Q: I thought your recent column that included proposals to fix Social Security's long-range financing problems was very insightful. People need to support political leaders who have the courage to tackle this issue. What do you think the election of Barack Obama will do for the future of Social Security?

A: Given the state of the economy and the ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, I think most people recognize that President-elect Obama has much bigger fish to fry — at least in the next year or two — than dealing with Social Security's long-range financing problems.

I certainly hope that before the end of his term, he has the courage and the political capital to deal with the Social Security issue. If he merely sets up yet another commission to study the problem, I'll be sorely disappointed. (Each of the past five or six presidents has established a panel of experts to reform Social Security. Each panel produced a report with recommended reforms. And each report is now collecting dust on a bookshelf somewhere.)

But I will share some thoughts about how Obama's presidency might at least be beneficial to the administration of the current Social Security system.

These opinions were passed on to me by a former colleague at the Social Security Administration. A colleague, I might add, who was a Republican political appointee with the agency.

It was his contention that the Social Security Administration tends to do a better job of managing the Social Security programs under a Democratic administration. And here is how he explained that.

The Social Security Administration, like every other federal government agency, has a number of key administrative positions that are filled by political appointees — people selected by the White House to oversee most federal agencies. SSA has perhaps 10 of these positions, including the head of the agency and many of his or her key deputies. (I should point out that technically, the Commissioner of Social Security position is supposed to be politically independent, but the person in the job always changes with a change of administrations.)

This former colleague told me that if you are a potential Republican political appointee, the Social Security Administration is almost the last place you'd want to work. That's partly because Social Security is considered a cornerstone of Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal. And at least in Washington, that makes it a Democratic Party bailiwick. And it's also partly because a potential Republican political appointee would be much more interested in a job with federal departments like Commerce, Defense, and State. So he contends that under Republican administrations, SSA is managed by what he called "bottom of the barrel" political appointees. (And again, bear in mind that this person was just such an appointee himself!) As an example, one of my former bosses, a person who had the third or fourth most important position at the agency, was one of Nancy Reagan's campaign schedulers before she got the political appointment at SSA.

On the other hand, he said that potential Democratic political appointees would have SSA high on their lists of places they'd like to work. So under a Democratic administration, SSA tends to be managed by more highly qualified people — those who truly believe in the integrity and the mission of the Social Security program.

So assuming my friend's insights are true, we should be headed for a well-managed and better-run Social Security Administration in the next few years.

But having said all that, I should point out that much of SSA's primary business is carried on by internal bureaucratic policies and practices. In other words, some long-term, career civil servant is always there to push the right buttons to make sure those 45 million Social Security checks go out on time every month, no matter who is sitting in the fancy corner offices of the agency's ivory tower.

To find out more about Tom Margenau and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

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