Photograph by Paul Myers

Congressman Mike Honda (D-San Jose) greets longtime family friend Georgia Travis at a town hall meeting at Los Gatos Meadows on Aug. 15.

Congressman visits local retirement home to talk about Social Security

By Gloria I. Wang

Congressman Mike Honda recently told a group of his older constituents that President Bush's plan for Social Security may have a negative impact on future generations.

Honda gave his opinions on Social Security and Medicare during a talk Aug. 15 at Los Gatos Meadows, a retirement community in Los Gatos. Many members of the large audience were residents of the Meadows. Honda represents California's 15th congressional district, which includes Los Gatos, Monte Sereno and Saratoga.

Honda was joined by Wally Ebright of AARP--formerly the American Association of Retired Persons--and lobbyist Max Ritchman, with Los Gatos Mayor Joe Pirzynski as the master of ceremonies.

The focus of Honda's talk was President George W. Bush's proposal to privatize Social Security--to take about 16 percent of Social Security contributions and invest those funds in the stock market. About 12.4 percent of a taxpayer's salary goes toward Social Security.

That privatization, Honda said, would subject the money to the "risks and fluctuations of the stock market," and would be affected by inflation. "Social Security was created as a way to provide guaranteed income to the retired," Honda said. "Social Security is more than a program ... It started out as a promise between the government and the people."

"It's time to stop pretending that privatization will provide some sort of magical solution to Social Security's challenges," Honda said.

One of Honda's projects is to sponsor legislation for "locked-box" Social Security. That legislation would ensure that the funds set aside for the program would be available for its intended use and untouched.

Honda also addressed the Medicare system. With more than a third of Medicare beneficiaries spending more than $1,000 on prescription drugs, prescription drug coverage should be included in Medicare, Honda said.

Wally Ebright, associate state coordinator of AARP, took a more "big-picture" perspective of Social Security. Ebright pointed out that since the program began, the standard of living in the United States has increased, with the average age of Americans increasing by 33 years in the past century.

Since Social Security's inception 66 years ago, many seniors have relied on it as their sole source of income, which will continue to happen, Ebright said. According to projections, the country has built up such a reserve from Social Security charges that every single beneficiary will receive full funding until 2038. Between then and 2075, beneficiaries will only receive about 68 percent of their benefits.

"The bottom line is, Social Security is not in crisis; it's not going broke," Ebright said. "We're talking to you not to preserve our benefits; we're talking about preserving the benefits for our children and our grandchildren and our great-grandchildren."

Max Ritchman, executive vice president of the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare, said the problem is that President Bush's proposal would change Social Security from acting as insurance to being an investment.

According to Ritchman, all 16 bipartisan members of the president's commission to study Social Security are supportive of privatization. Privatization, Ritchman said, would take $1 trillion out of the program and into the stock market. "This is a program that has helped more families rise out of poverty than any other federal program," Ritchman said.

A popular myth is that there's no money in Social Security reserves and that "it's just a bunch of IOUs," Ritchman said. In truth, the $1.2 trillion placed in trust funds has been transferred to government bonds in order to gain interest--not spent on other things, Ritchman said. And addressing the fear that government bonds are useless, Ritchman said, "The government has never reneged on its own bonds, and it's not going to."

Ritchman expanded on Honda's discussion of Medicare. He pointed out that Medicare beneficiaries these days pay more out-of-pocket charges than they did even before the Medicare program began. Ritchman is pushing for Medicare to include affordable, voluntary prescription drug coverage.

The three speakers were followed by a short question-and-answer session, most of which centered on Medicare and Social Security. There was, however, one member of the audience who questioned the politicians' motives, saying that Social Security has been "headed for trouble since the beginning" and politicians knew about this problem from the beginning but chose not to do anything for 30 years, looking after only their own interests. The man also said that politicians were only interested in their own financial gain and were unconcerned about the situation of seniors in America.

Honda disputed the assertion by saying that politicians could be earning more in the private sector, but they were willing to endure the personal hardships of a public position in order to serve the people. Ritchman added that several changes to Social Security were made in 1982 in order to increase the trust fund.

Pirzynski cited his own financial gain from being a town council member--$92.35 every two weeks "after taxes," he said--to make his point. "Know that this is not a money-making proposition. It's dedication to the community," Pirzynski said.

In his introduction of Honda, Pirzynski added a personal touch: he and Honda had received their master's degrees in Counselor Education from San Jose State University at the same time in the 1970s.

Pirzynski said that in their discussions of person-centered psychology, they learned that three key components of interaction were to listen, to be genuine and to have empathy. "He walks the walk," Pirzynski said of Honda.

"That was really a nice introduction--would you share that with my mom?" Honda said, followed by laughter.

Finally, at the closing of the event, Ritchman presented Honda with a pair of red boxing gloves as armor for the rest of his term in Congress.

"I should've brought my headgear," Honda joked as he accepted the gift.

Honda is a Japanese-American who spent his early years in a Colorado internment camp and is pushing for legislation that would allow POWs from World War II who worked as slave labor to sue the Japanese corporations that used them. A California native, he had worked in education before being elected to the California Assembly in 1996 and the United States Congress last year.

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