Bush Unveils Social Security Commission

Bush Unveils Social Security Commission

NewsMax.com Wires
Thursday, May 3, 2001

WASHINGTON (UPI) - President Bush unveiled the appointments to his Social Security commission, a team of eight Democrats and eight Republicans given the task of drafting reform proposals.

Former Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, D-N.Y., and AOL Time Warner top executive Richard D. Parsons, a Republican, will be the chairmen of the panel, which is to outline recommendations, including ways to implement Bush's proposal for private investment accounts.

"It has been apparent for many years Social Security itself is becoming insecure," Bush said at a Rose Garden ceremony to announce the forming of the panel. "If we fail to act, it will become a crisis."

The commission is already drawing criticism, however, because it doesn't include any opponents of the president's private accounts initiative, which would allow about 2 percent of the 12.4 percent federal payroll tax to go toward private investment accounts that individuals themselves could control. Critics of the program repeatedly refuse to acknowledge that it would be voluntary and limited.

Anti-Choice Daschle

"What we have been told is that this is going to be an absolutely stacked group of people," Senate Minority leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., told reporters on Capitol Hill Tuesday ahead of Bush's announcement.

"Every single one of these people is in favor of [voluntary, very limited] privatization. There has been no effort to achieve balance, no effort to reach out and try to ensure that it is an objective review.

"This is a stacked, completely orchestrated effort to come to a desired result, and I'm very disappointed that that is the decision they've made."

White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said the president, in part, chose people for the commission who backed his plan to avoid gridlock.

Estimates for the financial solvency of Social Security vary depending on which budget projections are used in the calculations. But, without some sort of reform, the system is set for bankruptcy around 2040, when the nation's retirement population is expected to swell.

"There are three workers for every retiree," Bush said. "Soon there will be two."

In addition to Moynihan and Parsons, the members of the commission are:

Sam Beard, a Democrat who founded a group called Economic Security 2000.

Republican John Cogan, a ranking official in the Office of Management and Budget under former President Ronald Reagan.

Republican Robert Deposada, head of Hispanic Business Roundtable and president of ONE Research and Marketing Inc.

Former Rep. Bill Frenzel, R-Minn.

World Bank consultant Estelle James, a Democrat.

Democrat Robert Johnson, head of Black Entertainment Television.

Former Social Security Commissioner Gwendolyn King, a Republican.

Democrat Olivia Mitchell, Wharton University professor and former co-chairwoman 1994-96 Social Security Advisory Councils technical panel on retirement saving.

Gerry Parsky, former Assistant Secretary of Treasury in President Gerald Ford's GOP administration.

Former Rep. Tim Penny, D-Minn.

Democrat Robert Pozen of Fidelity Investments.

Texas A&M Social Security expert Thomas Saving, a Republican.

Former Democrat mayor of Baldwin Park, Calif., Fidel Vargas, vice president of Reliant Equity Investors.

Carolyn Weaver, a Republican resident scholar at American Enterprise Institute.

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