North Texas retirees created their own opportunity to focus attention on their political issues at a "Retiree Candidate Forum" held at UAW Local 276 on the morning of September 9. Local, state, and national candidates took turns introducing themselves and then handling questions from seniors from the United Auto Workers, Communications Workers, and Teamsters.
The discussion lasted over two hours and was very thorough. Only a small part of the conversation can be presented here.
Don't Privatize Social Security!
Mary Holomek of UAW Local 317 asked about privatizing
Social Security. She said,
"What privatization has always meant ... is 'here is some money here
in a pile, I'm going to figure out some way to get my hands on it.'"
Tom Love spoke to CWA leaders. Kirk England was standing behind
Tom Love, running for Congress in District 24, responded, "Let somebody else get their hands on it and you know what would happen. It's called 'churn, churn, churn.' They would re-invest the money over and over so they could get a little bit of it each time."
Eric Roberson, running for Congress in District 32, talked about general problems of government finance. He said, "We can protect Social Security by making a few minor changes, and one of them is not privatizing it. Every reform on the table is OK for me, except individual private accounts." One simple suggestion he made is this: "Start taking the folks making above $250,000 a year and tell them they have to pay their fair share."
Rich people, Roberson said, like to talk about "flat taxes" - to make everyone pay the exact same percent of their income, but they oppose it completely when it comes to Social Security taxes, when their slogan becomes, "Rich people should get a tax break!"
Provide for Health Care!
Robert Aday of UAW Local 870 asked, "Assuming you are elected and John McCain gets elected, what would be your position on taxing retiree health benefits."
Candidate Roberson said, "My position is nohow, noway. I would not agree to tax health care benefits."
Candidate Tom Love said too many Americans are uninsured or underinsured. "One out of three Americans does not have the health insurance that they need. Our nation spends 16% of the budget for health care. Germany spends 8%, and they have universal coverage. They are doing it for half the price!" He went on to blast the war in Iraq and its effect on the American economy. "When Ronald Reagan first ran for President, he said we had a $3 trillion deficit and that placing the dollars end to end would reach to the moon. He said we were going to do something about it, and they did. They tripled it to over $9 trillion dollars!"
He added that doctors are forced to side with
insurance companies, "Because the insurance companies wrote the legislation!"
David Barton, representing the Obama for President Campaign in Tarrant County, indicated that his candidate wants to extend and improve both health care and Social Security. The local and state candidates also took strong positions favoring retirees' rights to Social Security and health care.
All of the candidates for federal office said that they would favor the three "legs of the stool" of retirement: Pensions, personal savings, and Social Security.
At the state level, candidates Chris Turner, Lon Burnam, and Kirk England were represented. They talked about the need for more democracy in the state house and pledged to overcome the Speaker's reputation as a "dictator." They showed their concern with one of Texas' oldest problems, the so-called "right to work" anti-union legislation. They want to preserve children's health care and work on a more just workers compensation system for the state.
State Representative Kirk England (District 106) responded to a question about "Voter-ID" legislation which is expected to return in the next session. He said that the excuse given for this legislation is that it would stop undocumented workers from voting. However, "Illegal immigrants aren't lined up at our polls to vote. The Attorney General can't find them. He hasn't been able to find one. It's just a scheme... The purpose is absolutely to disenfranchise voters in the Democratic base. That is why that bill exists. We have over 400,000 seniors in Texas that do not have a valid photo ID... To get a valid photo ID, first off, there's a cost involved. If they don't have a birth certificate, it would cost $100 plus dollars even if it were readily available. The objective [of Voter-ID legislation] is just to disenfranchise voters."
Bobby Brown, Retiree President of Tarrant County CWA, told the candidates, "We may be few in numbers, but we represent a lot of people."
Candidates who attended included: Jerry Lee Phillips, Byron Sibbet representing Chris Utchell, Ryan Ray representing Lon Burnam, Chris Turner, Tom Love, Eric Roberson, and David Barton representing Barack Obama.
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