social Security is Strengthen Social Security. NCPSSM is one of dozens of members of Strengthen Social Security.

Barbara Kennelly Out At NCPSSM

     Barbara Kennelly, a former Congresswoman, became President of the National Council to Preserve Social Security and Medicare (NCPSSM) in 2002. She has recently been replaced by Max Richtman, a long-time NCPSSM board member. No explanation was given for Kennelly's departure. You would think that if this were a simple case of Ms. Kennelly retiring or moving on to another job that there would have been a press release.

     NCPSSM has been around for more than 20 years. It started out under the leadership of a son of Franklin Roosevelt and quickly got into trouble for its fundraising activities which featured over the top scare tactics at a time when there was little reason to be scared about Social Security's future. If I remember correctly, there was a Congressional hearing. Ever since, NCPSSM has struggled with a questionable reputation. My impression is that the organization is a far more interested in fundraising than anything else. They put out press releases and they engage in relentless fundraising but I have never noticed them having any impact.

What About Your Own Shortcomings?

Barbara Kennelly, the President of the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare, writing in the San Francisco Chronicle:

Charles Dickens' Ebenezer Scrooge feared the Ghost of Christmas Future more than any other he'd met during his long Christmas Eve night. I can relate. After watching congressional passage of the White House-Republican negotiated tax deal, I, too, fear for the future. I fear this tax package is the first step toward radical changes to Social Security that will impact generations of working Americans.

While some elements in the tax package provide desperately needed stimulus for millions of Americans - including far too many who are suffering near-Dickensian levels of poverty and fear - this deal also diverts $112 billion in contributions from Social Security. A "tax holiday" may sound like a wonderful gift for workers now, however this one is wrapped in Washington promises that could turn out to be as thin as tissue paper.

As we've seen in Congress these days, it's easy to enact tax cuts but virtually impossible to allow them to expire. ...

Retirees and their families will watch helplessly as Social Security becomes dependent on general fund revenues rather than worker contributions, which have successfully funded the program for 75 years. Proposals like this threaten the program's independence at this time of unprecedented deficits, forcing Social Security to compete for limited federal dollars. ...

Conservatives have long dreamed of a payroll tax holiday because it fulfills two ideological goals: lower taxes and weakening Social Security's finances.

Ms. Kennelly ought to acknowledge that her organization took more than 24 hours to announce opposition to this FICA holiday and that AARP actually supported it! If there had been rapid, united opposition to this plan, we might not be where we are today.

A Contrast

The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has its own severe backlog problem. To help deal with the onslaught of claims, VA is proposing some changes to its computer systems. The response from veterans advocacy groups:

• "This is old news"
• "Verbiage in proposal is obtuse to the max ... many in attendance did not understand the Gov.speak gobbledygook."
• "This proposal is Dead on Arrival."

I cannot help but contrast this to past introductions of somewhat similar plans at Social Security. I do not know whether this is good or bad but I have to say that Social Security advocacy groups have been much more restrained in their comments on similar proposals at Social Security even when their private thought might have been the same as what the veterans advocacy groups are saying.