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Jewish World Review Feb. 22, 2001 / 29 Shevat 5761

Morton Kondracke

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Consumer Reports


AARP's agenda at odds with Bush priorities


http://www.jewishworldreview.com -- OFTEN rated Washington's most powerful lobby, the AARP assembled its official 2001 policy agenda last week - and its main points are bad news for President Bush.

The AARP, formerly known as the American Association of Retired Persons, doesn't make campaign contributions, doesn't endorse candidates and rarely plays hardball. But it is definitely putting its muscle behind priorities that preclude Bush's $1.6 trillion tax cut.

On other major issues, the group will resist any Social Security reform that reduces guaranteed benefits and Medicare reforms that force seniors into managed care. Moreover, AARP is staunchly backing Sen. John McCain's (R-Ariz.) push for campaign finance reform.

Nothing in the group's new four-inch-thick agenda book breathes a word of hostility toward Bush or his legislative agenda. In fact, the AARP is rigorously non-partisan. It lays down "principles," not hard positions. And its lobbyists always "work with" people with whom they have differences.

However, with 34.5 million members who theoretically could be mobilized in a crunch, the AARP usually gets heeded by Congress on its issues.

It is also in the process of retooling itself - the name change is part of it - to expand its influence. The organization wants to be the voice not only for 35 million "seniors" over 65 but for the 78 million-strong baby-boom generation that is gradually turning 50.

In major magazines and on television, the group is "rebranding" itself with ads featuring vigorous-looking 50-plus business owners, environmentalists, educators and rock climbers rather than "retired persons."

The organization just launched a glossy new magazine, My Generation, sent free to those ages 50 to 55. Its redesigned standby, Modern Maturity, goes to members over 55.

The remaking of the AARP is a project initiated by the group's 13-year executive director, Horace Deets, who is retiring next January. A nationwide search is under way for his successor.

One internal candidate is Bill Novelli, who sold his powerhouse public relations firm, Porter Novelli, in 1990 to start a second career in public service, working first at CARE and then leading the Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids.

Novelli has been in charge of the AARP's advocacy and public affairs activities for 13 months and envisions the group becoming "the No. 1 organization in the country working for social change," including better education, upgraded standards for long-term care facilities, and tax credits for long-term care insurance.

As part of Deets' reorganization, the AARP is establishing offices in all 50 states, up from 22, to lobby legislatures and stay in touch with local groups.

Only 10 percent of the AARP's $450 million budget is spent on lobbying and advocacy - still a huge amount. The rest goes to volunteer and service work.

For four years running, the AARP has headed Fortune magazine's list of the most powerful lobbies in Washington, beating out such groups as the National Rifle Association, the National Federation of Independent Business, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the AFL-CIO and the Association of Trial Lawyers of America.

The AARP's clout-wielding reputation is partly based on a mistaken legend. In 1988 the organization backed so-called "catastrophic" prescription drug coverage for seniors, which passed Congress.

But well-off seniors and those with pre-existing drug coverage raged against the mandatory program for its increased premiums, famously banging on the car of then-Ways and Means Chairman Dan Rostenkowski (D-Ill.), chief sponsor of the measure.

The AARP's board and Washington office urged that the program be kept alive, but Congress got scared and repealed it in 1989 under massive pressure from rank-and-file seniors, many of them AARP members.

That was evidence of the power of the membership, though, and AARP lobbyists bring it silently to bear when they visit Members to talk about their issues.

Last week the AARP's board decided that the group's "principles" this year would include "balanced" use of the federal budget surplus, with enough money available for a Medicare prescription drug benefit, expanded health insurance for children and new education spending as to preclude Bush's $1.6 trillion tax cut.

Moreover, the group wants tax cuts to be targeted - reducing (though not eliminating) the inheritance tax, providing a credit for caregivers and expanding IRAs - rather than across the board, as Bush proposes.

The AARP will support Bush's idea of a Social Security commission - but oppose the kind of partial privatization proposals he backed in the campaign, "carve outs," which called for a reduction of guaranteed benefits. The AARP favors a new voluntary savings plan being added to Social Security.

It's not clear where Bush will end up on Medicare, but the AARP prefers a much more costly drug benefit than Bush seemed to favor in the campaign and wants to keep traditional fee-for-service Medicare, not push seniors into HMOs.

The AARP has a genteel atmosphere about it that fits right in with Bush's less confrontational Washington. But their differences leave them with a lot of "working with" to do.



JWR contributor Morton Kondracke is executive editor of Roll Call, the newspaper of Capitol Hill. Send your comments by clicking here.

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