Union Leaders Join in White House Meeting on Health Care, Social Security

By Mike Hall, Feb 24, 2009 After eight years with a virtual “Do Not Enter” sign at the White House front door, President Obama has opened 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. to leaders, policymakers and advocates of a wide range of views. Yesterday, union and business leaders, conservative and progressive economists, and think tankers and Democratic and Republican lawmakers came together for a “Fiscal Responsibility Summit.” At the opening session, Obama unveiled his outline to cut the $1.3 trillion federal deficit he inherited from the Bush administration in half by the end of his term by letting the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy expire, reining in tax breaks for companies that ship jobs overseas and drawing down troops in Iraq, among other items. The more than 130 attendees broke into smaller groups to discuss ways to reform health care, strengthen Social Security and improve the budget process. Participants also examined ways to restore fairness to the tax code and reform government procurement and contracting out. AFL-CIO President John Sweeney attended the summit and cautioned against labeling the problems faced by Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid an “entitlement crisis” that requires drastic benefit cuts and spending caps. He said the underlying problem—and the one that desperately needs immediate attention—is “unaffordable health care costs.” The AFL-CIO welcomes the president’s summit on fiscal responsibility. It underscores the urgent need for comprehensive health care reform, something he has pointed out time and time again. We should all commit to working with the president and members of Congress to enact health care reform quickly in order to address the long-term fiscal position of the government, the competitive position of our businesses and the well-being of us all. Then we should move on to the job of strengthening Social Security. Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), noting that health care costs run about $2.4 trillion a year, said: Our deficit really cannot be controlled until we figure out how to deal with health care costs. Robert Greenstein, the executive director of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, puts it this way: The single biggest factor is rising health-care costs, not just in Medicare and Medicaid, but throughout our health-care system. A similar White House summit on health care is scheduled next month. Sweeney, along with AFT President Randi Weingarten and Ed Coyle, executive director of the Alliance for Retired Americans, was part of the session devoted to examining Social Security. During the session, Lawrence Summers, head of the White House National Economic Council, said the crash of the nation’s financial system has dampened the move—championed by former President George W. Bush, many Republican leaders and conservative economists—to privatize Social Security, at least for now. The events in the market in the last couple of years, the sense of the need for the government to take core public responsibility for Social Security, has been strengthened, at least in may people’s minds. Though not perhaps all minds. Comments by House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) show that radical Social Security changes, such as privatization, are not that far off the far-right’s radar screen. He called for raising the retirement age to 70 years old, establishing a means test for Social Security, cutting benefits for some recipients and reducing the benefit increases that are designed to offset wage inflation.** Sweeney pointed out that an increasing number of older Americans rely on Social Security for most of their retirement income. If we lower living standards by reducing benefits to “fix” Social Security, we will only contribute to a downward spiral. Part of the problem today is that FICA [Social Security] contributions have been lower than they would have been because wages have stagnated. Let’s address this issue by restoring job standards, fixing health care, so it’s not a drain on wages and restoring the freedom to form and join unions—thus allowing wages to rise. Let’s not make it worse by lowering retirement income—an additional recessionary pressure that pulls the economy down. from AFL-CIO NOW blog **My own comment, what is this guy thinking? If you work, you pay into Social Security, your employer matches what you pay into it. Does he think that after working your whole life, your not entitled to the money you've paid into it? With the market crashing down, it is a good thing the Republicans didn't succeed in privatizing our Social Security.