Eskelsen Keynotes WEAC-R's Annual Conference

NEA Secretary-Treasurer Lily Eskelsen speaks to members during the WEAC-Retired conference May 14.

NEA Secretary-Treasurer Lily Eskelsen focused on the Bush administration's agenda to privatize public services like Social Security, Medicare and public education during her keynote address at the WEAC-Retired conference May 14 in Wisconsin Dells.

"It's déjà voodoo all over again," Eskelsen said of the privatization agenda, using a reference to George Herbert Walker Bush's 1980 criticism of Ronald Reagan's supply-side economics policy. "Some essential services don't fit a private model."

Eskelsen said Bush's federal tax cuts left less money for states to adequately fund public education. With the implementation of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act — sometimes referred to as the "No Child Left Behind" law — states are facing severe budget crises.

Because ESEA imposes sanctions on schools that fail to demonstrate adequate yearly progress on the required standardized tests, districts are choosing to cut music, art and vocational classes and have larger class sizes, she said. "If it's not on the test, it's in jeopardy."

Bush's strategy, according to Eskelsen, is to reduce the quality of public education until taxpayers are so dissatisfied that they resent paying taxes for schools and demand further cuts. Then, proponents of privatization "identify government as the problem and offer a solution: privatization," she said.

Eskelsen said the privatization agenda is also at work in the country's Social Security and Medicare systems.

The Social Security system is under increasing pressure as Baby Boomers reach retirement age, Eskelsen said. "In 25 years, if we do nothing, there will not be enough money from payroll taxes to cover Social Security benefits."

To strengthen Social Security, Bush has proposed diverting a portion of money collected in payroll taxes to private accounts. "Privatization does nothing to prepare for the Boomers," Eskelsen said. "It drains the fund."

Instead, she said, Bush's proposal benefits financial advisors who charge fees to investors to help them privately invest Social Security dollars. "Privatization destroys Social Security, and that's the plan."

Eskelsen said pharmaceutical companies were the big winners under Bush's Medicare Prescription Drug Act, which became law in December 2003. The act provides prescription drug coverage to Medicare subscribers, but prohibits Medicare from negotiating lower drug prices with pharmaceutical companies.

Eskelsen urged WEAC-Retired members to get involved to prevent the privatization agenda from further damaging public services. "We have got to move like it matters," she said. "Because it does."

"If you decide in your hearts and minds that you are going to change hearts and minds, you will."

Posted May 17, 2004