To: "homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org" <homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org>
Subject: [Homestead] Geezer power
Date: Wed, 30 Mar 2005 08:16:50 -0700
AARP Leads With Wallet In Fight Over Social Security
Bush's Plan Faces Formidable Foe
By Jeffrey H. Birnbaum
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, March 30, 2005; Page A01
In the punch-for-punch debate over Social Security, AARP is working hard to
keep the White House on the ropes.
When President Bush arrives in Iowa today to talk up his private-accounts
proposal, the senior citizens group plans to counter him with two news
conferences, the release of a national poll, full-page newspaper
advertisements and commercials on radio and television. Over this week and
last, AARP, the nation's largest lobby, will have spent more than $5
million on ads attacking the president's Social Security plan -- nearly
three times as much as all the supporters of his proposal put together.
That's just for starters.
Every state that has a swing-vote senator will have AARP forums, which have
been drawing about 300 people each. And every time a member of Congress
holds a town meeting, AARP volunteers are dispatched there to protest the
president's plan for individual accounts.
"We're going to do this as long as it takes," said William D. Novelli,
AARP's chief executive. "We will put just about everything we have into it."
No organization has more tools or more money to wage such a battle. So both
its friends and adversaries agree: AARP holds the key to how or whether
Social Security will be restructured this year. "It will be very difficult
to do anything without AARP's support," said Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa),
chairman of the Senate Finance Committee. "And it would be a heck of a lot
easier if they came along."
AARP's 35 million membership base is 10 times the size of the National
Rifle Association's, and its $800 million budget is five times that of the
U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the country's biggest business association. In
number of members, AARP is surpassed only by the Roman Catholic Church.