A Message from the President

September 2005

Protecting Our Kids

Hello!

I am honored to be your new president of NEA-Retired, elected at the 2005 annual meeting.

Our out-going leader, Jim Sproul, left the organization much stronger than it was when he started his presidency, and I hope to do the same. I will be depending on you for ideas and feedback.  You will find my e-mail address at the bottom of this column: I’d love to hear from you!

Today, I want to talk about an insult to retirees.

To the politicians who want to privatize Social Security, today’s retirees are a formidable obstacle. They know we believe in a secure retirement, and, more than any other age group, we vote. So they have been telling us not to worry—our own incomes will be safe. It is only younger people who will have to suffer.

That’s the insult: They seem to think we care only about us.

But they’re wrong. We have children and grandchildren and former students. We’re not going to say, “I’ve got mine, too bad for everyone else.”

That’s especially true for retirees from public education, because we dedicated our working lives to an American institution that’s all about the community taking care of all of its members, not just some.

So I’m delighted that the privatizers seem to be losing their bet. They counted on us pulling back from the battle, but we haven’t. Retirees, and public retirees in particular, are leading the fight to save Social Security and to save the other pension plans that are the foundation of security in retirement.

And we’ll keep doing it, for the kids.

You can help even if you have only a few minutes. Go to www.nea.org/lac/socsec to see how.

—Barbara Matteson
matteson@dakotacom.net