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Robert M. Ball - Interview #4
This is another session in the Bob Ball oral history interview. This session is taking place on May 1, 2001 at Mr. Ball's home in Alexandria, Virginia. And again, it's Larry DeWitt interviewing for SSA.
Interviewer: Bob I was telling you that I've been at the National
Archives listening to some of the newly released Nixon tapes. One of the
tapes I was just listening to from 1972 was a meeting at the White House
between Richard Nixon, Elliot Richardson, and Russell Long. And, I guess,
Ehrlichman and Haldeman were there. But, basically it was Nixon and Russell
Long, and mostly Russell Long talking. (Laughs) One of the things they
talked a lot about in this conversation was the Kennedy Health Plan proposal,
which you were the author of. They were both criticizing it relentlessly.
It was clear that both the Administration and Russell Long were opposed
to the Kennedy Health Plan proposal. Was this the bill you authored for
Senator Kennedy?
Ball: No, the Kennedy-Mills Bill, which I really was the author of, was after I left the government.
Interviewer: OK. This would have been in 1972.
Ball: That must have been the basic Kennedy Bill, his own bill, which I actually did favor, but I wasn't the author of it. That came out of Kennedy's own work. It was Labor's bill really. Kennedy and the AFL-CIO were for a national health insurance plan, covering everybody. He was for that for years and years, as a basic plan, going way back. What I did--which we have been into, I believe, so I won't do it again--except to say what I did was to take the Nixon proposal, after I had left the government, and I took the amount of money that Nixon was willing to spend, and then I said, "Let's take that same amount of money and instead of having it be a private system," which was Nixon's plan, "let's put that amount of money through the government." We would, in effect, have half of what Kennedy-Labor had been proposing right along. And that became the Kennedy-Mills Bill. Russell Long was against that too because he favored what's really a catastrophic approach, which was to cover, through government, only very large expenditures after a big deductible of three of four thousand dollars a year, then cover costs beyond that. I had actually worked up Long's bill for him too. As soon as I proposed this new plan to Senator Kennedy, he took me over to see Long, on the Senate floor, to try to talk Long into supporting this new plan.
That's the difference on that.
Interviewer: OK.
Ball: And, off hand, without checking it, I don't know exactly when the Kennedy-Mills bill came in. But it created quite a stir. There were very good editorials from the Washington Post and the New York Times on it. It looked like a real hope, but it was Labor's failure to support it that doomed it. If I had to just guess right now, I think it was about 1974.
Interviewer: OK.
Ball: But, I'm not sure. I'd have to look it up. It's easily available in history sources.
Interviewer: All right. So, the earlier Kennedy proposals were for national health insurance?
Ball: Yes, National Comprehensive Health Insurance, and everybody on the Republican side were always trying to think up good ways to oppose it.
Interviewer: But, even the Democrats were opposed to it.
Ball: No, I wouldn't say the Democrats.
Interviewer: Or at least Russell Long and some of the conservative Democrats.
Ball: Oh, yes, sure. You could say the Democrats were split. Long was trying to get something going on the basis of a big, big deductible, a catastrophic plan. It would cost a lot less, of course.
Interviewer: How about guys like Elliot Richardson, and the liberal part of the Republicans? Were they sympathetic?
Ball: No, I don't think so. I think Richardson was sympathetic to the continuation of Medicare, but that he would prefer a less comprehensive plan than Kennedy was proposing, he would have wanted something less.
Interviewer: Let me take just a second and figure out where we want to go next.
Ball: The next logical major subject--though that may not be what you were going to do--, would be the 1972 Amendments.
Interviewer: Well, that is one of the things I wanted to talk about today, so let's do that. The 1972 Amendments had some important things in them. One of which, of course, was the automatics.
Ball: Yes.
Interviewer: Well, why don't you just go ahead and tell me what I should know about the '72 Amendments. (Laughs) Did you tell me before that you initially didn't support the idea of the automatic COLA? Or, am I confusing . . .
Ball: No, you're confusing me with some other people. (Laughs)
Interviewer: OK.
Ball: But that is an interesting story.
The history of the automatics has some depth to it. It didn't just happen in 1972. Among the first people who were actually for the automatic provision was Mel Laird, a Wisconsin Congressman, later Secretary of Defense. He was the Ranking Republican on the Appropriation Subcommittee that dealt with Social Security. Dan Flood was the Chair, and Mel Laird was the Ranking Republican. They worked very well together. Mel was very supportive of Social Security. We got to the point where he considered himself a good friend of mine. When he left the Defense Department, as he was leaving, he was going to tour the military posts all across the country to say, "Goodbye," to the troops and the officers. He wanted me to go with him. He called me up and asked me to fly around with him. (Laughs) That was just not something I was likely to do. At that time, he was in extremely bad repute with Democrats, particularly liberals.
Interviewer: Over Vietnam?
Ball: Over Vietnam, and I wasn't about to fly around with the Secretary of Defense. But, that's just an illustration of how much he had come to regard me as a friend, out of the role that he had back as a Congressman, when he was the Ranking Republican on the Appropriations sub-Committee.
So, I don't know where it actually came from, but he was the first person I knew to actually introduce a bill on this. Of course the Appropriations Committee doesn't have substantive jurisdiction. This was just something he wanted to be associated with, because he was interested in Social Security and he thought it was a good idea. He used it in his campaigns--that sort of thing.
But the first time that it was supported in the substantive committee, Ways and Means, was by John Byrnes, who also was from Wisconsin, and he was the Ranking Republican on the Ways and Means Committee--where his views would make a lot of difference. I think this idea, to an extent, came from Bob Myers. Bob originally was very intrigued with the concept of automatics, and still is. In fact, he would like to make almost everything automatic. Maybe it makes it easier to make estimates if you know everything is going to keep up with everything else. So I think probably, he was a source of Byrnes' interest in this.
It became quite an important public issue before 1972, in terms of pushing the idea.
