AFGE Calls on Thomas Saving to Resign (Social Sec.) Trusteeship

[quaoar]

http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/050309/dcw064_2.html

Wednesday March 9, 5:07 pm ET
- Asks Social Security Commissioner Barnhart to Put House in Ethical Order


WASHINGTON, March 9 /PRNewswire/ -- John Gage, national president of the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) today called on Thomas Saving to resign his position as public trustee of Social Security and Medicare. Saving, as announced in a 2/23/2005 press release put out by Progress for America, is advising the group. Progress for America is an issue advocacy organization committed to advancing "a conservative legislative agenda to reform Social Security."

Thomas Saving testified before the House Ways and Means Committee today on the future of Social Security. The Ways and Means Committee web site describes Saving as "Public Trustee, Social Security and Medicare Trust Funds."

"Thomas Saving should resign as a public trustee of Social Security and Medicare because of his severe conflict of interest," said Gage, a former employee of the Social Security Administration who worked for the agency for nearly 30 years. "When a trustee testifies before Congress, there should be no question about who that trustee speaks for. But who does Thomas Saving speak for, the people who rely on Social Security or the partisan political organization Progress for America?"

Gage also called on Social Security Commissioner Jo Anne B. Barnhart to clean up the ethics mess that is growing within the Social Security Administration. From enrolling career employees in a PR campaign to sell the public on privatizing Social Security, to the participation of SSA deputy commission James B. Lockhart III in pro-privatization events held by congressional Republicans, to the alignment of Social Security Trustee Thomas Saving with an organization that holds a blatantly partisan position on Social Security, Gage said situations within SSA are raising serious ethics questions.

[EVDebs]

1. Saving is probably being forced out due to his quote in this SF Chronicle

article

Medicare faces cost crisis
Multitrillion-dollar deficits loom over federal programs

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2004/11/07/BUG0V9N54U1.DTL

"""Medicare's financial difficulties come sooner -- and are much more severe -- than those confronting Social Security,'' the report said. So why does Social Security rather than Medicare top the president's agenda? "Because Social Security is the easier of the two problems to solve,'' said Texas A&M economist Thomas Saving, who signed the report as a public member of the Social Security and Medicare Trust Fund, the board that oversees the financial health of the two programs.

Saving said elected officials of both major parties have been unwilling to face the future costs of federal health care programs.
"I don't have to be as careful,'' said Saving, who outlined the Medicare problem in an analysis issued after the official report.

In his analysis, he writes, "Although policy-makers have focused on the long-run sustainability of Social Security, the financial problem in Medicare is five times as great.'' Looking more than 75 years into the future, Saving estimates that the nation faces a $62 trillion unfunded liability for Medicare -- versus a $12 trillion gap for Social Security. Yet, he said, lawmakers created a prescription drug benefit that added nearly $17 trillion in future IOUs to that $62 trillion shortfall.

As a frame of reference, the entire U.S. economy is worth about $11 trillion this year. And Saving projected only future Medicare costs. The separate Medicaid program -- whose combined state and federal costs of $270 billion in 2003 nearly equaled Medicare's $278 billion price tag -- is also on an upward trajectory.""

[priller]

4. He's supposed to be a non-partisan trustee

and instead he talks like a second-rank partisan hack.

This whole "infinite horizon" estimate business is just a crock. Especially when he compares it to just one year of GDP. Why not compare it to the GDP's infinite horizon and see how big it is?

[EVDebs]

6. I especially like the part about how SS isn't the problem but Medicare is

and the 'drug benefit' made things WAY WAY WAY worse ! Partisan hack or not he was telling the truth and we should thank him for it. Social security isn't anywhere near the problem Medicare and Medicaid are.

The only way out of those messes is national health insurance/single payer. The duplication of overhead etc. Only government solution is viable when you see the FAILURE of the free market in this !

BTW, corporations are bailing out of benefits (healthcare and pensions) to their employees in order to mimic their operations in the third world. It's all Race to the Bottom stuff. We'll be there pretty soon at this rate.

[girl gone mad]

10. I have no plans to thank him.

Read what he wrote in the WSJ today:

The unfunded liability under Medicare is six times larger than under Social Security, but the two are connected. Any reform that puts one program on a sounder footing helps the other. Indeed, the strongest argument for the reform of Social Security is the existence of Medicare.

Pretending that privatizing SS will benefit Medicare is extremely disingenuous, to say the least. And not telling people that you are working for a partisan organization devoted to selling the SS phase-out plan is equally dishonest.

edited for typos.

[kurtyboy]

12. When you make estimates based upon an 'Infinite horizon"

the costs are reduced to an Asymptotic level centered on ZERO dollars per year!!! (Or one dollar per year if you're 'infinitely' more conservative)

Please, Mr. Saving, tell me that you're smarter than to fall for this obvious hype about costs...Several trillion dollars over infinity...PLEASE!!!!

[girl gone mad]

9. No, it's because of this:

What they don't say -- and I'll be very curious to hear whether it comes up in the testimony -- is that Saving recently signed on to be the Social Security spokesman for Progress for America, one of the two main money-fronts the White House has pushing privatization.

Late Update: TPM Reader JN points out this highly relevant passage in the Trustees 2004 report: "As Public Trustees we strive to work in a nonpartisan way to ensure the integrity of the process by which these reports are prepared and the credibility of the information they contain."


http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2005_03_06.php#005087


He should resign. An SS Trusteeship is not supposed to be used as a bully pulpit for a partisan organization. Saving is being deceptive when he writes for the WSJ and appears as a talking head on TV and in front of Congress, yet in at least 2 of the 3 cases neglects to mention that he is on the payroll at the partisan Progress for America (I don't know if he brought it up in front of Congress).

[RobertSeattle]

2. 290 Million people in this country and they find a Trustee named "Saving"

It's almost too hard to believe. I just did a White Pages search in "Saving" and there isn't one in the entire Seattle area. Is he the "Gannon" of Social Security? :evilgrin:


http://www.ncpa.org/abo/experts/tsaving.html

[SoCalDem]

7. Watch for the flick.. "Saving Private Accounts"

coming to a theatre near you !!!

[trudyco]

11. Only 6 with that surname in TX, none in VA and none in WY

That's as far as I got. Very unusual name and to be a trustee!

[RobertSeattle]

13. Would have made more sense if his last name was "Phaseout"

:evilgrin:

[lovuian]

3. A trustee is somebody who can be trusted!!! These people

are out to steal our savings for retirement just like Enron destroyed teachers pensions in the states like Florida where Jeb put all their money!!!

I praise this man for speaking out!!!

[n2mark]

5. The WH already stole the money

now SS is a crisis because of the money they stole.

[EVDebs]

8. Fabricated 'crisis'. Just like in 1981 Reagan tax cuts...same m.o.

Read Chapters 7 and 8 of "Perfectly Legal" by David Cay Johnston. After Reagan's tax cuts, in order to pay for them, they set up the scare with SS back then. Along comes Greenspan and voila, a new trust fund to raid. Taxes went up regularly, to make up for Reagan's tax cuts and increased defense spending. Bada bing, the Reps blame the Dems for tax increases (oops) Revenue Enhancements, and here you are today.

Same m.o.; hopefully not the same result.

[librechik]

14. beware-- pukkkes would love it if the SSA staff is discredited

one more reason to dismantle it, no? I'm sure they are doing and spending all that is necessary to help this impression along, including corrupting officials.