Media Advisory: Former Thrift Savings Plan Director To Talk With Reporters About Problems Of Privatized Social Security

Former Thrift Savings Plan Director Cavanaugh To Talk With Reporters By Phone Wednesday About Serious Problems Of Administering Privatized Social Security

Cavanaugh Says Social Security Individual Accounts Cannot be Modeled After the Federal TSP Program

"The TSP is not an administrative model for the Bush commission. Privatized Social Security accounts will require massive government bureaucracy – and they are doomed to failure.” -- Francis X. Cavanaugh

WASHINGTON, DC – Wednesday, August 22, 9:30am conference call for reporters with: FRANCIS X. CAVANAUGH, former head of Thrift Savings Plan (TSP).

The same day, the Bush Social Security privatization commission will meet for the third time. The witnesses for this hearing are the current head of the federal employees’ Thrift Savings Plan and the head of TIAA-CREF. They will discuss how large systems of individual investment accounts are administered. The Bush commission is clearly looking at the TSP as a model for administering privatized Social Security accounts. Many privatization bills introduced to Congress have called for the administrative function to be based on the TSP.

Francis X. Cavanaugh, the first Executive Director and CEO of the Federal Retirement Thrift Investment Board (1986-1994), which administers the TSP for Federal employees, will discuss why the commission is mistaken in looking to TSP as a model. According to Mr. Cavanaugh, a system of privatized Social Security accounts would be doomed to failure. Moreover, establishing the administrative capacity for this ill-fated enterprise would require hiring tens of thousands of new government employees – a new federal bureaucracy that the public would not be inclined to support.

9:30 am, Wednesday, August 22
Roger Hickey, IAF Co-Director, will moderate.
CALL IN NUMBER: 877- 652-1564
PASS: 741-25-63

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Other important press conferences:
* Tuesday, August 21, 10:00 am, Zenger Room, National Press Club CENTER ON BUDGET AND POLICY PRIORITIES press conference: Putting Proposed Social Security Reforms Into Context. Features Peter Orszag, Brookings Institution, Robert Greenstein, CBPP, Henry Aaron, Brookings Institution, Wendell Primus, CBPP.

* Wednesday, August 22, 11:00 am, Montcalm Room, Loew's Hotel, L'Enfant Plaza GRASSROOTS COALITION press conference challenging Bush's Commission about the true impact of its privatization plan on current Social Security beneficiaries. Featuring stories from Social Security recipients representing women, minority, disability, and survivors.

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