President Bush comes to Blair

Last updated on June 25 at 8:00 p.m.

President George W. Bush came to Blair to host an event to promote his plan to add personal investment accounts to the Social Security system, on Thursday, June 23. His appearance in Silver Spring drew about 400 protesters to the Four Corners area.

The event, entitled "A Conversation on Strengthening Social Security," was held in the Blair auditorium, and started around 10:00 a.m. Bush engaged in a half-hour long discussion on the auditorium stage with four other individuals, one of whom was Ben Stein, a comedian who graduated from Blair in 1962 who is the honorary chairperson of the National Retirement Planning Coalition (NRPC). Also participating were Wendy Merrill, a 32-year-old insurance broker from Reisterstown, MD; Brian Smart, a 23-year-old graduate of Radford University who recently entered the workforce; and Ben Ferguson, a student at the University of Mississippi and founder of Students for Saving Social Security. All of the panelists said they support the president's plan to create voluntary personal savings accounts.

Bush stated that Social Security as it stands today will be bankrupt by 2041 and that America needs new solutions to save it. "I saw a survey where it said younger workers feel like they're more likely to see a UFO than get a Social Security check," he said. The president emphasized the need for swift action on the issue. "The longer we wait, the harder it is for me to be able to look at younger Americans and say, 'The money you're putting in the system is going to be there for you.'"

The president laid out his plan to reform Social Security that would combine progressive indexing with the opportunity for individuals to invest a portion of their Social Security payments in stocks and bonds. He said he wants to create an "ownership society" so that Americans "from all walks of life" can say "This is mine; I own this." Bush added, "The more ownership there is in America, the better our future is."

Stein agreed, saying that America is "woefully unprepared" for the retirement of future generations. He said that the answer is for Americans to invest in the stock market. "Let's let everybody get in on it," Stein said. "Let's let everybody get a chance to make some real money." He went on to say that "there has to a revolution of individual responsibility in this country."

Bush also criticized the Democrats' failure to present possible solutions for fixing Social Security. "I think it's time for the leadership in the Democrat Party to start laying out ideas." "Unfortunately, some are playing politics in Washington," he said later.

Bush emphasized that persons born before 1950 would be unaffected by his proposed plan. "Grandmothers and granddads have nothing to worry about," he stated.

The auditorium was filled to capacity with around 500 audience members who were transported to Blair in school buses. Those who attended the event came from a variety of organizations from different places around the world. Only people who received tickets to the event from the White House were allowed to enter the event. Blair students were not invited.

A large portion of the audience was composed of interns working in Washington over the summer. "We are in favor of privatizing personal accounts," said one intern from Mt. Holyoke College, MA. Two other interns traveled from Long Beach, California, to hear Bush talk as well.

Approximately 200 interns from the Fund for American Studies — an organization based at Georgetown University — came to the event. Although one intern said she attended University of Maryland, College Park, many of the Fund for American Studies interns came from other places across the country and the globe, including Texas and Germany.

Members of the organization Students for Saving Social Security, established by Ferguson, also attended the event. Ferguson said that his organization has chapters at over 100 colleges across America and aims to get young people involved in the Social Security debate. "It was a great opportunity to hear the president speak," said William Fields, a member of the group who is from North Carolina.

The event was organized by the NRPC, which rented the buses from MCPS and the Blair facility through Montgomery County's Interagency Coordinating Board for Community Use of Public Facilities. "In the process of preparing for the visit, the [NRPC] made it know they needed shuttle transportation from remote sites" to bring people to the forum at Blair, said Kate Harrison, an MCPS spokeswoman.

A number of interns and volunteers from the Republican National Committee were also present at the event. They refused to comment for this article.

After the event in the auditorium, local Democrats held a press conference in the Blair student parking lot to voice their opposition to Bush's Social Security plan.

Video of the event, produced by Blair Network Communications, can be found here.

A transcript of "A Conversation on Strengthening Social Security" can be found here.