Write To Elected Representatives Before You Send Money To Lobbyists

Hardly a month goes by, says Jim Lundberg, when Washington, D.C., lobbyists don’t hit him up for more money to help save the benefits of senior citizens.

“They strike the fear of God into older people by sending big fat envelopes full of horror stories about benefits being taken away unless the lobbyists get a check for $15 or $20,” says the Spokane senior.

He used to send them money.

Lately he’s been sending the stuff they mail him to me.

Take this latest pitch from Martha A. McSteen, president of the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare.

In a computer-generated personalized appeal, she urged: “James E. Lundberg, your generous contribution now of $20 or even more will get us prepared to launch an extremely effective grass-roots lobbying campaign in defense of Social Security and Medicare as soon as Congress goes back into session.”

The mailing includes several inserts which resort to razzle-dazzle scare tactics, and make the claim that the annual $10 membership dues are grossly inadequate to win the battle of the Beltway against the enemies of benefits for seniors. So send more money quick!

But the lobby claims 6 million members. At $10 a head, that alone adds up to $60 million.

“What did they do with that first $60 million they got from us?” asks Lundberg. “And why do they need all this extra money all the time?”

Well, that’s basically the question I asked the American Association of Retired Persons on behalf of Lundberg and millions like him.

AARP the ancient and venerable institution against which all senior crusader organizations are measured - has been critical of the fund-raising methods of some. And that includes McSteen and her preservation lobby.

But first Horace Deets, AARP executive director, lit into the Seniors Coalition, a D.C. lobby which claims to be the only seniors group to have made the earnings test a major issue. As it happens, elimination of this unfair tax on working seniors earnings is part of the Republican “Contract With America” now working its way through Congress.

But Deets says of the Seniors Coalition, “They don’t have anything to do with it.

“They (the Seniors Coalition) are a big mail-order house, is all they are. They find a popular issue. They make a nice strong statement on it, and say, `Send us 10, 15, 25 bucks.’

“It’s a populist appeal designed to net them quite a few million dollars in contributions.”

As to McSteen and her organization, the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare, “They are trying to move to a more respectable position,” said the AARP’s chief of staff.

“They got into some trouble early on by sending out a lot of scare literature and quasi-official looking documents which scared the hell out of people, and asking people to send money.

“And I think they do a bit of grandstanding and demagoging,” said Deets. “Sometimes their statements are what I consider a little bit irresponsible.”

On the other hand, AARP is often viewed as too tame.

“We get criticized, and that’s fair, from both the right and the left,” said Deets, “for being too moderate. Too safe. Too pure.

“But when you have a membership the size of ours (30 million, making AARP the largest lobby in the nation), I think you have to represent them responsibly,” said Deets. “And that means you can’t hold out false expectations or empty promises as to what can be done.”

So, is McSteen a fraud?

“No,” said Deets.

“I have a lot of respect for Martha,” he said. “She did a tremendous job as acting director of the Social Security Administration, and she’s a fine person.

“My only question is, who runs her organization? Is it controlled by an independent board elected by members. Or is it controlled by the mail-order house?”

Well, be that as it may, what should seniors do when they receive scare circulars soliciting financial help to save their benefits? Should they send money?

“No,” advised Deets. “You don’t have to send money to get representation. You’ve got representation. You’ve got elected officials.

“The best thing you can do is write a letter to your congressman or your senator,” advised the senior citizens advocate.

“I guarantee you will get a lot further communicating directly with your elected officials,” said Deets, “than you will sending $20 to someone else to speak for you who just ends up generating a lot of Xerox-ed postcards.”

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