Bush Social Security plan wrong course, Halter says
Posted on Wednesday, February 22, 2006
URL: http://www.nwanews.com/adg/News/146566/
SPRINGDALE — Democratic gubernatorial candidate Bill Halter contends privatizing Social Security would hurt Arkansas, where beneficiaries draw about $ 1 billion more money annually than Arkansans pay into the program.
As governor, Halter said Tuesday, he would use the “bully pulpit” to fight privatization of Social Security.
“When President Bush first proposed this, it seemed pretty popular,” Halter, a former deputy commissioner of Social Security, told a luncheon meeting of the Senior Democrats of Northwest Arkansas.
He noted that Bush recently resurrected his Social Security plan in his proposed budget.
If successful, the president’s proposal could hurt not just individual beneficiaries, but cost Arkansas as a whole, Halter said.
Afterward, Halter said in an interview that he arrived at his economic benefit figure by comparing the aggregate amount that Arkansas workers pay into Social Security through payroll taxes with the aggregate amount that the state’s Social Security beneficiaries draw from the program.
In 2003, Arkansans received roughly $ 5 billion in benefits, compared with about $ 4 billion the program gleaned in Social Security taxes in Arkansas, according to statistics from the Social Security Administration’s press office and Web site.
“There are counties [in Arkansas ] where as much as 9 percent of the income was from Social Security,” Halter said, referring to total incomes from salaries, wages and benefits.
Halter’s speech to the Democratic group followed an appearance in the area Monday and a Tuesday morning speech to the Political Animals Club of Northwest Arkansas.
He told the groups that he would rather see the state strive to fund excellent education in its public schools, including preschool education, than merely seek to fund them adequately as outlined in the Lake View school-funding lawsuit decision by the Arkansas Supreme Court.
“How many of you drop your kids off for school, or your grandkids off for school, and say: ‘ Have an adequate day ?’” Halter asked, drawing laughter.
He also talked up the “Teacher Scholars Program” he announced Monday. In it, he advocated offering as many as 600 Arkansas public school teachers each year half their tuition costs to seek master’s degrees. In economically distressed areas, his plan would offer up to 150 other teachers full tuition reimbursement to do so.
That proposal came five days after he unveiled a proposal to use state surplus funds as well as money from his proposed state lottery for teacher pay raises and to reduce teacher shortages in critical subject areas such as math and science.
Improvements in education from preschool on up and investments in research are needed so the state doesn’t repeat its history, Halter said.
“When I was born in 1960, Arkansas was 49 th in median family income,” he said. “When I graduated in 1979, Arkansas was still 49 th.” Today, he added, the state is listed at 49 th or 50 th, depending on which economic rankings one consults.
Twenty years from now, he said, he hopes the state’s residents don’t wake up to find that nothing has changed.
“There’s nothing in the Arkansas water that says we have to be 49 th,” he said. “There’s nothing in the genetic makeup of Arkansans that say we have to be 49 th.”