Now, the line up, pros and cons, was pretty interesting in the light of later developments. One the one hand there was Labor and Wilbur Cohen, who were always allies. Wilbur almost never let any kind of daylight between him and the labor movement, in terms of policy in Social Security. Usually I was with them too. But they took the opposite view of the Republicans. I guess, the way to say this in an orderly way is to ask, "The people who were for the COLA, the Republicans, what was in their minds? Why were they proposing this?" They made it very clear; there was no secret about it, they were for it because the program dropping behind, so that the benefits were less in purchasing power because of inflation had been the excuse that was used time after time to amend the Social Security Act. Whenever benefits slipped behind, that started a major drive by Labor and the Democrats, generally, to fix that. And, almost always, when attention was paid to the program, more was done than just keeping up with the cost of living. It wasn't just the COLA. The Democrats would add other things to it. So the whole strategy by the Republicans in supporting automatic cost of living increases, was to keep the program from being amended--which almost always expanded the program. Their idea was to slow it down; and the way they thought to do that was through the cost of living proposal.
Interviewer: That's ironic.
Ball: Yes. Now the Labor Movement and Wilbur, as I started to say, fell in with that analysis and took the opposite view for the same reason. They were afraid that once you had an automatic provision for the cost of living, they wouldn't be able to get the attention of the Congress for other improvements in the program.
Well, I disagreed with that strategy. I had been concerned about the degree of lag that there was between the time the cost of living increased and when benefits were adjusted. Although, the program did keep up to date, not just with the cost of living, but with wages. Over a period of time the benefits would fall behind, and then they would be increased, and they would fall behind, and then be increased. But in the mean time, people were dying by the thousands. I mean, old people have high mortality rates. And if you take three or four years, or even two, to catch up with the cost of living, a lot of people had the experience of not being able to buy what they had previously been able to buy. So, I thought the automatic cost of living was really a very desirable and good addition to the program.
I had an occasion, as Commissioner, to have a part in getting a cost of living adjustment for federal employees. John Macy, who was the Chairman of the Civil Service Commission at the time I'm speaking of, proposed an automatic cost of living adjustment for retired civil servants in the Civil Service Retirement System. And he had to deal with the Bureau of the Budget in trying to get support for making it an Administration program.
Maybe not everybody who reads this oral history will know that the President's program is made up of recommendations from the major agencies. But they don't become part of his program until he gives approval to that particular legislative initiative. And the arm of the government that he uses to staff out proposals is what's now the Office of Management and Budget, OMB, and was the Bureau of the Budget. There was a legislative section in the old Bureau of the Budget, and there probably still is, that reviews all new proposals for the President, and clears reports on pending bills introduced by others. Congressmen were always introducing bills on subjects in the jurisdiction of some department. And the Congressional Committees would ask the agencies to tell the Committee what they think of those bills. Well, they would write a report. But, before it's released, it goes to a section of the Bureau of the Budget (or OMB). When I was there, it was headed by a really competent guy named "Sam" Hughes. They provide clearance to a report by saying it's in concord with the program of the President. And, if it isn't, you are not supposed to send the report. You have to let your views be known, if you want them known, some other way, but not through an official review.
So, to get back to the main line of this story on civil service COLAs, when it came to a question of getting support for automatic provisions in the civil service retirement system, the Bureau of the Budget and Macy wanted my views as head of the Social Security system, since it was a retirement program and similar to Social Security, and so on. I attended meetings at the Bureau of the Budget with Macy on this. I was very enthusiastic about it, not because I was particularly focused on civil servants, but because I wanted it as a precedent for the Social Security system, because having it there would be very important in the argument to have it be part of the President's program when came Social Security's turn.
So I was well on board in favor of automatic provisions to keep up with the cost of living, as a matter of principle within the program, and did not take this tactical view of the situation that Labor and Wilbur Cohen did. That was also reflected in the difference between Wilbur Mills and John Byrnes. Mills took the view, not so much that you wouldn't get the attention of the Congress for expansion, because he was very conservative and he wasn't interested in expanding it all that much. On that theory, he might have been on the side of Byrnes.
Interviewer: Yeah, that's what I would've thought.
Ball: But, what he was interested in was the Congress getting credit with beneficiaries for voting for it. If it's automatic, the politicians get nothing out of it, except the first time they vote. He was willing to have it come up every couple of years, and vote for it every couple of years. He liked that a lot.
So, Mills opposed it on those grounds. The Democrats had been in charge of the Congress for so long (there was just one exception for a couple of years there) and he expected to stay in control of the Congress, and he wanted all of his Democratic colleagues to help him stay there. So every few years, when they're up for re-election, they could put out what they characterized as a benefit increase, even though it was just keeping up to date with purchasing power. So, that was his view. And, as I say, he had liberal support on the basic idea, for other reasons.
So, Democrats and liberals, for slightly different reasons, were opposed to the automatic cost of living adjustments, whereas the Republicans--or at least John Byrnes as a leader of the Republicans, he didn't have all the Republicans--was for it as a brake on the expansion of the program.
Interviewer: Now, what about Nixon? Nixon supported the automatics.
Ball: Yes, now we come to . . .
Interviewer: He proposed it himself several times.
Ball: Yes. Although, I don't know if it was several times.
Interviewer: What was his motivation?.
Ball: When he came into office in 1968, one of his major proposals was an automatic Social Security cost of living-- he just picked it up from Byrnes and the Republicans in the Congress and made it part of his program. I was still Commissioner in the first Nixon term and that was very compatible with what I thought, so that was fine. Nixon didn't have enthusiastic support of all his own immediate staff--Arthur Burns, who was his Chief Economic Advisor-- was very much opposed to the automatic cost of living on the ground that it removed one of the brakes on inflation. Burns' main focus--and economists generally, but particularly conservative economists--main focus had been for a long, long time to prevent inflation. He thought if older people getting Social Security had their benefits protected against inflation, they wouldn't care whether there was inflation or non-inflation and therefore one of the powerful voting blocks would be neutralized, in terms of a fight against inflation. So he fought within the Administration to prevent going ahead with an automatic provision and really pretty much argued it right up to the end. He and I held a joint press conference when it finally passed. I had to carry most of it because he didn't . . .
Interviewer: He didn't want to do it?
Ball: (Laughing). He still didn't like the idea.
Interviewer: Was Nixon's motivation the same as Byrnes' motivation? Do you think he wanted it to be a legislative brake?
