Social Security Debate Hits the Road

Privatization Scheme Sales Pitch Coming to Your Community

The debate surrounding President Bush's proposal to privatize Social Security will come to a community near you next week as Senators and Representatives hold meetings, complete with slide presentations, videos and talking points, with residents in their states and districts during the President's Day weeklong recess.

And despite a $20 million and growing advertising, marketing and lobbying campaign led by the financial services industry to put the best face possible on the proposal to use Social Security funds to create private stock market accounts, more troubling information is coming to light. First, taxpayers would take on $5 trillion in debt over 20 years to create the accounts. The trillions of dollars in transition costs would drive up interest rates on everything from student loans to cars and mortgages. Second, the privatization proposal would reduce benefits for all workers -- including younger ones -- by 46 percent after 2042, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

Efforts to dismantle Social Security come at the same time as the attacks increase on defined-benefit pension plans for teachers, education support professionals and other public employees. Like Social Security, these plans provide a guaranteed benefit for life that can never be taken away, and also like Social Security, their continuation is at grave risk as President Bush and lawmakers in at least nine states (Alaska, California, Georgia, Kansas, Maryland, Minnesota, New Mexico, South Carolina and Virginia) and New York City seek to shift to riskier defined-contribution retirement plans.

NEA supports strengthening Social Security so that the full benefits for which workers have paid are guaranteed. NEA opposes any attempt to base retirement benefits on the performance of the stock market, especially when private accounts, as the Bush Administration now admits, would not shore up Social Security's long-term finances and would saddle future generations with a massive debt.

Millions of retirees, widows and children who draw survivor benefits under the program, and people with disabilities rely on Social Security, the country's most successful anti-poverty program. Workers and their families should not be forced to trade their guaranteed retirement security for the risks of the stock market.

Action Needed

Join the more than 21,000 people who have signed NEA's petition to Congress. Urge your Member to:

• Protect Social Security benefits and oppose any effort to privatize Social Security;
• Ensure that public employees who are enrolled in and have paid into other retirement security plans are not mandated to participate in Social Security; and
• Repeal unfair offsets -- the Government Pension Offset (GPO) and Windfall Elimination Provision (WEP) -- that deny earned Social Security benefits to many public employees.

Find out  if your Member of Congress is one of the 188 who has signed on to H.R. 147 -- the full GPO/WEP repeal bill. If not, urge him or her to do so.

Bush Budget Numbers Have Real Consequences

About 900 high school and college students rallied at the Oklahoma state capitol this week to voice their disapproval of President Bush's proposal to eliminate long-standing federal programs  that help disadvantaged students prepare for and stay in college. Upward Bound, Talent Search and GEAR UP are among 50 education programs that the President's budget proposal would eliminate or cut back severely.

Other programs targeted for elimination include Vocational Education, Safe and Drug Free Schools, education technology grants and community technology centers. If adopted, the $4.3 billion in cuts would affect millions of children and families who rely on programs and services ranging from Head Start and special education to reading and math assistance and college loans.

The President would use the money from the education cuts to expand "No Child Left Behind" (NCLB) testing to high schools and fund a merit pay program for teachers. NEA supports focusing additional resources on high schools. But the money should not come at the expense of successful programs and should not be used for new tests when the current NCLB testing requirements are not funded at the levels promised. NEA opposes merit pay plans, because historically they pit teacher against teacher and inappropriately use student performance on standardized tests as a measure of a teacher's effectiveness.

Robbing Peter to pay Paul is not the basis for sound education policy when the end result -- increased class sizes, outdated and tattered textbooks, and fewer classroom aides -- harms children.

Bill Seeks To Keep School Telecommunication Funds Flowing

A bill introduced in the Senate would enable federal telecommunications funds to flow uninterrupted to schools and libraries. S. 241, introduced this month by Senators Olympia Snowe (R-ME) and John Rockefeller (D-WV), would lift the restrictions imposed by a governmentwide accounting practice on the E-Rate program, which provides vital telecommunications funds. The bill would make permanent the one-year exemption passed by Congress last December.

The E-Rate program is the fourth-largest source of federal funds to K-12 schools. It is a $2.25 billion per year program that has wired 99 percent of schools and 92 percent of classrooms to the Internet and ensured that students have the benefits of modern technology. Prior to the program's inception in 1996, only 3 percent of the nation's classrooms were connected to the Internet.

Making the E-Rate exemption permanent, as it is for a variety of other federal programs, means that school districts can free up local funding to hire more staff, buy textbooks or provide other assistance to students.

Action Needed

Urge your Senators to co-sponsor S. 241.

2/11/05
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News from Capitol Hill...

President Bush Unveils Bare-Bones Budget  

Budget Puts Education Programs on Chopping Block  

Education programs account for one-third of the 150 programs that President Bush would eliminate or radically cut back in his budget proposal made public February 7. Among those programs targeted for elimination are the Safe and Drug Free Schools Program, the Vocational Education Program, the Perkins Loans Program, GEAR-UP, Upward Bound, and the Talent Search programs, which help high-risk students succeed in high school and move on to college, and Community Technology Centers and Educational Technology state grants.

All told, the $4.3 billion in education cuts would do away with or drastically scale back services for millions of disadvantaged and middle-class students from pre-kindergarten through college. No community would go untouched. This at a time when states and school districts are struggling to pay for the unfunded mandates of the so-called "No Child Left Behind" Act, and students and families face rising college tuitions.

