Now Isn't That Special

The Church Lady inspired title for this post is more than warranted considering the following.

Keith Brainard, Research Director of the National Association of State Retirement Directors, which represents virtually all of the nation's public employee pension plans, is quoted in the LA Times article which was the basis of the 'Facts keep getting in the way of scare tactics' post.

Specifically, Mr. Brainard is quoted as saying the following:

"Boy, does he [President Bush] have a hard sell ahead of him in using Ohio as his example," said Keith Brainard, research director of the National Assn. of State Retirement Directors, which represents virtually all of the nation's public employee pension plans."

Ohio's individual account programs are only a few years old, and in the short time they've been around, investment returns have been relatively weak." Brainard said.

Mr. Brainard's observations were used as part of the article's thesis that the President's advocacy for Social Security reform was not gaining traction.

Which is why Porkopolis started seeing visions of Dana Carvey in drag when he visited The National Association of State Retirement Directors' web site and found this interesting resolution; RESOLUTION 1998-03 - Social Security Resolution.

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RESOLUTION 1998-03 - Social Security Resolution


WHEREAS, the United States Constitution assigns certain responsibilities to the federal government and reserves the balance to the States; and,

WHEREAS, beginning in the 1930’s when Social Security was established, public employees were excluded from participation; and,

WHEREAS, beginning in the 1950’s, state and local government pension plans were given the option to elect Social Security coverage; and,
WHEREAS, many state and local government pension have elected to complement their own pension programs through coverage under Social Security; and,

WHEREAS, other public pension plans decided not to participate in Social Security but rather provide their own independent programs of retirement benefits; and
WHEREAS, mandatory coverage of newly hired state and local government employees will seriously disrupt the financial standing of these systems, to include reduction in benefits or increased contributions; and
WHEREAS, there is no evidence to support that mandatory coverage of newly hired public employees will solve the funding problems of the Social Security system; and

WHEREAS, there are serious constitutional and administrative problems with mandatory coverage;

NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED that the National Association of State Retirement Administrators supports the affiliation of public pension plans with Social Security on a voluntary basis; however, opposes mandatory coverage of public employees under Social Security.

Adopted
August 12, 1998


That's a fairly strong resistance to having public employees mandatorly participate in Social Security? Porkopolis wonders if the original politically incorrect version of this resolution included a few more WHEREASes (sp?) that didn't make it to the final version:

WHEREAS, any thinking American with half a neuron for a brain knows that Social Security is structured like a pyramid scheme and is unsustainable;

WHERAS, we got a good thing going already with plans that take prudent, diversified investment risks which include corporate stocks and bonds;

WHERAS, we don't want to force our members to participate in a financial system where politicans can use their contributions for government deficit spending;

WHERAS, the Social Security retirement benefits are currently and have been proposed to be progressively adminstered to in effect redistribute income amongst our members;

...

(Editorial Note: Porkopolis called Mr. Brainard who acknowledged that the periodic investments of a dollar cost averaging strategy could lead to even larger overall returns for individuals than the published performance returns of the private account options)