Ball: I would think so. He may not have thought it through to the same extent. He recognized it to be a Republican position that he could promote as being pro-Social Security, so it's not entirely unmixed. Nixon was less of a domestic conservative than people now paint him. He was for quite a few ideas that would be considered liberal today, most notably the Family Assistance Program.
Interviewer: Right. Well, let me ask you one other argument that I sometimes have seen made about the COLA. That there was a conservative reason to support the COLA along these lines: that because the COLA was not based on any kind of automatic calculation of inflation but was in effect a political negotiation, what happened in Congress, whenever a COLA was issued, there was a tendency to have a bidding war and that sometimes the COLA amount would be more than the actual rate of inflation.
Ball: That's true.
Interviewer: And that one of the reasons that some people supported the automatic COLA was to prevent that kind of bidding and to keep the COLA amounts down. So there was a conservative argument in that direction. Is that true?
Ball: Larry, that's really the same point that I made first. Before the COLA was automatic they didn't necessarily think they were doing a COLA. They thought they were doing a benefit increase. And the starting point of the argument would be, "Well, we have to restore purchasing power." But then the Democrats would just include that adjustment in a higher benefit increase. So that's the first point. Getting attention to the COLA resulted in liberalizations that went beyond the COLA. Sometimes in a higher benefit increase, sometimes in other liberalization.
Interviewer: OK.
Ball: But that's that same . . .
Interviewer: That's part of the same argument?
Ball: Yes. That's really the basic argument. The other one is Mills' political argument, "We want credit." That's all there was to that.
But when it first comes up for an actual vote, Mills suffered what was, as far as I know, one of only two defeats in his whole regime as Chairman of the Ways and Means Committee. He was a very careful man. He did not take a bill to the Floor unless he knew he was going to win. He was defeated early in his career as Chairman on a non-Social Security measure and it stung him badly. From then on, he was extremely careful. The papers always wrote about him as "the powerful Chairman of the Ways and Means Committee," and he valued that very much--that he was in control. The idea of taking a bill to the Floor of the House and losing on it, or even losing a major provision in it that he hadn't agreed to, was anathema. So, usually he and Byrnes were able to agree in Committee so that the Republicans on Ways and Means supported the Committee's position. Well, here is this real difference on the automatic cost of living issue and Mills loses on the floor of the House. Byrnes actually gets the bill directed back to Committee with instructions not to bring it out unless they have in it this automatic cost of living provision. The majority of the House goes with Byrnes against Mills.
Interviewer: So the bill that came to the Floor did not have the COLA provision in it?
Ball: That's right.
Interviewer: And Byrnes makes a motion to recommit?
Ball: Yes, with instructions to add it in.
Interviewer: And he succeeds.
Ball: Yes.
Interviewer: Those kinds of motions don't usually succeed.
Ball: No, never with Mills. So he's pretty shaken, actually. This session of Congress runs very, very late. I'm thinking about next year and I want to get the COLA. The Nixon Administration is for it, I'm for it. Mills has been defeated, so I go to see Mills on New Year's Eve.
I have written up in the car going over to see him, on a yellow pad of paper, an approach for next year for what I want him to make the first bill of the session--HR 1. I tell Mills, "Here's what I think you ought to do, and you ought to make it the first bill of the next session. You ought to be for the cost of living adjustment, but you should write it in a way that leaves the Congress in control, so it's not just automatic, because your whole point has been that you want the Congress to be in control." Now really, of course, his whole point was that he wanted the Congress to get the credit, but I'm giving him something that would be consistent with what he said. And Mills eventually agrees, and the automatic provision is written--the one I'd written that I had gone over with him that night--the provision is written so that if the Congress acts on its own to pass a benefit increase (whatever it may be), more than cost of living, less, or the cost of living, then that's what governs. The automatics only go into effect if the Congress has not acted.
Interviewer: OK.
Ball: So the Congress is still in control. That's the thing.
Interviewer: OK.
Ball: So Mills buys that, and I believe the provision is probably still written that way. I haven't looked at the Act on that lately, but I think it's probably still written that way, so that a move by the Congress can take the place of the automatic COLA.
Then, with Mills supporting this, of course it passes the next time, in the next session of Congress. Nixon's proposal wins with this new support and Labor and Cohen are easily reconciled to it. It isn't a matter of great regret to them that it has passed because their concern clearly has not been justified. It has been possible to continue to do what should be done with the Social Security system without having to keep using the cost-of-living issue to get Congressional attention. In fact, I think it's very clear that you never would have kept up with the cost of living--if we hadn't had an automatic COLA--during the late '70s-early '80s with the financial problems the system had, and the huge inflation of 14 per cent in 1980, for example. We would never have been able to get the votes to increase benefits that much at the same time that the system was running out of money.
Interviewer: Right.
Ball: So the cost of living would not have been maintained if it hadn't been for the automatic provision.
Interviewer: OK.
Ball: So it was a very good thing to do.
Interviewer: OK.
Ball: And I think the opponents realized that later, but at the time there was this difference of opinion.
Interviewer: The other thing that happened associated with the 1972 Amendments was that there was a 20 per cent COLA for that year--as part of the '72 Amendments.
Ball: There was a basic increase in benefits of 20 per cent. That's a whole different story.
Interviewer: Wasn't that increase the result of a bidding war between Mills and the Administration?
Ball: Well, I wouldn't really put it that way. Let me characterize it this way.
There are two things going on here. One is that Mills has become ambitious to run for the Vice Presidency on a Kennedy ticket. Now no Vice President says he wants to be a Vice President, he talks in terms of being the President-and Mills, technically, was running for President, but he knew that his only realistic shot was a chance for the Vice Presidency-which is really what he wanted.
Interviewer: OK.
Ball: So he's interested in making a splash. But basically he was a very cautious man, who is very devoted to the idea of leaning over backwards to be sure everything in Social Security was fully financed. There is a slight mood change here in that now he's ambitious and he wants to do something fairly spectacular. You know, a 20 per cent benefit increase is really the difference between the program just kind of limping along, as far as people were concerned, and it have a real impact. This is the first change in Social Security that really raises the benefit levels so that it becomes a very important part of people's planning for retirement, and a very important part of getting rid of poverty among the elderly. It is this 20 per cent that does more to get that done than any other single thing I can think of--except you go way back to the 1950 Amendments which came out of the 1948 Advisory Council, which really saved the program. But here's the one that really makes the difference now in the poverty statistics, and makes people think they really have protection of real value.
