My report on my rep's Town Hall on Social Security.

[crispini]

Ok, so I went and wrote the whole damn thing up for my freshly-minted blog. The entire story's pretty long, so here's the summary:

(snip)....

I have to confess, I was nervous. I'd never done anything like this before. Before I came, I took all the Democratic bumper stickers off my car because I knew I was going into a "red" area. I was worried I was going to be the only person asking hard questions – especially because W's Social Security townhalls are limited to "supporters only."

Well. The appointed time rolled around, Mr. Hensarling introduced himself, and we were off. He gave us a thirty minute presentation on what he saw as the Social Security basics, which was highly in favor of the President's proposal, and then it was Q&A time. The first person lobbed him a softball.

But THEN—boy! Every person in that room was on him like a duck on a junebug. It was teeth and claws and long knives all the way. I was amazed to hear person after person, armed with printouts from the internet, question the basic assumptions he'd made, mention Alan Greenspan's take on it, wonder where the extra money to make the transition would come from, and basically, trash the entire idea six ways from Sunday. I didn’t even have to ask anything. Every single question I had was asked by the people in that room. And they did NOT sound happy, either. Actually, I was a little surprised that Mr. Hensarling left that room with all of his extremities intact.

I was impressed. Everyone who spoke was well informed, came armed with facts, and had a good point to make. Several made their points with heartfelt passion. If the other constituent meetings are anything like the one I attended, our representative will be going back to Washington with a real earful and maybe not quite so much enthusiasm for the President's plan. Here's hoping.

(snip)...

For the complete play-by-play:
http://practicalactivist.blogspot.com/2005/02/report-on-social-security-town-hall.html

[indianablue]

1. sounds encouraging ....

but these freaks do not care what voters think.

The GOP will be willing to sacrifice a few congressman in order to get this passed in my opinion.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

2. but will they be willing to sacrifice a majority of them?

I'm not kidding. Social Security is not like Iraq-foreign and far away. People understand how this will effect them and their families. They are watching the stock market going down, and this isn't helping sell the Bush's load of garbage. Even Congresspeople in safe GOP seats are running scared. If Bush insisted on pushing this through, I would predict that the Dems would have a majority in the House in 2006-but at a horrible cost-the dismantling of the last great bastion of the New Deal.

[indianablue]

3. Not saying Majority but some would be worth it to them. NT

[crispini]

4. Well, if the meeting I attended-

in a RURAL, REPUBLICAN area in TEXAS is any indication -- some of these Congresscritters will be getting wakeup calls this week.

[liveoaktx]

5. Very cool, I'm reading up on your blog and preparing for tomorrow

Q2: Alan Greenspan - http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/02/22/opinion/edgreenspan.html

ARRRGGGGH. Hensarling is a cosponsor of HR 418 (Real ID Act). I intend to ask my Rep, Edwards, why he voted for this.

[crispini]

6. LOL, thanks for the answer.

As usual, the reality is much more nuanced than the Republican says.

But Greenspan said so much more that, by any measure of logical consistency, could hardly be read as approval. He said repeatedly that the crucial underlying problem for the U.S. economy was a lack of national savings - the sum of government and individual savings. Under questioning, he also said, repeatedly and quite rightly, that moving to private accounts within Social Security would not add to national savings. That's because every dollar that went into a private account would be offset by the money that the government would need to borrow upfront to establish the private system.
.
Greenspan also emphasized the importance of closing Social Security's long-term funding gap - an estimated $3.7 trillion hole that will develop over 75 years, the usual span of time used by Social Security's trustees to gauge the system's soundness. Then he pointed out that money accumulating in private accounts would do nothing to close the long-term funding gap in Social Security. The only way to do that is to increase taxes or cut benefits, or to adopt some combination of the two. Unlike the president, Greenspan acknowledged the huge benefit cuts that would be inherent in a private system.

Yeah, I thought about bringing up some other stuff but our group was sooooo focussed on SS that it seemed unimportant.

Report on it and let us know how it went!