Contact your representatives in Congress today. Tell them to keep

from destroying social security AND that you want the Medicare Reform
Act of 2003 repealed! They work for you, not the other way around!


Social Security: Senior Citizens Should Sink the Swift Boaters; Throw

Life Preserver to AARP
Let's strengthen the system we have now, before considering private
accounts
By Tucker Sutherland, editor, SeniorJournal.com

Feb. 21, 2005 - The battle over how to reform Social Security is
about to get ugly. The Bush team hopes to squash the AARP by using

of the same tactics they used to dispatch John Kerry in the
presidential race. The people responsible for the infamous "Swift

Veterans" campaign are now gearing up to sink AARP because of their
opposition to the Bush plan to take money out of the Social Security
program and put it in private investment accounts.

At the same time, Bush loyalist are hitting the campaign trail this
week to promote the idea of private investment accounts and they are
armed with a training CD and 30-page memo from Frank Luntz, a veteran
Republican strategist, teaching them how to sell the idea to voters.

"To older Americans, Luntz suggests stressing that their benefits

be safe but that their grandchildren's are threatened unless Bush

his way," according to Steven Thomma and James Kuhnhenn who reported
the story for Knight Ridder Newspapers.

"This point, though simple, is extraordinarily powerful, especially
with older women. ... It is the only way that you can sell them on

proposal," continues the Luntz instructions

The Bush campaign for private accounts is also using tactics the
administration used effectively in getting public support for the
invasion of Iraq. It is much like the old bait-and-switch tactics

by unscrupulous retailers. In that campaign, they kept holding up the
vision of the terrorist attack on New York and talking about the war

terror, and they would mention attacking Iraq. In reality, there was

association between the two - the situation in Iraq and the war on
the people who attacked American on September 11, 2001.

A similar tactic is being used now in the Social Security campaign.

every speech the President tell us how the Social Security system in
going to run out of money if something is not done to make changes.
Then he talks about his idea for private investment accounts.

Private investment accounts will do nothing to improve the viability

Social Security. Allowing taxpayers to divert taxes they now pay to
support Social Security into the stock market will only make Social
Security run out of money faster.

But, raising the alarm about Social Security running out of money -
just as Bush did about the threat from terrorist - and then
mentioning private investment accounts - just as he did Iraq - too
many voters come away thinking they are related.

"Siphoning money from Social Security will not strengthen it," says
David Certner, AARP's director of federal affairs. "It will just make
the problem much worse."

AARP is right on this one. We have not always agreed with AARP and
often find it difficult to see this monolithic, self-perpetuating
organization that makes billions from selling stuff to older

as a voice for senior citizens. Okay, I know they claim the
organization that sells insurance, drugs, investments, etc., is
different from the membership organization. Then, too, when they try

speak for people as young as 50, they are really not a senior
citizens' organization.

It was hard to understand why they supported the Bush Medicare

without looking at all they money that comes into AARP from selling
insurance and drugs. You just had to think they saw financial

to supporting the President's Medicare program that was going to push
more business and tons of federal dollars to private organizations.

Still, AARP does provide some good services for senior citizens and
baby boomers and I don't think they are deserving of the bashing they
are about to take.

"The lobbying group, USA Next, which has poured millions of dollars
into Republican policy battles, now says it plans to spend as much as
$10 million on commercials and other tactics assailing AARP, the
powerhouse lobby opposing the private investment accounts at the

of Bush's plan," reported Glen Justice in the New York Times.

Justice wrote, "'They are the boulder in the middle of the highway to
personal savings accounts,' said Charlie Jarvis, the group's
president and former deputy secretary for the interior in the Reagan
and first Bush administrations. 'We will be the dynamite that removes
them.'"

Jarvis said the group's goal was to peel off one million members from
the AARP, by presenting itself as a conservative, free-market
alternative. He says USA Next surveys show more than 37 percent of

AARP members call themselves Republicans, according to Justice.

"We are going to take them on in hand-to-hand combat," said Jarvis,

is biting in his remarks about AARP, calling the group "stodgy,
overweight, bureaucratic and out of touch."