So Mills is now open to the idea of something quite significant. What makes it possible is the change in the way the cost estimates are made. This grows out of the automatic provisions--the issues are interrelated. Bob Myers, the Chief Actuary of Social Security for most of the time up until then, had a built in safety-valve in the estimating procedures he used. There was a basic assumption made in the long-range cost estimates that prices and wages would stay the same forever-increases were not built into the estimates. And, of course, they did go up, and people knew they would go up. And since wages determined the income and prices tended to determine the outgo to the program, if the wage increases were more than the price increases then a margin develops so that the system has more money than had previously been estimated. Then you can use that money, first of all, to make any needed adjustments in the estimates, because something turned out wrong and the program is going cost more than you thought. So the first thing you can do is you can now look at this new surplus and use it to correct the estimates-first you take care of that-that's the safety-value part. Then you can use any remaining surplus to support an increase in the program.
Well, when the automatic provisions became law, or were just about to become law, it was clear that you could not go on pretending that wages and prices were going to be flat forever in the actuarial estimates, because here you had a law that said they are going to be increased with changes in prices and wages. So you really had to estimate for the first time what those future prices and wages would be. Well, a reasonable estimate of the gap between the two, carried on into the future, produced, without anymore financing, the ability to pay a 20 per cent increase of benefits. Just that change in the estimating procedure made a 20 per cent benefit increase possible.
Interviewer: So, it was the same kind of adjustment, but we were doing it prospectively rather than retrospectively, so to speak. Am I making clear what I'm saying?
Ball: In the past, it was never recognized in the estimates that there would be any change in wages and prices until they occurred.
Interviewer: Until afterwards, right. That's what I was trying to say.
Ball: Now, I took these new estimates, with a 20 per cent benefit increase, up through the hierarchy in the Administration trying to get them to support a 20 per cent benefit increase. Elliot Richardson was Secretary. I think he was quite sympathetic to the idea. That would have been quite a coup for the Republicans in this traditionally Democratic program to be for a 20 per cent benefit increase, and have it fully financed without having to increase taxes. But, he couldn't get the Bureau of the Budget, or the political people in the White House, to go along with it. I don't really know how hard he tried. He seemed--when he talked to me--to think it was a good idea. He did take it further up the chain of command--there is no question he took it further--and he was turned down.
Interviewer: We might find something about that in Nixon tapes, that's one of the things I'm looking for.
Ball: That would be good.
Nixon, in the end, actually recommends a five per cent benefit increase.
Interviewer: OK, that's what I was trying to get at.
Ball: He recommends a five per cent benefit increase, but I showed them a way to make a 20 per cent benefit increase. Well, Mills knows a lot about the Social Security system. He's really expert. So he asked me about this, what the change in the estimating procedure would produce. And I had to tell him. I told him, "20 per cent." So he takes that and puts it in his bill.
Interviewer: Ah.
Ball: And that's the story of the 20 per cent benefit increase in 1972.
Interviewer: So, this is really the Bob Ball 20 per cent increase! (Laughs)
Ball: Well, Mills asked me for the figure.
Interviewer: I understand. OK, fascinating.
Ball: Now, I was very much interested in getting that 20 per cent. I thought it would make a tremendous difference. As you could see from the story, I'm not, as some people may think, a Democratic party proponent, primarily. I was a Social Security proponent, and I was willing to push a 20 per cent increase even if it helped the Republicans.
Interviewer: OK.
Ball: I'm basically a Democrat by the coincidence of the programs that they support, of course. But if the Republicans want to support a good proposal in Social Security, I'm for them on that issue.
Interviewer: OK..
Ball: So that's how that all happened.
Now, as you know, there was a flaw in the automatic provisions. I resisted calling it a flaw myself, but everybody else does, so I'm willing to say the word. The thing is that the provision would have worked fine as it was written, under the assumptions that were quite reasonable to make at that time. If wages had continued to exceed prices, as they had done throughout American economic history, and are now doing again, there would not have been the problem that developed. The problem was really that the actual operation of the economy did not reflect the way it had always worked before. Under certain circumstances where wages did not rise significantly faster than prices-and this happened in the 1970s--you would get a situation in which the replacement rates would rise continually faster than income. So the replacement rates would keep going up and up. We were at the point where, after two or three years--under the assumptions that were then being made on the basis of the way the economy looked--you would have, in the long run, retirement benefits that exceeded the wages people got when they were at work.
I never thought that problem should be taken too seriously because Congress is not going to sit still and let the system develop in a way that actually produces benefits higher than wages. No one would favor that. So, to my mind, it was always just a question of how soon would the correction be made? The fact that it was going to be made, I thought, was obvious. So the projections were that the system was something like six per cent of payroll out of balance at one time-if you took the exact way the law was written on the assumptions that were made. But it was clear that was not going to happen. So it has always been something of a mix-up in the way the history is told about Social Security as if there was this huge benefit cut in 1974, or sometime around there. A huge benefit cut only from a level that was obviously never going to be allowed to go into effect.
Interviewer: Right.
Ball: Am I making myself clear?
Interviewer: Yes, yes.
Ball: Well, people look at and when you say, "there's never been a big cutback in Social Security." "Oh, yes." they will argue. "There was a big cutback in Social Security back in the days when they reduced the benefits, so they didn't pay more in retirement than wages while working--there was this cutback."
Interviewer: Now, is this related to the Notch?
Ball: No, the Notch is sort of a side issue.
Interviewer: OK, this is a different issue.
Ball: I'll tell you where I've written it, I think clearly, and in some detail. It is in my 1978 book. You will find a detailed statement of how the law was drafted and how it was okay under what were reasonable assumptions when it went in to effect. But, then what happened and how it had to be corrected.
But it didn't get corrected very soon, the Congress took it's time. That's where the Notch comes in. The Congress did not correct it for five years. So that some people who were retiring in those particular years, turned out to get higher benefits than had been intended on the part of the Congress. Now the people who came after them wanted their benefits to be as high as those who got mistaken benefits. The simple solution would have been to cutback those benefits for people getting too much.
