Privatization Foes Use Email Birthday Cards...To Celebrate SS 70 b'day

[paineinthearse]

http://releases.usnewswire.com/GetRelease.asp?id=51626

Privatization Foes Use Email Birthday Cards, House Parties To Celebrate Social Security's 70th Birthday

8/11/2005 7:26:00 PM


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To: National Desk

Contact: Toby Chaudhuri or Jessica Mantooth, 202-955-5665, both of the Campaign for America's Future; Web: http://www.ourfuture.org

WASHINGTON, Aug. 11 /U.S. Newswire/ -- Tens of thousands of people across the country are sending out electronic birthday cards today to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the creation of Social Security. Thousands more plan to attend birthday parties - organized by Americans United to Protect Social Security -- this weekend to celebrate the federal government's most successful program. The goal of this outpouring is to stop the president's plan to privatize the system.

The birthday cards, distributed via email by the Campaign for America's Future, feature a photo of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt signing legislation creating Social Security on August 14, 1935. The e-card humorously turns the photo into a party, complete with funny hats and noisemakers that appear on Roosevelt and others in the picture. Along with the humor, the e-cards highlight Social Security's accomplishments and invite Social Security's supporters to hundreds of local birthday parties being organized this week and next to protest the Bush privatization plan.

President Bush told reporters that he'll renew efforts this fall to privatize Social Security after meeting with his economic team this week at his Crawford ranch, 70 years after President Roosevelt signed it into law.

Campaign for America's Future co-director Roger Hickey said the fact that tens of thousands of people are forwarding birthday cards from his organization to friends on the Internet represents the latest sign that Americans aren't buying the president's plan to privatize Social Security.

"The federal government has celebrated Social Security's birthday for decades, but the White House has suppressed any official celebration of the program's anniversary and clearly hopes this will be its last," said Hickey. "Families across the country have made it clear that they don't want Congress to dismantle Social Security, the want it strengthened for another 70 years."

The president traveled across the country throughout the year to push his unpopular plan to privatize Social Security. 62 percent of Americans disapprove of the president's plan with only 29 percent supporting it, according to a July 24 CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll.

Witold Skwierczynski, president of the National Social Security Council which represents Social Security employees in field offices and teleservice centers, said that the government had no plans to celebrate the 70th anniversary until very recently, despite commemorating the program's 60th anniversary.

"It's a shame that the Social Security Administration came up with celebration plans only after public pressure insisted that SSA celebrate the anniversary of America's most successful federal program," said Skwierczynski.

Just five years ago, the SSA directed its field offices to participate in anniversary celebrations. Ten years ago birthday messages about Social Security flashed across the Sony JumboTron in Times Square and across scoreboards at stadiums in New York, Atlanta and Cincinnati. That year the SSA printed t-shirts, served cakes and hosted 60 balloon releases and all SSA mail carried a special postage cancellation. Even the SSA toll-free number played an anniversary greeting.

In a desperate attempt to repackage the president's plan, Rep. James McCrery, R-La., and Rep. Clay Shaw, R-Fla., introduced a bill in Congress that diverts funds from the Trust Fund for private accounts - which would increase the national debt by more than $1 trillion in the first decade alone and would require cutting Social Security's traditional guaranteed benefits to workers and their families. In September, Republicans will dramatically ramp up their privatization efforts with additional legislation and debate.

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NOTE: Media representatives interested in viewing a copy of the Social Security birthday cards should visit http://www.ourfuture.org/Happy_70th_Birthday.cfm.

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