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Olga M. Lazin
Motto:
Tonight, the battle over so-called Social Security reform has escalated. The
Senate Finance Committee considering President Bush's plan for Social Security
reform. My guest, the committee's chairman and ranking Democrat.
Securing our borders. Immigration reform groups go to Capitol Hill today, fighting
for strict border security and tighter immigration laws. Tonight, a Latino-American
woman who's helping lead that fight for border security and immigration reform.,
CNN, april 26, 2005.
Social Security
Barnhart Pushes for Totalization Agreement
Giving Illegal Workers New Benefit Rights
Social Security Administration Commissioner Jo Anne Barnhart told a
House subcommittee Sept. 11 of the benefits of establishing a
totalization agreement with Mexico that other witnesses said would
allow a greater portion of the estimated five million illegal Mexican
immigrants in the United States to collect Social Security benefits and
provide an incentive for others to illegally enter the country.
States can make up the difference in coverage credits from their home
countries.
The annual foreign tax savings of United States workers and their
employers is more than $800 million, while foreign workers and their
employers in the United States save only $200 million. SSA actuaries
estimate that a totalization agreement with Mexico would cost the
United States $78 million in its first year before averaging out at about
$110 million per year, based on the 50,000 newly eligible beneficiaries
in Mexico that SSA estimates would grow sixfold over time.
Bovbjerg said that estimate was highly uncertain given the absence of
data about the true number of illegal immigrants in the United States.
The SSA figure does not directly consider the estimated millions of
current and former unauthorized workers and family members from
Mexico and "appears small in comparison with those estimates.
Nontransparent Assessment
Barnhart said SSA has had informal discussions with Mexico over the
last two years regarding a potential agreement. She dispatched a
deputy commissioner and other SSA official to Mexico to be briefed on
Mexican Social Security operations, and the group concluded that
Mexico was prepared to administer a totalization agreement.
3
Bovbjerg said in her testimony that SSA took no technical staff on the
visit to assess system controls or data integrity processes, nor did it
document its efforts or perform any additional analyses to assess the
integrity of Mexico's data and controls over that data.
"A lack of transparency in SSA's processes, and the limited nature of its
review of Mexico's program, cause us to question the extent to which
SSA will be positioned to respond to potential program risks should a
totalization agreement with Mexico take place," Bovbjerg said.
By Kurt Ritterpusch
X-Spam-Score: **
Shades of Mexico?
By RALPH BLUMENTHAL.
In other states, legislators pass bills. In Texas, they put it into the
Constitution. It happens again on Saturday, when voters will decide on
almost two dozen amendments to the bulging document. (Only
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Often the plebiscites are heavy with local minutiae and ignored by 93
percent or so of the electorate. The soporifics this year include a
proposition allowing cities to donate surplus equipment to rural
volunteer fire departments and one authorizing property tax
exemptions for travel trailers not used for business.
"I think this is a horrible mistake," said Mr. Parton, 61, before launching
his 21-foot red Triton into Lake Houston the other day. He said that it
was less about medicine than water pollution, and that he had been
sending e-mail messages to his group's 10,000 members to vote no.
Some doctors, in turn, have been lobbying for the measure by handing
patients cards that say, "Your Next Appointment Is on Election Day."
Some men who visited the Reliant Center for free prostate screenings
on Thursday were asked afterward to vote yes.
The flashpoint is Proposition 12, which would bar the courts from
setting or reviewing noneconomic damages against doctors and
medical providers ˜ claims for disfigurement and pain and suffering, for
example. It does not set caps on such claims; the Legislature already
did that in its last session. And it does not limit actual monetary
damages for loss of income.
Mr. Keith said the reason Texas' Constitution ˜ its seventh since 1836 ˜
was so unwieldy was that it was not drafted as a basic charter. "The
drafters were so fearful of getting a government that they would not
like that they seeded it with statute-level provisions," he said.
And, Ms. Hankinson said, "there's greater protection in the Texas Bill of
Rights than the federal Constitution." Texans are specifically
guaranteed both the right to access the courts and to have a remedy.
"We trace that to Magna Carta," she said.
Contrary to the way proponents portray the issue, she said, this was
not a vote for caps on damage claims. The Legislature already voted to
limit noneconomic claims to $750,000 a case ˜ $250,000 against a
doctor and another $250,000 against each of up to two hospitals or
other health care providers. Many states have caps, she said. But only
Texas would have a constitutional ban on judicial review.
With the debate sharpening in recent days, the opponents now include
Mothers Against Drunk Driving, AARP, the Dallas and Houston Police
Associations, the Texas Federation of Teachers, the Sierra Club, and
Cathie Adams, the president of Texas Eagle Forum, an affiliate of the
conservative pro-family group founded by Phyllis Schlafly in 1972.
"It's so misleading that people are being told this will save their
doctor," Ms. Adams said."