Interviewer: OK, I understand that.
Ball: But Congress is not going to go back and cut people's benefits after they have been receiving them. And I don't think they should because people have already come to rely on benefits of a certain level, and so on. So the notch came in a related matter, but is a completely different thing than this projection of where the program would have gone if it had been untouched. Bob Myers and I wrote about the Notch and we called them--instead of the Notch Babies--we directed attention to the ones who got too much, and we called them the Bonanza Babies. We wrote a piece for the Washington Post on the Bonanza Babies. Well, they were just the beginning of what would have been this huge increase in expenses down the road, 25, 30 years later. They were the beginning of it. The amounts they got were unintended, but relatively small, because it didn't go on very long. So that brings those two things together.
Interviewer: I'm sorry to confess it, but this is something that I'm still a little confused about. I've had you explain it to me now, and Bob Myers explained it to me a couple of times, and I am still confused. As I understood it, the Notch was created when Congress phased-in the change, the reduction, the correction. That's what created this notch period. This is basically as a result of the decision to phase it in, rather than to do it all at once. Is that correct?
Ball: I wouldn't have thought of it that way, no. I don't see what you mean by the phasing in.
Interviewer: Well, there was a five year period in which--rather than making the adjustment all at once, saying the adjustment takes effect immediately. . .
Ball: Which adjustment are we talking about?
Interviewer: Well, that's why I'm confused. (Laughs) The problem that led to the Notch, I had understood, was a sort of double-indexing problem that came because the wage base and the benefit amount were both indexed on an automatic provision.
Ball: No, you've got some things confused there. But you've got hold of the right key, which we didn't really discuss. I think the best place that I deal with this in some length is the '78 book. But the basic way the conversion is made to a new benefit level is through a table written into the law. That table expressed an increase in benefits for everybody, not just those on the rolls, but it took the same increase and gave it to all beneficiaries for the future.
Interviewer: OK.
Ball: So you have a new, in effect, a new benefit formula, but it's written in the table.
Interviewer: OK.
Ball: And that has been revised to include a cost of living increase. What the table looks like is benefits related to average wages. For people who have average wages of a given amount, this is their benefit amount. Now what's happening is that those average wages themselves are going up in the future. And this table is going to govern the benefits of the future. You look at that table ten years from now, it's not these same average wages. It's average wages as they have risen with the level of wages in the country. So that these average wages are all higher. Now if there hadn't been any wage changes, the table would have kept benefits up to date with prices. With the wage changes the benefits are rising with wages and prices, which is okay as long as wages, which governs income, keeps ahead of prices. But they didn't.
Interviewer: Right.
Ball: Well, the solution was to decouple the two, so that they weren't connected. But, that's my point. There would not have been a problem if prices hadn't gone well beyond wage increases.
Interviewer: So, if the relationship remained stable, so to speak, between wages and prices.
Ball: Yes, it would have been OK.
Interviewer: All right.
Ball: But they didn't remain stable. And some people have described this situation without really understanding it, as double-indexing. But they would be stupid to double-index. The people who wrote the law did not deliberately double-index it. It was deliberately indexed to keep future benefits in line with wages, not just prices.
Interviewer: OK.
Ball: The problem grew out of the fact that the whole benefit formula had been changed to take account of the change in the cost of living and the table in the future also reflected higher future average earnings. This would be okay normally, but not if prices went ahead of wages, then it was not so good. It created an impossible situation for the long run of benefits exceeding what people had earned. This clearly had to be corrected. But since they didn't correct it right away, that meant that some people got more benefits than really had been intended, and they were the Bonanza Babies.
Now, Bob Myers has a different thing going, separate from all this. It's really a defense of his own record that he is interested in. He says that at the time this provision was adopted, or when the correction was made, that he had advocated a way of doing it in that would have meant that this notch problem would have been much, much less. But the Social Security Administration people told him it was too complicated, too difficult, they couldn't do it. So he had a better way, in his view, of making the change, making the correction, than was actually adopted.
Interviewer: OK.
Ball: The expert on this is Larry Thompson.
Interviewer: That's right.
Ball: Because Larry really made the decisions on how it was done. I don't think Larry's too proud of how it came out. And Bob wants to be sure that nobody thinks that he had anything to do with it.
Interviewer: So the ideas for how to make the correction came out of SSA, they didn't come out of the Congress?
Ball: Right. This is all highly technical stuff. Whatever was done wrong, was done by SSA people. And the corrections were done by SSA people.
Interviewer: OK.
Ball: I wasn't there. I was involved in the original provisions in 1972. But I had left the government by the time they were trying to fix this.
Interviewer: Right.
Ball: So it was Larry Thompson's responsibility. And Bob Myers is kibitzing on it. He isn't in the government any longer either. But, he was frequently a Republican consultant at a technical level. So he had this proposal that's not accepted. He says if it had been accepted, there wouldn't have been nearly as big a problem.
Interviewer: There wouldn't be a notch, or not as bad?
Ball: Well, not as bad.
Interviewer: I don't think the Notch could have been avoided entirely.
Ball: I think he's right, it wouldn't had been as bad.
Interviewer: The notch is a political phenomenon, that's why it would not have gone away. Whatever technical issues there are here, the Notch became a political phenomenon.
Ball: Oh, it became that, yes. But Bob would argue that the Notch wouldn't have been visible enough to have created a political problem. He's very anxious to insist on that. But the explanation of the original provision, and how that went wrong, in all modesty, I think the best explanation is what I did in my 1978 book.
Interviewer: All right, I will look at that again.
Ball: But, the Notch thing . . .
Interviewer: Sometimes I think I understand this, and then sometimes I lose my grip on it. (Laughs)
Ball: Yes, well, it's not important to keep it constantly in your mind. I mean, it's not something that I would try to memorize.
Interviewer: All right.
Ball: You could always look it up.
Interviewer: Thank you. You're saving me from my embarrassment.
Ball: (Laughs) Maybe we should talk about the 1977 Amendments.
Interviewer: If you want to do the '77 Amendments, go right ahead.
