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Appeal to Young on Pension Plan Gets the Attention of Their Elders
By Robin Toner, New York Times
February 23, 2005
Almost no one is a more outspoken advocate of President Bush's Social Security plan than Senator Rick Santorum, the third-ranking Republican in the Senate leadership, who is campaigning across his state this week, trying to get young people to focus on their retirement.
Mr. Santorum argued, again and again, that the debate over Mr. Bush's plan for private accounts was really about young people's futures, because their benefits were at risk and because Mr. Bush had repeatedly promised that he would make no changes affecting Americans over 55.
This is a key element of the Republican strategy, creating an energized and mobilized younger generation fighting for its piece of an ownership society.
But there is a problem with that approach: retirees and those near retirement, a legendary political force, refuse to be shut out of the debate. At Widener University in Chester on Tuesday afternoon, people over 50 occupied perhaps half the seats at a forum held by Mr. Santorum and asked many of the questions - most of them negative.
At one point, Mr. Santorum looked out at the raised hands and said somewhat plaintively: "I'm seeing a lot of older hands. I'm not seeing any younger hands."
And still they kept coming, the "older hands," with questions that were not really questions.
As both parties take stock of the grass roots on Social Security during this Congressional recess, Pennsylvania underscores the political challenge for Republicans. It is a state with a disproportionate number of older Americans; 15.6 percent of the population was over 65 in the 2000 census, a number exceeded only by Florida.
Social Security has been an important subject here in the past, and Mr. Bush's plan to overhaul it by including private accounts is "a tough issue," said G. Terry Madonna, a professor of public policy at Franklin and Marshall College.
Mr. Santorum is up for re-election in 2006, and a recent poll suggests that he could face an extremely competitive race. He acknowledged somewhat ruefully on Tuesday afternoon that "we'd suffer no electoral consequences for doing nothing" on Social Security.
But Mr. Santorum, who is chairman of the Senate Republican Conference and a favorite of conservatives nationally, was plowing ahead this week with 10 public forums, 7 of them on college campuses. That translates into a far more freewheeling atmosphere than, say, one of Mr. Bush's tightly controlled forums on Social Security.
At Drexel University, for example, Mr. Santorum was greeted by protesters, was heckled during his speech by people declaring their loyalty to Lyndon LaRouche, and was asked several questions by young people on issues that had little to do with Social Security, including same-sex marriage and the global fight against AIDS.
He doggedly made his way through a slide show that highlighted the demographic and financial pressures on Social Security, creating a "perfect storm" of declining revenues and rising costs that, he argued, would inexorably lead to major cuts in benefits or tax increases for Americans 30 and under unless something major was done.
Mr. Santorum did get some support from his audiences on Tuesday. At Widener, Katherine Dombrowski, a 21-year-old junior, said she already had an individual retirement account and was "completely in support" of the idea of privatizing Social Security. "I don't understand what everybody has against the idea of taking care of yourselves," Ms. Dombrowski said to a smattering of applause.
And after the event, several students approached Mr. Santorum, thanked him and expressed their approval.
Still, Democrats like Representative Allyson Y. Schwartz, a freshman from the Philadelphia suburbs, say the opposition to the president's plan is intense at the grass-roots level. And the mood of the audience at a meeting Ms. Schwartz held on Monday, at the Jewish Community Center-Klein Branch in Northeast Philadelphia, certainly reflected it.
Moreover, in contrast to Mr. Santorum, several other top Republicans in Pennsylvania are engaged in the same careful distancing from the president's plan that is seen elsewhere in the country. Arlen Specter, the senior Republican senator from the state, has said he has "an open mind" on the president's plan but wants to hear more details.
A spokesman for Representative Michael Fitzpatrick, a freshman Republican from the Philadelphia suburbs, said Mr. Fitzpatrick "cannot take a position on the president's plan until he sees the details," and he did not plan to hold a town meeting this week. Another freshman Republican from the area, Representative Charles W. Dent, said through a spokesman that he, too, "didn't think there was enough of a plan" from Mr. Bush "to have a position on."
Pennsylvania shows the challenge Mr. Bush's allies face as they try to neutralize retirees by promising that their benefits will not be affected. Martin Berger, president of the Pennsylvania Alliance for Retired Americans, a union retirees group, said older Americans were a potent political force in Pennsylvania and would not sit out this debate. AARP is also expected to be active in states like Pennsylvania.
"We refuse to accept this concept of 'you got yours, now back off,' " Mr. Berger said. "We built the system. We believe it should be available for our children and grandchildren."
In fact, judging from polls and town meetings, many older Americans still have strong feelings about Social Security and skepticism about relying on the private marketplace for retirement security. And Democrats are appealing to those feelings.
Ms. Schwartz told her audience on Monday that the plan would "really dismantle Social Security as you know it" for children and grandchildren, and would lead to great inequities among the generations. "I'm over 55, I'm going to be O.K.; my two sisters are under 55, they're going to see their benefits cut," she said.
"It's going to be an enormous change for anyone under 55," she added. "You know how important Social Security is, right? And you know how important it is to future retirees as well."
Ms. Schwartz's audience - about 50 retirees showed up despite a messy snowfall the night before - was not a hard sell for the Democratic message. Milton Shapiro, 92, who retired from the greeting card business, said people already had opportunities to save outside Social Security, through 401(k)'s and I.R.A.'s. "Social Security is an insurance plan," Mr. Shapiro said.
After the meeting, Mr. Shapiro said he had written to Mr. Bush to suggest incremental fixes to extend Social Security's solvency while maintaining the traditional program. He got a letter back thanking him for his support. "One of his flunkies wrote it," Mr. Shapiro said with a shrug, adding that he is a devoted Democrat.
In the end, Mr. Santorum said, the people who show up and ask questions at public forums often have an agenda. He said he hoped to sway the quieter people with open minds, especially the young.
"It's really their decision - this is a program for younger workers," Mr. Santorum said. "They should fully participate in the development of this policy."
And while there might be a lot of skepticism among older Americans, he said, "I don't think it's a tough sell for the people who are going to be affected by the change, and that's the most important thing."
"I'm not going to let go of this," he said at the end of the day. "And the president's not either."
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