Project 21 Press Release: Demand for Social Security Nomination Nullification Exposes Liberal Intolerance of Reform; Project 21 Fellow Deneen Moore Cites the Need for a Wide-Ranging Examination of Ways to Save Seniors’ Financial Safety Net

A demand from the liberal National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare for the incoming Senate leadership to reject the nomination of a proponent of Social Security privatization indicates that liberals are unwilling to consider all possible ways to save our nation’s failing retirement security infrastructure, notes Project 21 Fellow Deneen Moore.

NCPSSM President and CEO Barbara Kennelly, a former Democratic congressman from Connecticut, recently called upon incoming Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) and incoming Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-MT) to reject the nomination of Andrew Biggs to become deputy commissioner of the Social Security Administration.  Biggs, who supports allowing individuals to control their own retirement contributions, has been nominated to the agency’s number-two job.  Kennelly claimed Biggs’ advocacy of a free-market means of reforming the rapidly-dwindling financial safety net would “destroy Social Security.”

“It is outrageous that Kennelly and others like her seem to ignore the fundamental fact that Social Security is facing insolvency,” said Moore.  “All ideas to rescue and revitalize Social Security should be on the table.  Ideas should be eliminated because they lack merit, not because their advocates were denied employment.”

Moore added: “Senator Chuck Schumer recently touted that ‘the Reagan philosophy is dead.’  It seems that Schumer, Kennelly and their friends believe we have entered a second era of the New Deal in which Social Security must continue as it always has – robbing people of the ownership of their retirement contributions and allowing big government spenders to dip into this pool of cash to fund their pork-barrel projects.  It is disappointing that they appear unwilling to give a fair hearing to someone solely because they challenge the Social Security status quo.  Advocates of personal accounts believe they would provide superior financial returns than the present anemic system, help the economy generally by increasing capital available for investment and be more secure than the present system which, after all, is basically insolvent.”

For more information, contact David Almasi at (202) 507-6398 x11 or [email protected], or visit Project 21’s website at http://www.project21.org/P21Index.html.

-30-



The National Center for Public Policy Research is a communications and research foundation supportive of a strong national defense and dedicated to providing free market solutions to today’s public policy problems. We believe that the principles of a free market, individual liberty and personal responsibility provide the greatest hope for meeting the challenges facing America in the 21st century.