[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 65 (Thursday, May 6, 1999)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E884]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       TRIBUTE TO ROBERT M. BALL

                                 ______
                                 

                           HON. EARL POMEROY

                            of north dakota

                    in the house of representatives

                         Thursday, May 6, 1999

  Mr. POMEROY. Mr. Speaker, this session Congress once again finds 
itself debating ways to strengthen our most important domestic program: 
Social Security. Like many Members, I have long valued the wise counsel 
of one of Social Security's greatest defenders, Mr. Robert M. Ball. For 
six decades, Mr. Ball has worked on behalf of our nation's elderly and 
the Social Security program. I have found that his long-term 
perspective and familiarity with the program invariably transcend the 
whims of today's younger critics. Earlier this week, I read with great 
pleasure an article on Mr. Ball's achievements in the New York Times. 
The article which I include for the Record, eloquently describes his 
long-standing commitment to the Social Security program, and gives me 
hope that we will continue to benefit from his wisdom for years to 
come.

                 [From the New York Times, May 3, 1999]

           A Great Defender of the Social Security Battles On

                            (By Robin Toner)

       The conventional wisdom these days is that any major change 
     to Social Security is unlikely before next year's elections, 
     but Robert M. Ball remains ever vigilant. In the unending 
     debate over the nation's pension system, Mr. Ball stands as 
     the great defender of traditional Social Security, the genius 
     of its basic principles, the soundness of its basic approach.
       ``Though I feel good about our position,'' he said in a 
     lull in the struggle on a lazy spring afternoon, ``people who 
     think like I do better be very careful, and we better have 
     good proposals and we better be alert. Or something may 
     happen that we don't like.''
       Mr. Ball comes by his passion honestly, having been at the 
     Social Security wars for a very long time. He went to work 
     for Social Security in 1939, ran the program as Commissioner 
     from 1962 to 1973, and has since played a principal role on 
     some of the important advisory commissions. He is a regular 
     source of advice for leading Congressional Democrats, has 
     sent a series of memorandums on the issue to the White House 
     over the last few years and, yes, is a Social Security 
     beneficiary himself.
       Mr. Ball, who is 85, said he had no complaints about life 
     on the other end of the Social Security check. ``They do a 
     good job,'' he said, happily settled for the moment like any 
     other cardigan-clad retiree in the living room of his ranch 
     house in Alexandria, Va.
       For many Democrats engaged in the issue, Mr. Ball is an 
     irreplaceable link with 60 years of history. ``There's a 
     reason why the program is what it is,'' said Representative 
     Earl Pomeroy of North Dakota, a Democratic point man on 
     Social Security in the House. ``And Bob Ball can explain it 
     to you.''
       For the last few years, Mr. Ball's consuming cause has been 
     beating back the forces of privatization: the notion that at 
     least part of Social Security should be replaced with 
     individual accounts that workers could invest as they see 
     fit.
       He sees privatization as a ``slippery slope,'' a dangerous 
     step away from the guaranteed benefits of Social Security. He 
     contends that the system can be shored up for the next 
     century by far less radical measures, like raising the 
     maximum amount of earnings subject to Social Security taxes.
       Mr. Ball acknowledges that his views are shaped by a very 
     different world than that of the young privatizers. One of 
     three children of a Methodist minister, he grew up in 
     northern New Jersey and graduated from Wesleyan University 
     with a master's degree in economics during the Depression. 
     There were no jobs.
       For help, he turned to his thesis adviser, who happened to 
     have a friend involved in the new Social Security program. 
     ``He said, `Well, this program is just starting up. It's 
     going to be a big program. It's an attractive program and an 
     important social program, and it would be a good thing if you 
     got in on it in the beginning.' ''
       So Mr. Ball took the Civil Service exam during his 
     honeymoon (he spent the rest of the time on a camping trip 
     with his wife, Doris) and began work as a field 
     representative in the Newark office of Social Security for 
     $1,620 a year.
       He spent his early years visiting employers, trying to 
     straighten out wage records and, along the way, proselytizing 
     for a program that seemed quite revolutionary at the time. On 
     the wall of his office at home, he has a picture of that 
     Newark field staff, earnest young foot soldiers of the New 
     Deal.
       There are other pictures on that wall: President Lyndon B. 
     Johnson signing the law creating Medicare, which Mr. Ball 
     helped put into effect. The Presidential commission, signed 
     by John F. Kennedy, that named Mr. Ball head of Social 
     Security. (Mr. Ball noted that it mentioned more than once 
     that he served at the pleasure of the President.) A picture 
     of the Balls with President Richard M. Nixon in 1973, when 
     Mr. Ball was leaving office. The newspapers at the time said 
     he was ``pushed out.'' Mr. Ball says: ``I was perfectly happy 
     to go, but I couldn't have stayed if I wanted to. I lasted 
     for the first term.''
       Along the way, the Balls brought up two children: their son 
     is a psychotherapist; their daughter, an art therapist.
       Mr. Ball acknowledges that his retirement has been less 
     than restful. He does a lot of reading, and not just on 
     social insurance issues, he said a trifle defensively. Mostly 
     novels and Romantic poetry.
       But the care and tending of Social Security keeps pulling 
     him back.
       ``There was a time when I felt a lot of pressure on the 
     basis that there wasn't anybody else really working on it 
     very much,'' he said. ``Now there's a whole group. They'll 
     carry on whether I die tomorrow and do as good or better 
     job.''
       That was the idea behind the National Academy of Social 
     Insurance, a nonprofit organization that does research on 
     social insurance and tries to ``enhance public 
     understanding'' of the issues; Mr. Ball was one of its 
     founders 11 years ago.
       Still, it is not at all clear that Mr. Ball is ready to 
     pass the torch and enter the land of retirement he helped 
     create.
       ``My wife and I had dinner with him and Doris two nights 
     ago,'' said Henry Aaron, an economist at the Brookings 
     Institution. ``I don't know of any other 85-year-old who's 
     wrestling with what he's going to do, new. But Bob is 
     wrestling with that. I think he sees the health care issue 
     emerging anew.''

     

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