Welch vows to fight Social Security privatization

BURLINGTON —Democratic congressional hopeful Peter Welch today said he would fight attempts to privatize Social Security, and said a bi-partisan commission should be appointed to find long-term solutions to keep the program solvent.

Welch made this pledge as part of the third plank of his economic security platform. His first two initiatives were raising the federal minimum wage to Vermont’s level and making progress toward universal health care.

During a morning press conference, Welch said he “rarely agreed with Pres. Bush,” but said he agreed with Bush when he said, "The last thing we need to do is mess around with Social Security."

Welch then quickly added that those words were uttered by the former Pres. George H.W. Bush during his 1990 State of the Union Address.

Welch said Republican-led attempts to privatize Social Security is “active, is real, and is wrong,” adding that the privatization effort amounted to a “you’re on your own” approach rather than Social Security’s “we’re in this together” compact.

Welch said he believes every U.S. retiree should be able to depend on the safety net Social Security provides. Privatization, he says, will increase financial risk, has been packaged with benefits cuts, hurts elderly women disproportionately, and sacrifices retirement income to administrative costs.

Welch said a bipartisan commission should be appointed, one similar created in the 1980 by former Pres. Ronald Reagan, a Republican, and House Speaker Tip O'Neill, a Democrat. The panel would be charged with studying long-term finance option fixes for Social Security.

Welch would not say what reforms he would support, saying it was too early to make any commitment to one approach, whether that is raising the ceiling on the wages currently affected by Social Security taxes, or other measures.

Brendan McKenna, a spokesman for Republican congressional hopeful Martha Rainville said she would “oppose any plan in Congress that cuts benefits, increases the retirement age, increases payroll taxes or privatizes social security.”

McKennna said the former adjutant general of the Vermont National Guard agreed with Welch that Social Security reform needs to happen in a bi-partisan fashion.

“Martha Rainville believes leaders don't wait until situations turn into a crisis. She would look to see if some small changes now could avoid having to make drastic changes later,” said McKenna.
Rainville’s Republican challenger in the September primary, Sen. Mark Shepard of Bennington, said neither Rainville or Welch are offering any solutions in their carbon copy approaches.

“It’s not up to a bipartisan commission, its up to the legislature,” said Shepard. “That’s where the buck stops.”

Shepard said he would oppose raising the retirement age.

Shepard said Congress should look at the benefits of allowing workers to invest small portions of their Social Security taxes in the stock market.

A recent report that examined what a retiree would yield if they had invested a portion of their income in the market starting in 1965, Shepard said, found those who had invested a portion of their Social Security taxes in the stock market received 25 to 35 percent more than their current government payments.

“And these investments were pretty conservative – no one was going to lose their shirt, and it was only a portion of what is set aside,” said Shepard.

Welch said a recent report by the Social Security Board of Trustees proved to him that Social Security does not face a near-term crisis, despite the claims by privatization proponents.

Welch also said that the recent tax cuts promoted by Pres. Bush, and approved by Congress, were the rough equivalent of the estimated 75-year Social Security shortfall.

Posted August 3, 2006

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