Ball: First of all, it's clear that there is a financing problem in Social Security. The long-range cost estimates show that some action should be taken. This is, first of all, quite clear during the Ford Administration. I'm outside the government now, but I'm working on it this a lot. I was working with people who had access to the Ford policy makers, so I pushed the idea that the right solution to bring Social Security into balance is to increase the maximum earnings base. That increasing the wage base is what should be done, not a rate increase, and not cutting back benefits. The Ford Administration buys that idea. They accept that.
The person I worked with--Alan--is still around. I think he has just been appointed to something in the new Bush Administration. At that time, he was on the Hill. I worked with him through Tom Joe. Tom Joe was a hold-over from the Nixon Administration. Actually, it was Secretary Finch and Jack Veneman that Tom worked for. I went to work with Tom in a non-profit organization a few years after I left government. But, anyway, this guy was a liberal Republican, but had influence within the Ford Administration. So they did adopt increasing the wage base as the right solution.
In Carter's campaign for President in 1976, for at least a year before the convention, Carter worked very hard at rounding up delegates and getting people used to the idea that he was a Presidential candidate. He was a one-term Governor from Georgia, very little recognized within the Democratic party, or in the country. I had a group of people here at my home one evening--knowledgeable, top-notch government people--some of them were think-tank people. And we played a game. We made out slips, with two columns, trying to guess who would get the Democratic nomination. One column was who did we think would get it, in order, and the other column was who we would like to get it, in order. Carter was down like in 18th or 19th place or something, just barely visible, on both lists.
Interviewer: (Laughs) OK.
Ball: Just barely visible, a year ahead. At the top was usually Ted Kennedy, in both columns. There were all kinds of people listed before Carter.
So Carter works very hard at getting around, and getting more and more known, and one thing and another. Stu Eizenstat-who later was his domestic policy guy, and has been in a lot of important jobs since--was his domestic policy person for the campaign. When Carter was Governor of Georgia, he had asked the Secretary of HEW, probably Finch at the time, to send somebody down to Georgia to help him deal with the federal requirements in the welfare system. He was having a hell of a time with the federal government's requirements, and not getting any very helpful advice from them. So they sent Tom Joe down to see him, who was very successful-- both in impressing the Governor and in working things out. So when they start this campaign, Tom Joe is now outside the government, but with sort of an inside track. And they're asking him for help in the campaign. So Tom asks me to get in touch with Stu Eizenstat on the Social Security issues. They don't have anybody else. There never were very many non-government experts on Social Security in those days. So Eizenstat and I talked quite a lot about Social Security. You get pretty close in such a situation. And, I persuade them, like I had Ford, that the right solution is to raise the wage base, that that's the thing to do. So it's not an issue between the two campaigns, as to how to fix Social Security.
I got consulted a lot during the campaign. I went down to Georgia before the election. Right after the convention--there's a period between the Democratic convention and the Republican convention, in which Carter is trying to lay out his plans--in case he should win. (Laughs) So he has a lot of us down to Georgia, down to his hometown of Plains. I was there earlier, but now I'm down there after he has been nominated. And we're trying to work out his program. He has a day with the economists, then he has a day with the HEW-types from the past. So I'm there on Social Security, and health care, and Medicare, and related matters. And we hit it off well. Again, he accepts the idea that the maximum earning base is the way to do this. And that becomes what he campaigns on.
I'm not terribly active in the campaign. But when he comes to Baltimore, he talks at a new hospital with a nursing home wing. I go with him. I tried to get him to modify his attack on the federal government, on the grounds that Maryland is a close State. There are 10-12,000 Social Security Administration employees alone here, and there is no sense making them all the enemy. Eisenhower made the federal government an enemy, and the bureaucracy an enemy. Most Presidents since have done so. Kennedy was an exception. Johnson was an exception. Carter went back to, "I'm an outsider. The problem is bureaucracy." And he attacked the federal employee.
Interviewer: This sounds similar to a theme President Reagan used early-on.
Ball: Yes, yes. But, he didn't invent it. And, the Democrats weren't free of it.
So Carter comes into office, and I have now quite a close relationship--more with Stu Eizenstat than with him, but he knows me and so on. Now we're getting up to the 1977 Amendments. This is one of the major things that they have to work on. Joe Califano is Secretary of HEW. Hale Champion is Under-Secretary. And they develop a set of proposals to fix the financing of the Social Security system, and to some extent, improve it at the same time. They did think up a fairly substantial bill. And this is typical with Carter; he actually believed in more inter-departmental consideration of things than many Presidents--he used the Cabinet more. And so this plan of Califano and Champion is circulated to the Cabinet. They call a meeting where most of the Cabinet was there, not the Defense people, but all the domestic Cabinet. You know, Labor, Treasury, the Council of Economic Advisors, HEW and all those people. And, as usual, each one develops a memorandum of a position on this, which is a basis for the discussion. So everybody's written a memorandum. And Eizenstat has asked me to write a memorandum and to come to the meeting. My memo was circulated just like it was from a Cabinet department. And I'm the only person there who isn't a Secretary of the Cabinet or other high official.
Califano and Champion, the morning before the meeting, begin to understand that they had better get me on their side. They hadn't realized that I was actually going to be an integral part of the decision-making process. So they asked me to come over for lunch. The meeting is, say, about two o'clock. They asked me to come over for lunch with them, and I go. Champion says to me (Laughs), he says, "Just what did you and the President agree on in the campaign?" I told them what it was. We went over their proposals, which I had known all about anyway. I said that I agreed with just about everything that they had in their proposal. So I went with them to the Cabinet meeting. I supported the proposal in the meeting. There was some stuff that I wanted fixed up and improved, but it wasn't central to anything. And Eizenstat told me later that I had really saved the whole proposal, that up to then the President was not inclined to go with what Califano was proposing. It was quite a lively discussion. The Secretary of Commerce, Juanita Kreps, was a Social Security expert, who I had known for a long time. And she had been sold too hard on earlier positions. She had adopted what had been a traditional liberal Social Security position, from years ago, which was, "Let's finance it one-third, one-third, and one-third. One-third from employees, one-third from the employers and one-third from the government." Well, by that time, I'd given up on getting general revenue contributions, and certainly Carter was not going to buy it. But she was arguing in this meeting for that method of fixing the financing, rather than raising the wage base. She wanted to go to one-third, one-third, and one-third.