NEA believes the impact on children, families, schools and communities would be long-lasting and widespread. It's not about percentages and numbers on a ledger sheet; it's about real people's lives. Under Bush's budget:

• 6.9 million special education children will be shortchanged based on the bill passed by Congress just two months ago;
• 3 million children will not get the help with reading and math they were promised under Title I;
• 1.7 million children would be shut out of after-school programs;
• 1.3 million students will lose the support they need to make it to college;
• 670,000 student borrowers would lose out in 2006 alone on loan forgiveness if they became teachers, law enforcement officers or if they serve in the military;
• 25,000 children will have to be cut from Head Start; and
• The typical student borrower will have to pay $5,500 more for their college loans because the current fixed rate would be eliminated.

The President's budget proposal is the first step in a months-long process that now shifts to Congress. Learn more about the President's budget by program and by state.

More Than 11,000 People Sign Social Security Petition

As of 9 a.m. today, more than 11,000 people have signed NEA's petition urging Congress to protect Social Security benefits and to oppose any proposal to divert money from Social Security to create private stock market accounts. The tremendous response, an NEA record, reflects a spreading distrust of the Bush Administration's proposal for privatizing and, ultimately, destabilizing the 70-year-old retirement program.

Meanwhile, the steady drumbeat of alarming information about the privatization plan continues. The latest: A young worker would lose 30 percent or more in guaranteed benefits, according to the Social Security Administration and other groups. That adds up to as much as $152,000 in retirement benefits lost in the 20 years after retirement, according to a study by the Center for Economic and Policy Research.

Action Needed

• If you haven't already, sign NEA's petition to urge Congress to:
  • Protect Social Security benefits and oppose any effort to privatize Social Security;
  • Ensure that public employees who are enrolled in and have paid into other retirement security plans are not mandated to participate in Social Security, and;
  • Repeal unfair offsets -- the Government Pension Offset and Windfall Elimination Provision -- that deny earned Social Security benefits to many public employees.
  
  
• Find out if your Member of Congress is one of the more than 150 who has signed on to H.R. 147 -- the full GPO/WEP repeal bill. If not, urge him or her to do so.

Bills Target Stable Funding for Rural, Forest Schools

Two bills were introduced in Congress last week, one in the House and one in the Senate, to reauthorize a law that provides funding to rural schools that are in counties with national forests and, as a result, have a small tax base from which to support schools. Before the Secure Rural Schools and Community Self-Determination Act was passed in 2000, federal funding for many forest communities plummeted because of significant decreases in federal timber sales. Now, the 4,400 school districts served by this program have a reliable source of increased funding.

NEA supports the reauthorization because it offers a sensible solution to the forest county education funding crisis by ensuring a predictable payment to forest counties.

Action Needed

• Urge your Senators and Member of Congress to co-sponsor S. 267 and H.R. 517.

2/4/05
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News from Capitol Hill...

Assault on Social Security Intensifies  

Private Accounts Would Slash Benefits,
Weaken Program  

"Social Security has been called the most successful poverty prevention program ever developed, yet the Administration here in Washington has announced plans to privatize the Social Security system."   
-- NEA President Reg Weaver

Hours after making a sales pitch in the State of the Union address for privatizing Social Security, President Bush launched a two-day, five-state tour to promote his plan to take money from Social Security to create private stock market accounts. While the Administration talks up the "advantages" of private accounts, two harsh facts remain: private accounts would result in cuts of as much as 40 percent in guaranteed retirement income for everyone; and they would harm the program's financial future.

NEA opposes privatization because it puts at great risk the 70-year-old safety net for America's hard-working families. Teachers and education support professionals are especially vulnerable. Their pension plans are under increasing attack and their salaries are comparatively low. They and the tens of millions of children, women and men who rely on Social Security should not have to trade guaranteed retirement benefits for the unpredictability of the stock market.

NEA believes we should not pass on to our children the trillions of dollars in debt it would take to fund private accounts. Instead, our elected leaders should pursue common-sense changes to secure and strengthen the Social Security trust fund, such as raising the income cap on contributions and requiring Congress to repay the money it borrowed from the trust fund.

Action Needed

• Sign NEA's petition to urge Congress to:
  • Protect Social Security benefits and oppose any effort to privatize Social Security;
  • Ensure that public employees who are enrolled in and have paid into other retirement security plans are not mandated to participate in Social Security, and;
  • Repeal unfair offsets -- the Government Pension Offset and Windfall Elimination Provision -- that deny earned Social Security benefits to many public employees.
  
  
• Find out if your Member of Congress is one of the 172 who has signed on to H.R. 147 -- the full GPO/WEP repeal bill. If not, urge him or her to do so.

Teacher Loan Forgiveness Program Expanded

If you teach math, science or special education, and if you have taught for five years in a Title I school, you may be eligible for up to $17,500 in loan forgiveness.

The Taxpayer-Teacher Protection Act triples the previous loan limits for eligible highly qualified math, science and special education teachers. The increased amount is available to teachers with no outstanding loan balances prior to Oct. 1, 1998, and who borrow eligible loans before Oct. 1, 2005. For information about the program and to find out if you qualify, contact the U.S. Department of Education's Federal Student Aid Customer Service hotline at 1-800-433-7327 or go to http://www.ifap.ed.gov/dpcletters/GEN0414.html.