Barack Obama

Obama: Bush SS plan dead

Wednesday, April 27, 2005

By Edward Felker
Rock Island Argus

WASHINGTON -- Freshman Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., said Tuesday that the American public already has rejected President George W. Bush's plan to partially privatize Social Security, in large part because they worry about their economic future.

Obama made his remarks at an address to a sold-out National Press Club luncheon, where he shared the podium with James Roosevelt Jr., grandson of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. It was Obama's first national address since taking office in January.

Obama maintained that Bush has failed to win backing for his plan despite a two-month public barnstorming tour.

"The American people have done it and continue to do it," Obama said in response to a question asking what people could do to stop privatization. "The fact of the matter is that the president has been on his 60-day tour, and everywhere he goes, the numbers get worse."

The average American is not following the intricacies of Washington politics, but they are keenly aware of Social Security's importance to seniors and widows -- if not themselves, then their parents or grandparents, Obama said.

"The American people have essentially voted on this proposal," Obama said. He said Bush and congressional Republicans are looking now for a way to "save face and step back a little bit," and said Democrats are ready to help.

"To the extent we can provide the president with a graceful mechanism..." Obama said, his words drowned out by loud laughter and sustained applause.

Obama said Democrats will want a Social Security solution, but not one that dismantles the nearly 70-year-old program, which guarantees benefits.

Coincidentally, Obama's speech came on the same day the Senate opened hearings into Bush's call for Social Security changes. The appearance was orchestrated by Roosevelt, a member of the board of governors of the Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Foundation and former associate commissioner of the Social Security Administration.

Bush has proposed letting workers divert up to 4 percent of their Social Security payroll taxes to a private account as a way to offset benefit cuts to shore up the system.

Democrats have countered that the accounts would not return Social Security to solvency and would require massive federal borrowing to cover the diversion of those funds from current retiree payouts.

Obama said Social Security's solvency issues should be seen as "a problem and not a crisis," that could be addressed in the same way as they were in 1983, when the last major overhaul centered on a gradual rise in the retirement age.

He added that the president's plan represents the latest "ideological assault" by conservatives on Social Security and on Roosevelt's vision of social insurance.

"I fundamentally disagree with the central premise of what this president has termed the ownership society," Obama said.