Report from the Front

I just heard from Terry Riley that the Social Security rally this morning at Heather Wilson's office in Albuquerque was a success. About 25 people showed up to urge Rep. Wilson to come out of the closet and hold a REAL townhall meeting to reveal what her true position is on privatizing Social Security. Similar rallies are taking place all over the nation today as the Senate Finance Committee begins considering Bush's plan.

Police, including a guy from the SWAT team, were present and tried to get the people to clear the area, saying they were trespassing. Fortunately, Santiago Juarez, one of the leaders of the rally from NM PACE who appeared at our last DFA-DFNM Meetup, knew the law and calmly challenged the officers on camera. He led the way to a compromise whereby 7 people at a time could enter Wilson's office and speak with her office manager. There's a good chance that Albuquerque TV channel 13 will have coverage of all this later today. Keep an eye out.

The umbrella group NM United to Protect Social Security also released a comprehensive report to the media today on how damaging privatizing Social Security would be for New Mexico. Bush's plan would create a new $4.6 billion unfunded mandate on our state and would plunge at least 30,000 New Mexicans into poverty. Click to dowload this report produced by the Institute for America's Future.