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The agency's plans are set forth in internal documents, including a
"tactical plan" for communications and marketing of the idea that
Social Security faces dire financial problems requiring immediate action.
Social Security officials say the agency is carrying out its mission to
educate the public, including more than 47 million beneficiaries, and to
support President Bush's agenda.
"The system is broken, and promises are being made that Social Security
cannot keep," Mr. Bush said in his Saturday radio address. He is expected
to address the issue in his Inaugural Address.
But agency employees have complained to Social Security officials that they
are being conscripted into a political battle over the future of the program.
They question the accuracy of recent statements by the agency, and they say
that money from the Social Security trust fund should not be used for such
advocacy.
"Trust fund dollars should not be used to promote a political
agenda," said Dana C. Duggins, a vice president
of the Social Security Council of the American Federation of Government
Employees, which represents more than 50,000 of the agency's 64,000 workers and
has opposed private accounts.
Deborah C. Fredericksen of Minneapolis, who has
worked for the Social Security Administration for 31 years, said, "Many
employees believe that the president and this agency are using scare tactics to
promote private accounts."
Social Security trustees say the program's financial problems will grow as
baby boomers retire. The program will pay out more in benefits than it collects
in revenue in 2018, they say. By 2042, they say, the trust fund will be
exhausted, and tax income will be sufficient to pay only 73 percent of
scheduled benefits.
In campaign-style speeches, Mr. Bush and other officials have said that
Social Security is headed for bankruptcy, and that workers should be allowed to
divert some of their payroll taxes into private accounts, as a way to build
wealth for themselves and their heirs.
Such comments have prompted inquiries from the public to Social Security
offices. Agency managers said they expected a torrent of calls after Mr. Bush's
Inaugural Address on Thursday and his State of the Union speech two weeks
later.
Mark R. Lassiter, a spokesman for the Social Security Administration, said
he could not discuss the agency's communications plans because they were
"internal documents." The agency, he said, has a duty "to
educate the public about the financial challenges facing Social Security,"
but has not prepared a script for employees to use in answering questions from
the public.
The Bush administration ran afoul of a ban on "covert propaganda"
when it used tax money to promote the new Medicare drug benefit and to
publicize the dangers of drug abuse by young people. The administration
acknowledged paying a conservative commentator, Armstrong Williams, to promote
its No Child Left Behind education policy. But on Social Security, unlike those
issues, the government has not concealed its role.
The agency's strategic communications plan says the following message is to
be disseminated to "all audiences" through speeches, seminars, public
events, radio, television and newspapers: "Social Security's long-term
financing problems are serious and need to be addressed soon," or else the
program may not "be there for future generations."
The plan says that Social Security managers should "discuss solvency
issues at staff meetings," "insert solvency messages in all Social
Security publications" and spread the word at nontraditional sites like
farmers' markets and "big box retail stores."
Also, the document says, agency managers should observe and measure how much
their employees know about the solvency of the program.
Mr. Bush has created a sense of urgency by declaring that "the crisis
is now."
A slide show, presented to various audiences by James B. Lockhart III,
deputy commissioner of Social Security, says that "benefit cuts would be
drastic" after 2042 if the Social Security law and payroll tax rates
continue unchanged.
A policy brief prepared by the agency says those benefit cuts "would
double the poverty rate of Social Security beneficiaries aged 64 to 78,"
increasing the number of indigent people in that age bracket to 1.8 million,
from 875,000.
Witold R. Skwierczynski,
president of the Social Security Council of the federation of government
employees, said: "Some of the information being imparted by agency
officials is not factual, not accurate. There is no immediate crisis."
In interviews, other Social Security employees expressed similar views. But
council members were more willing to allow use of their names because a federal
law generally protects them against "penalty or reprisal" when they
speak publicly or testify before Congress.
Social Security employees denied that their concerns were motivated by a
bureaucratic mentality, a fear of change or a desire to protect their jobs.
"There's a lot more to it than that," said Colleen M. Kelley,
president of the National Treasury Employees Union, which represents lawyers
and paralegals at the Social Security Administration. "There's a genuine
concern about how people will live when they retire, a
real fear that Social Security benefits could be eroded by private
accounts."
The official policy brief, analyzing the consequences of inaction, was
written by Andrew G. Biggs, the associate commissioner of Social Security for
retirement policy. Mr. Biggs, 37, joined President Bush in making the case for
private accounts at a White House forum this week.
When he was an analyst at the Cato Institute, Mr. Biggs championed private
accounts, saying they "would pay substantially higher retirement benefits
than the current Social Security program" because some payroll taxes could
be invested in stocks and corporate bonds rather than in government securities.
In 2003, just before he became associate commissioner, Mr. Biggs said that
AARP, the lobby for older Americans, was "spreading disinformation"
about the risks of private accounts. Mr. Biggs, who has a doctorate from the
London School of Economics, said critics were wrong to
suggest that personal accounts meant large cuts in benefits. In fact, he said,
Social Security cannot pay the benefits it has promised.
The combination of benefits from traditional Social Security and a private
account would substantially exceed what the current program can actually pay,
Mr. Biggs said.
Other analysts, including the Congressional Budget Office, have reached a
different conclusion. They say the combination of benefits from the trust fund
and individual accounts is likely to be less than actual benefits under the
current system.
In a document sent each year to millions of workers, the government emphasizes
the looming financial problems. The document shows a worker's earnings history
and estimated future benefits. But it says the scheduled benefits could be cut
because "without changes, by 2042 the Social Security trust fund will be
exhausted."
Agency employees raised their concerns with Reginald F. Wells, a deputy
commissioner of Social Security, and two associate commissioners, David L. Feder and Roger McDonnell. Mr. McDonnell confirmed that
employee representatives had shared their concerns with him, but he declined to
say how he replied.
Robert M. Ball, who worked at the Social Security Administration for three
decades and was commissioner under Democratic and Republican presidents from
1962 to 1973, said: "It's fine for the agency to answer factual questions,
but it's unusual to use the Civil Service organization to push a political
agenda, especially because what they're saying is not true. The program is not
going bankrupt."
When asked about the outlook for Social Security, several agency officials
pointed to a White House "fact sheet" that says, "By 2042, when
workers in their mid-20's begin to retire, the system
will be bankrupt - unless we act now to save it."