Interviewer: Was raising the wage base in the Califano proposal?
Ball: Yes.
Interviewer: So that your core issue was in there.
Ball: Yes. And, there were a lot of other good things in there too.
Interviewer: OK.
Ball: Sidney Blumenthal, the Secretary of the Treasury, is not too interested, I would say. The big argument is with OMB. There is a lack of enthusiasm for the Califano proposal. So, Eizenstat, as I said, told me later that the President really backed it only because I had argued for it, which I don't think Califano ever quite realized. If he had, he would have been even more annoyed with me than he was. I got them to hold out on a few points that I said I would meet later with Califano and his staff on, and see if we couldn't work out what was bothering me. So that's how the Carter Administration proposals on the 1977 Amendments came about.
Interviewer: Fascinating.
Ball: One thing that I tried to get them to change right in the meeting--it wasn't one of the smaller things that I said I'd try to work out--I argued that I really thought they should go for financial changes about which the actuaries could say, "It brought the system into complete balance for 75 years," as had been traditional. They were well satisfied to bring it into balance for 50 years. So that the 1977 Amendments are the only Amendments in the history of the program that accepted 50 years as the right standard for the length of time for assessing long-range balance.
Interviewer: Was that reflected in the Trustee's Report? Did they project for 50 years then?
Ball: No, it wasn't reflected in the Trustee's Report, but it was reflected in legislation. So, that's all it was aimed at--50 years.
Interviewer: OK.
Ball: Then it went to the Hill. I was very active on the Hill in trying to get this bill passed. I said to Champion, who was in charge for the Administration in trying to get this done, I said that I believed that only one person should be in charge of the legislative process, and I would work for him. That he could relax, I wouldn't be off on my own trying to do something different than the Administration. But, I was under no government discipline at all. I was a free agent.
Interviewer: Were you hired as a consultant?
Ball: No. It was just my voluntary effort, I was just doing this to help the program.
Interviewer: OK.
Ball: But I didn't want them to think I was going behind their back trying to do something different than what they had in mind. Now, I'll get around to the wage base in 1973. But first let me back up and talk about the wage base in 1972 when the automatics first went in.
Interviewer: This is wonderful stuff. I'm glad to hear all of this.
Ball: Well, one way to finance the automatic provisions is through the wage base going up automatically with an increase in benefits. If it doesn't, we're going to have to finance it some other way. When wages rise you are getting all the effect from rising wages up to the wage base, but you're cut short, you are not getting the full amount of the increase in wages throughout the country because you are just going up to the wage base and then stopping. So, to get the full effect, you have to raise the wage base automatically too. That was our proposal. The House bought it.
In the Senate, we had a completely different problem. The staff on the Senate Finance Committee really did not like this whole proposal. The staff had a different approach. They wanted to really hold down the automatics. They were almost back to Mills' original idea, "Let's have this come up now and then, and we'll pass new legislation as we need to." Well, they weren't so much interested in getting credit for improvement, as he was, but rather to just keep things under the control of the Congress. They were not for the automatic-type solutions all the time. So instead of going along with increasing the wage base all the way to finance this, they wrote a substitute provision in which the increase in the wage base supports only half the automatic benefit increases. And you have to increase the contribution rates on everybody every time the automatics on the benefit side go into effect. Well, that would kill you. I mean, you couldn't have constant rate increases. But it gets reported out of the Senate Finance Committee that way. And, in many other ways, their bill is a problem.
Interviewer: Who's in charge of Senate Finance at this point?
Ball: Russell Long was the Chairman.
Interviewer: So, the Bill as it emerged from the Senate was very unsatisfactory?
Bob Ball: Not the Senate, the Senate Finance Committee.
I got Frank Church to help on this issue. He was Chairman of the Aging Committee in the Senate, which has no substantive jurisdiction, but Church was very sympathetic and quite knowledgeable about Social Security. Parenthetically, he was the one who introduced the first bill on making SSA an independent agency.
Interviewer: He was the one who put the rider in 1972 on the debt ceiling increase that actually provided the automatic COLA provision?
Ball: Yes. I consider the Church Amendment substitute for the Finance Committee provisions to be one of my greatest contributions to Social Security's development. The Church provisions were essentially the House version. I don't believe Long cared very much. These were mostly staff changes and he didn't fight very hard.
Now, that brings me back to 1977 where the only role Church had is that I got him to save the Retirement Test one more time. People had just about given up on the Retirement Test. It had very large numbers of Congressmen and Senators against it. It was a traditional position for the Republicans always to oppose the Retirement Test. Liberals and the Labor movement, Democrats generally, had tended to support it because it was expensive to pay benefits to people who were still at work. And the concept of the program had always been to partially make-up for income that was lost when you retire. But we never had a very satisfactory definition of retirement. And the Retirement Test was always very difficult to administer and a lot of people looked on it only as a disincentive to work, and all those arguments.
So it looked almost impossible to save it. The Senate looked like it was about to go along with the idea of abolishing it altogether. I got Church, somewhat against his better judgment, to try once more to keep the concept of the Retirement Test in the program because, as I say, in those days it saved significant money. And he did do that. And we did keep it by liberalizing it once more.
Now, what happened--just to follow through the Retirement Test for a minute. This really belongs in the discussion of the 1983 Greenspan Commission. But let me talk about it now, just to round out the picture while we're at it. In 1983--at the end of negotiations between the five of us from the Commission and the four members of Reagan's staff, which produced just about all of the 1983 Amendments in the final two weeks of negotiation--Jim Baker, who was the Chief of Staff for the President, says to me, "Gosh, we've got to give the President something in this," (Laughs) "Something that he can point to as the Republicans gaining something out of this."
