Bob Ball, SS commissioner for 3 presidents, disagrees w/W:

[babylonsister]

Deadparrot posted this article yesterday.

A Retiree Trying to Save His Life's Work (Social Security)

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-na-bobball30may30,1,191997.story?coll=la-headlines-business

MITCHELLVILLE, Md. — Like many other retirees, Bob Ball is concerned about what's going to happen to Social Security.

From his cluttered office in his otherwise tidy retirement community home, he has proposed his own formula for shoring up Social Security's financial future. His relatively modest tax increases and benefit cuts, combined with some government investment in the stock market, offer a contrast to President Bush's call for individual investment accounts, which Ball abhors, and steeper curbs on traditional benefits for many future retirees.

But Ball's goal isn't preservation of his monthly benefit check. Instead, he is defending the program that is his life's work.

But now the proposals of No. 43, George W. Bush, have prompted the 91-year-old Ball to try to make his voice heard in Washington once again to fight proposals that, in his view, would unravel his life's work.

Old GDub getting kicked around by a 91-year-old man...gotta love it.

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-na-bobball30may30,1,191997.story?coll=la-headlines-business

Edit to add new link

[mcscajun]

1. Yahoo links aren't working

:(

[WLKjr]

2. yahoo links are broke

[babylonsister]

3. Links updated; must read! nt

[babylonsister]

4. Snips-

snip from same article

"He shot up through the bureaucracy to become commissioner of Social Security for three presidents. On his watch, Social Security became the biggest and most popular benefits program. And in 1983, when he had been collecting retirement benefits for four years, he was a key negotiator of the law that rescued Social Security from the brink of insolvency.

With the possible exception of J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI, perhaps no one has been associated with a federal institution as intimately and for as long as Robert M. Ball. He is one of the last of a nearly extinct species: career civil servants who became top policymakers."

snip