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Friday Alert
Friday, August 29, 2008(Alliance for Retired Americans)
Democratic Conventioneers Agree:
“Yes We Can!”
At a gathering that
stressed unity, highly energized and
impassioned delegates to the Democratic
National Convention in Denver officially named
Sen. Barack Obama their
nominee for President of the United
States. Ninety of the delegates in
attendance were Alliance members. In his
acceptance speech, Sen. Obama slammed Sen.
John McCain, saying his rival
"doesn't get" the economic struggles and
hardships faced by Americans. "How else
could he offer a health care plan that would
actually tax people's benefits, or an education
plan that would do nothing to help families pay
for college, or a plan that would privatize
Social Security and gamble your
retirement?" Sen. Obama asked.
“Retirees are enormously pleased that Sen. Obama has chosen Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware as a running mate,” added Alliance President George J. Kourpias. “Sen. Biden’s lifetime 95% voting record on behalf of seniors is a wonderful complement to Sen. Obama’s own 100% voting record.” Mr. Kourpias addressed the Seniors Council at the convention on Wednesday, stressing the importance of retiree issues such as Social Security, Medicare, and prescription drugs during the election year. "A retiree voting for John McCain is like a chicken voting for Colonel Sanders," Alliance Executive Vice President and AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Richard Trumka told the meeting attendees. Also on Wednesday, Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi spoke at the Maryland delegation breakfast, advising delegates who hear of seniors who are undecided to tell them about Sen. McCain’s voting record on Social Security and Medicare. While the delegates were meeting in Denver, Colorado Alliance leaders discussed their exciting plans to grow the Colorado Alliance at a Colorado Alliance Executive Board meeting with Mr. Kourpias and national Alliance Executive Director Edward F. Coyle.
CBO Says Social Security Healthy
and Viable for Decades to Come
Last
Friday, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO)
released a report stating that Social Security
is in good financial shape and will continue to
be so for decades to come. The report,
which forecasts out 75 years, finds that while
the accumulating surpluses in the Social
Security trust fund will be exhausted in 2049,
ongoing revenues will still be sufficient to
fund about 81% of promised benefits at the end
of the 75-year period (in 2082). The
reason given is that wages and Social Security
revenues will continue to grow as the economy
grows. The trust fund will cushion the
large baby boom retirement, as it was designed
to do, but most benefits will continue to be
funded by direct transfers from workers to
retirees, as they are now. In a policy
memo outlining the CBO’s findings, the Economic
Policy Institute (EPI) think tank noted the
report’s finding that “future Social Security
beneficiaries will receive larger benefits in
retirement…than current beneficiaries do, even
after adjustments have been made for
inflation.” According to the CBO
projections, Social Security is in decent
shape, because - without any changes at all -
the projected long-term Social Security
shortfall equals a mere 1% of taxable
payroll. EPI further states that the
biggest problem facing Social Security is not
the boomer retirement, but growing income
inequality, which increases the share of
untaxed earnings above the taxable earnings cap
(currently set at $102,000). “Social
Security has been a great success for 73 years,
and it will be a great success for the next
seventy-five,” said Ruben
Burks, Secretary-Treasurer of the
Alliance. “Of course, that is provided no
one alters the core principles on which it is
based by privatizing it.”
McCain to be Greeted in
Pennsylvania by Alliance TV Ads
The
Alliance is bolstering its television
advertising campaign responding to Senator John
McCain’s statement that Social Security is “a
disgrace” with a three-day heavy ad buy
beginning today in Western Pennsylvania; the
ads can be viewed on the Alliance’s website, at
www.retiredamericans.org.
The issue ads will run today, Saturday and
Sunday in Altoona, Johnstown, and Washington,
Pennsylvania, coinciding with McCain’s visit to
Washington tomorrow. The ads have already
run in Wilkes-Barre, Scranton, and Clarks
Summit, Pennsylvania, coinciding with Sen.
McCain’s previous visit to Wilkes-Barre.
“Since Senator McCain has so far refused to
apologize for his comments, we will continue to
tell Americans how he really feels about Social
Security until he does,” said Edward
Coyle.
Purported Merck Vioxx Medical Study
Was Actually a Marketing Campaign
An August 19th report in the Annals of
Internal Medicine found that the drug company
Merck & Co. used a clinical study
ostensibly aimed at testing side effects to
market the drug Vioxx to primary-care
physicians and the public before it was
released. According to The Wall
Street Journal, a Yale research team
released the report on Merck’s practices after
a long legal battle over Vioxx’s side effects
was settled for $4.85 billion. Vioxx
users sued Merck because the drug increases the
risk of heart attack and stroke. The
report’s findings are based on Merck records
released during litigation, which say that the
1999 study was “designed and executed in the
spirit of Merck marketing principles.”
Merck’s practices raise important ethical and
scientific questions, from whether the study’s
participants were needlessly put at risk to
whether Merck’s side effect testing was
reliable at all. The latter issue raises
a legal question as well, because the increased
risk of heart attack and stroke that caused the
lawsuit are side effects that could have been
found in the testing that Merck was purportedly
doing. Alarmingly, the study suggests
that Merck’s practice of using studies for
early marketing is most likely a common
industry practice.
Women at a Disadvantage in
Preparing for Retirement
A July
study by the firm Hewitt Associates examined
the projected retirement levels of nearly 2
million employees at 72 U.S. companies.
According to BusinessWeek, the study
found that both men and women are on track to
replace 85% of their pay at retirement.
However, the average woman will need to save 2%
of pay more per year than the average man, over
30 years, to achieve the same standard of
living. Reasons listed include lower
salaries, conservative investing, longer life
expectancies, and higher retiree medical
needs. In addition, care-giving demands
mean that women spend less time in the labor
force and are more likely to work
part-time.