National Nurses United

Here's how the ruse works: When a matter is politically sensitive—meaning certain to evoke widespread opposition—the powers-that-be set up a commission. Usually such bodies are creatures of Congress and are empowered to come up with recommendations that are then brought back to the Senate and the House of Representatives for a "fast track," up or down, no-amendment vote with little opportunity for debate. This means that no matter how much public opposition there is to the proposals, neither of the two political parties bear responsibility; thus, the label "bipartisan." Earlier this year, in a move supported by the White House, Congress took up a proposal by Senators Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) and Judd Gregg (R-N.H.), to create just such a commission, ostensibly focused on the nation's budget crisis. At the time Sen. Max Baucus, chair of the Senate Finance Committee called the proposed commission a "roll of the dice for Social Security and Medicare," that would have "painted a big red target" on the two programs. The Conrad-Gregg measure drew opposition from over 50 major organizations, including the AARP, NAACP and the AFL-CIO, and was shelved after some Republicans said they would not vote it. Then something truly startling occurred. President Obama created the commission by Executive Order. Citing the need to do something about the growing national debt, he decreed an 18-member body to propose ways to do so. He named as the Commission's cochairs Republican former Wyoming senator Alan Simpson and Democrat Erskine Bowles, from North Carolina, who served as White House Chief of Staff under President Bill Clinton. Republican leaders agreed to participate in the process while making it clear that in their view trimming the deficit should be realized through cuts in spending and not tax increases. Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell said right out that the deficit should be dealt with through changes in "Medicare, Social Security and Medicaid." "There's some on the left who believe that this issue can be deferred," Obama said at the time. "There are some on the right who won't enter into serious discussions about deficits without preconditions. But those who preach fiscal discipline have to be willing to take the hard steps necessary to achieve it." The plan is for the commission to make its report and recommendations December 1, after the November election, to be acted upon by what will essentially be a lame duck Congress. "The people, once again, are kept in the dark," William Greider wrote recently in The Nation. "The Obama commission will not report its recommendations until after this fall's elections-too late for voters to express objections. Both parties assume they can evade blame by holding hands and jumping together." A principal driving force behind the assault on Social Security and Medicare is Republican conservative and Wall Street billionaire Pete Peterson, a longtime critic of Social Security, who has waged a multimillion-dollar campaign against it, doling out resources to 14 N AT I O N A L N U R S E think tanks, major media economic writers and various groups to push his cause. His consistent message has been that Social Security is a major factor in the rising federal budget deficit. Actually, it isn't. Established in 1935 as part of the New Deal during President Franklin Roosevelt's first term, Social Security aims to reduce economic insecurity among seniors and poverty resulting from the death of wage earning spouses or parents, or the onset of serious physical disabilities. Today, the program shields an estimated 40 percent of all Americans 65 or older from abject poverty. Last year over 50 million people received $650 billion in Social Security benefits. "Social Security is one of the truly great achievements of the New Deal," says National Nurses United Co-president Jean Ross, RN. "So many people rely on it. We know that we can't rely on it completely to cover our retirement but it provides assurance that people don't have to live out their lives in poverty. It's a good principle: Everybody helps a little so that everybody can be assured of food and shelter in their senior years." As an insurance program, Social Security is involuntary, in that everyone employed in the private sector must pay into it and is entitled to its benefits upon retirement or disability. Contrary to the claims of those who seek to "reform" Social Security, the program's financing is not part of the federal budget paid out of tax receipts. Instead, monies collected through payroll deductions are held by federally administered trust funds. Currently, those separate accounts hold $2.5 trillion, a surplus that is expected to increase to $4.3 trillion by 2023-enough to cover all claims at current rates until sometime in the 2040s. Even if a shortfall were to arise then, experts say, it could be easily remedied through relatively minor changes, such as raising the cap on earnings subject to payroll deductions (currently $106,800) so that wealthier people pay more into the system-a solution that polls say an overwhelming majority of Americans support. "Because the projected shortfall in Social Security is much smaller and more manageable than is often presented, eliminating the cap on taxable earnings would bring in sufficient funds to close the projected Social Security shortfall over the next 75 years, solving the entire problem," Ross Eisenbrey, vice president of the Economic Policy Institute, a think tank that focuses on low- and middle-income workers, wrote in a recent report. W W W. N A T I O N A L N U R S E S U N I T E D . O R G JUNE 2010 DIGITALSKILLET | ISTOCKPHOTO.COM Social Security Final_FNL with art 7/30/10 6:09 PM Page 14

• Cover