Formerly known as the United Seniors Association, USA Next was

in 1991 by Richard Viguerie, a Republican pioneer and mastermind of
direct mailings, who raised millions from older Americans using
solicitations that sent alarming messages about Social Security.

To allow taxpayers to invest part of their Social Security tax may

be a bad idea. But, it is not part of the discussion over how we
strengthen Social Security to assure it can pay benefits for future
generations.

Let's first decide how we are going to assure future payments, and
then we can discuss some private investment opportunity as an add-on
that may increase more Social Security income for our children.

We also need to stand up AARP's right to state a public opinion
without facing destruction by a vicious political machine. They way
they plan to destroy AARP is by convincing members to cancel their
memberships.

Frankly, I have not renewed my membership, but I am going to do so
today. I hope you will join me. And, maybe even more important, I

you will not cancel your membership if it is already paid.

Let's put the brakes on private accounts right now. Let's decide
first how we are going to actually strengthen the Social Security
program we have now.
http://64.23.76.120/NEWS/Opinion/5-02-21SwiftBoaters.htm

A voice of reason called AARP
It's hard to be undecided about Social Security solvency when you

from Oregonians who revere the program
Friday, February 18, 2005

It's too bad Sen. Gordon Smith, R-Ore., wasn't at the Portland hotel
where AARP presented its proposal Tuesday for strengthening Social
Security.

Smith is still considering President Bush's partial-privatization

He would have gotten an earful from Oregon seniors who resent what

White House is trying to do and solidly back AARP's more
straightforward and sensible strategy for guaranteeing Social

solvency.

Oregon leaders of the huge national advocacy group for retirees put

a beautifully lucid, honest and nonpartisan presentation of AARP's
Social Security platform. The truly remarkable part of Tuesday's

however, came when AARP staff members with microphones waded
Oprah-style out into the audience of some 200 mostly older Oregonians
to invite their questions.

Instead came a tsunami of emotion. Speaker after speaker condemned

Bush initiative to divert Social Security payroll taxes into

"personal accounts" for younger workers. The words "betrayed" and
"betrayal" reverberated in the conference room. Several speakers

on AARP to step up its outreach to younger Americans who aren't fully
aware of the political threat to the nation's most successful, and
obviously revered, social program.

Most of the speakers were older than 55 and thus safe from any

cuts under the promise Bush made in his State of the Union address.

matter. These Oregonians voiced outrage that future generations might
be denied the basic safety net of Social Security.

With tears in his eyes, an older man in a wheelchair thundered that

life, and the life of his son, would have been destroyed but for

Security.

A woman told how Social Security saved her from ruin when a
debilitating disease left her unable to work.

Another man described how Social Security enabled him to afford child
care when his wife died, leaving him with three youngsters to care

One of the more poignant stories came from Jane Sharp, AARP's

for Oregon. She explained how much Social Security means to her
97-year-old mother, who outlived her savings a long time ago.

"Without Social Security, 52 percent of elderly women would be poor,
and I think my mother would be among them," Sharp said.

AARP supports three basic moves to address most of Social Security's
future funding gap: raising the cap on the amount of wages taxed to
support the program, expanding it to include all newly hired state

local government workers, and investing part of the program's surplus
so it earns higher returns than those from U.S. Treasury bonds
(www.aarp.org/socialsecurity).

The AARP folks pretty much kept politics out of their presentation,
other than to urge audience members to contact their congressional
representatives. Pam Harkins of AARP singled out Sen. Smith for

attention, noting that he's on the powerful Senate Finance Committee,
heads the Senate Committee on Aging, and is "sitting on the fence" in
the Social Security debate.

A couple of hours Tuesday at the DoubleTree Hotel at Lloyd Center

have made the fence a most uncomfortable place for Smith to sit.

Contact your representatives in Congress today. Tell them to keep

from destroying social security AND that you want the Medicare Reform
Act of 2003 repealed! They work for you, not the other way around!

Contact your representatives in Congress today. Tell them to keep Bush
from destroying social security AND that you want the Medicare Reform
Act of 2003 repealed! They work for you, not the other way around!

"We are going to take them on in hand-to-hand combat," said Jarvis, who
is biting in his remarks about AARP, calling the group "stodgy,
overweight, bureaucratic and out of touch."