A Victory - AARP Pulls Out of Bush Social Security Forums A Victory - AARP Pulls Out of Bush Social Security Forums

Here's a victory we can take credit for: The AP and Washington Post report that AARP is dropping their plan to participate in White House town meetings on Social Security privatization (co-sponsored by the National Association of Manufacturers).

Our coalition sent AARP a message -- demanding that they pull out of those Social Security forums as we protested AARP support for the Bush prescription drug bill. (See our original email below.) And thousands of people told AARP to drop co-sponsorship of those forums.

Now let's challenge AARP to get behind serious efforts to fix the Medicare drug bill -- including tough new measures (outlawed in the Bush bill) to reduce the prices the pharmaceutical industry charges for prescription drugs.

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AARP drops out of Social Security forums, distances from Bush overhaul plans
By Leigh Strope, Associated Press Writer
Source: Associated Press | Date: December 15, 2003

WASHINGTON (AP) -- AARP, already under fire from within its over-50 membership for endorsing the new Medicare law, is backing out of Social Security forums it agreed to sponsor with the Bush administration and from a group advocating a system overhaul to allow stock market investing.

The first of three town hall meetings organized by AARP, the Social Security Administration and the National Association of Manufacturers was scheduled for Jan. 15 in Minneapolis.

After inquires from The Associated Press, AARP notified participants Monday afternoon that it was dropping out on the ground that the forums would be too politically charged in the aftermath of the Medicare flap. Social Security, like Medicare, is always a hot-button, divisive issue in elections.

David Certner, AARP's federal affairs director, said the organization decided the forums were too close to next year's election. The group's board met Friday and endorsed the decision.

"It was simply easier for us to be doing our own events and not be connected to groups with partisan agendas," Certner said, adding that AARP wanted to "avoid the politics of it as much as anything."

The nation's largest advocacy group for older Americans already faces a backlash from some members for endorsing the Republicans' Medicare legislation. The support of AARP, whose 35 million members make it a powerful political force, helped the GOP win passage of the bill, which President Bush signed into law last week.

Seniors have been ripping up or burning their AARP membership cards and flooding the group with complaints in what has been characterized as the largest revolt in its ranks in decades.

The group has defended its support of the Medicare plan, which for the first time provides a prescription drug benefit starting in 2006. AARP says the plan will provide financial relief for millions of Americans after years of political gridlock in Congress.

The Bush administration, with the stock market climbing and a re-election campaign under way, is renewing its push for an overhaul of Social Security to allow personal investment accounts, a move supported by the manufacturers' association.

The planned forums were a major part of the administration's strategy to start a public dialogue about the need to shore up future funding of the pay-as-you-go system, which in 2018 should begin to pay out more in benefits than it collects from workers' payroll taxes.

AARP's participation would have helped give credence to the administration's argument that reform is necessary. AARP has tried for years to educate all Americans about the future financial problems the system faces.

The group supports the concept of personal investment accounts, but only if they are added to the system without diversion of money that pays for Social Security's traditional benefits.

AARP opposes the Bush administration's plan to let younger workers, whose payroll taxes now fund current retirees' benefits, divert a portion of that money into their own investment accounts.

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E-mail Action Alert Sent November 20, 2003:

roger with the aarp card
Roger Hickey of Washington, burns his AARP membership card outside the AARP head-
quarters in Washington
Wednesday, during a demonstration by AARP members to protest the organization's agreement with the Medicare prescription drug bill that Congress is considering. (AP Photo/ Stephen J. Boitano)

Attention AARP members

* If you are outraged that AARP has betrayed the interests of
millions of senior citizens through its support of the Republican
"Medicare reform" bill intended to begin to privatize Medicare
* If you agree that AARP CEO Bill Novelli* has chosen to support the
interests of pharmaceutical and insurance companies instead of the
welfare of his members
* If you are astounded that AARP is cosponsoring a series of town
meetings on privatizing Social Security with the National
Association of Manufacturers
* If you are furious that AARP has taken these positions in your name...

Don't let the AARP destroy Medicare in your name!

Click here to send a message to Congress:
AARP Doesn't Speak for Me. Defeat the Drug Deal.

* Organize your own protests in your community.
* Email Bill Novelli and tell him what you think.
* Go to AARP website and give them a piece of your mind:
community.aarp.org/rp-health/start

* Go to www.oufuture.org
for more
infomation and action ideas.
* Go to www.retiredamericans.org
for a
retiree organization that stands up for seniors.

*AARP CEO Bill Novelli is a life long Republican political operative. He worked for the advertising firm that reelected Richard Nixon and wrote the preface to Newt Gingrich's book on health care.