John Sweeney and Leaders of Other Groups Hold a National Press Club News Conference On Privatizing Social Security
Political Transcript Wire › August 03, 2009
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John Sweeney and Leaders of Other Groups Hold a National Press Club News Conference On Privatizing Social Security
THE NEW CENTURY ALLIANCE FOR SOCIAL SECURITY HOLDS A NEWS CONFERENCE AT THE NATIONAL PRESS CLUB ON PRIVATIZATION OF SOCIAL SECURITY
DECEMBER 16, 2004SPEAKERS: JOHN SWEENEY, PRESIDENT, AFL-CIOJULIAN BOND, CHAIRMAN, NAACPKIM GANDY, PRESIDENT, NATIONAL ORGANIZATION OF WOMENGEORGE KOURPIAS, PRESIDENT, ALLIANCE FOR RETIRED AMERICANSMARTY FORD, DISABILITY RIGHTS ADVOCATEROGER HICKEY, CO-DIRECTOR, CAMPAIGN FOR AMERICA'S FUTUREDR. WILLIAM E. SPRIGGS, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, NATIONAL URBAN LEAGUE INSTITUTE FOR OPPORTUNITY AND EQUALITY[*] (JOINED IN PROGRESS) HICKEY: Just down the street, at the Reagan building, President Bush is conducting a different kind of conference where a hand-picked group of business representatives and right-wing economists are getting in agreement with each other, agreeing, over and over and over again, that one, the economy is in great shape, and two, if you believe that, they want you to believe that Social Security is in terrible shape. And their solution is to privatize Social Security by cutting benefits, diverting a portion of the payroll tax that we all pay to gamble in the stock market.Now, conservative columnist, David Brooks, called this gathering, the White House meeting, a kind of loya jirga for the right-wing policy wonks, a very unrepresentative gathering. His unofficial subtitle for the conference was, "Why President Bush is Right About Everything."And if you have been watching, I think, you see there is very little dissent, very little diversity of voices. And we shouldn't be surprised.We asked the Center for Responsive Politics to take a look at the participants of the president's conference, and they found that three- quarters of them have personal made political contributions to the president or his party.And of the companies represented just by participants from the financial sector, the sector most likely to benefit from privatization, they have given a whopping $6.8 million to the president and his party.Our press conference brings together leaders who are not invited to this White House party down the road. They are all strong supporters of Social Security and critics of privatization.Most of our speakers here lead organizations representing millions and millions of working families across America. Our groups have been working closely together, since the late '90s, when this issue first came up, to defend Social Security. Together, we can claim credit for President Clinton's strong stand against privatization. And during the 2000 and 2002 elections, many Senators and members of Congress underwent a rapid conversion. They had previously been publicly associated with privatization proposals, but after our educational work in their districts, most of them rapidly turned around and pretended they had never heard of the word privatization. This group of organizations knows how to communicate with the American people. Today, Social Security is, once again, at risk from the ideologues. And we're here to declare our opposition to President Bush's plan for privatized Social Security.It is in our view a mistake to dismantle America's most successful retirement security and anti-poverty program that we have ever created.Now, President Bush didn't talk very much about privatizing Social Security during the election. In fact, as you know, it was mostly about international issues -- Iraq, terrorism, patriotism.But now he's claiming to have a mandate from this election, and on that he is just plain wrong. Every poll that'...See the full content of this document
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