We did have it set up pretty well as a defense of the program, and not much was left of what Ronald Reagan really wanted in this. What he gained was a big victory by coming over to our side, because the President gets credit for whatever is signed. So he gained, but he didn't have any of his principles in it. So, Baker says to me, "What can we do? What can you agree to put in?" So I said--in a weak moment which I now think was a mistake--I said, "Well, we could make the Retirement Test actuarially- equivalent. So what you do is you give a person an additional benefit amount for every year that they refrain from taking their benefits earlier. This would eventually be about eight per cent a year, but we'll build up to it gradually. So in effect, it's the equivalent, actuarially, of not having the Retirement Test-the long-range cost would be the same. We still have it, but that can be said to be very much in the President's direction." Now, I was thinking partly that it was also something that Claude Pepper would like a lot. He was one of the five appointed by the Democrats on the 1983 Commission. I had to satisfy Pepper too or Tip O'Neill would not have been able to pass it through the House. Pepper was the hero of the elderly, and if he said, "No," to this proposal that we worked out with the President, O'Neill would never have had agreed. And, so I was thinking, "Well, this will help with Claude as well as with the President." Because Pepper always wanted the elderly to get everything and be free and work if they wanted to. So I proposed that, and it was adopted, and recommended and became law.
Well, as soon as you did that, there's no longer a long-run cost to abolishing the Test.
Interviewer: That's right.
Ball: So, over time, I had made it inevitable that they were going to get rid of the Retirement Test because who is going to vote for keeping it when a lot of people are against it, if it doesn't cost you anything to get rid of it? So, that's how it got abolished last year. I think maybe it was the biggest mistake I made in the history of program planning about Social Security. But it seemed at the time like something I really had to do.
Interviewer: I do have a couple of other questions about the '77 Amendments. Restoring the long-range solvency in the '77 Amendments, did that only require that we put the wage base on automatics?
Ball: No, we raised the wage base by law and then continued raising the new level automatically. But we needed more money than that. In the 1977 Amendments, we had to increase the contribution rate schedule too.
Interviewer: OK
Ball: When I was talking about the solution of just increasing the wage base back in the Ford Administration, and in the early part of the Carter Administration, the estimates for the long-run were more favorable.
Interviewer: OK
Ball: But by the time the 1977 Amendments were enacted inflation had gotten pretty high and the system was in more deficit then we had previously thought. We didn't have to increase the tax rate right away, but the rate was increased down the road in the '77 Amendments. They have never been increased since. It's a mistake for people to say that the 1983 Amendments increased the tax rate, they moved the effective date of some rates up earlier, but the rates themselves were not increased.
Interviewer: OK. Now, there's a difference, at least politically, between putting the wage base on an automatic increase, which is something that happens prospectively, and making a one-time increase in the wage base, which employers, for example, tend to see as an increase in their costs, and so on. There tends to be more political resistance to an increase in the wage base of that type.
Ball: Increases in the wage base have always been a problem for conservatives. Partly, as you suggest, there is just an additional cost. But, partly also, because it is an expansion of the role of social insurance, as against private insurance. You are now making the program more effective for middle-income people, that's who an increase in the wage-base affects, and at a level that insurance companies think they can sell private plans. I don't remember specifically whether that was a special problem in 1977. But throughout the history of the program, it has been something of a problem.
Interviewer: All right.


text:
Soon, on the anniversary of a National Guard plane crash, memorial signs will mark the spot of the tragedy and honor those who lost their lives and were injured.
Wildfire raged across the hills.
A thunderstorm levied a strong burst of wind.
The C-130 Hercules plane � carrying two men with family in Cleveland County and others from a N.C. National Guard unit � slammed to the ground.
Four crew members of the aircraft were killed, and two others were injured, as they traveled across South Dakota�s Black Hills to fight a massive wildfire and protect people and property nearby.
In the days that followed the crash on July 1, 2012, the men were honored by the National Guard, by their families and by others who wanted to show their gratitude.
But Charles Najacht wanted to do something more to honor the sacrifice of the men who lost their lives protecting others.
And soon, on the anniversary of the crash, memorial signs will mark the spot of the tragedy and honor those who lost their lives and were injured.
�It was a tremendous sacrifice they made�
Najacht is publisher of the Custer County Chronicle, a weekly newspaper about 20 miles from the site of the Guard plane crash.
�Those men, they came a long way to help us,� Najacht told The Star this week. �In essence, they died in service, much like some have in Afghanistan or Iraq. It was a tremendous sacrifice they made. If it happened to somebody from here, we�d want to thank them.�
So Najacht, a retired Army National Guard officer himself, wrote an editorial in the newspaper appealing for the help of the community to honor the crewmen of the crashed plane.
�I felt a kinship with the folks on the plane�
Hank Whitney saw the appeal for help and was quick to act.
Whitney � a former Air Force serviceman and crew member of C-130s himself in the 1960s � donated $2,300 to the honor effort.
�I�ve lost friends on airplanes, including C-130s,� said Whitney, who lives in Custer County, S.D. �I felt a kinship with the folks on the plane out here trying to help us. We really appreciate the effort the crew was making. When something like this happens, your heart says �do something.��
Whitney�s aid, along with other donations, have pushed the total for the honor effort to more than $3,700, Najacht said, easily eclipsing a $2,500 goal for the project. Family members of those on the crew have donated, with overall project gifts ranging from $10 to the $2,300 from Whitney.
�You just want to help�
On July 1, the one-year anniversary of the crash, two large signs will be dedicated on National Forest Service land.
�Part of that memorial service will be to have family members of the men who died and who survived here so they have a little closer connection to the site,� said Lynn Kolund, district ranger for Hell Canyon District of the Black Hills National Forest, the location of the crash site and the memorials.
One sign will tell the story of the wildfire, known as the White Draw Fire, the National Guard crew battled.
The other sign will serve as a memorial to remember the North Carolina airmen who gave their lives and their support to protecting the residents in the area.
�Even on a good day, the crash site is not easy to get to,� Kolund said. �It�s in a mesa with canyons all around it. The signage will be in distance of the crash site.�
Donations toward the project will go toward the signs but also the maintenance of the sites in the future.
�The Guard is one big family, whether you�re Air guard or Army guard,� Najacht said. �When something like this happens, you feel terrible. If it happened here, people went to some place and we lost them, it would be hard. You just want to help.�
Matthew Tessnear can be reached at 704-669-3331, at firstname.lastname@example.com or on Twitter @MatthewTessnear.
Want to help?
Here�s how you can donate to the project to help remember the National Guard crew:
Payments are accepted at:
White Draw Memorial Project
First Interstate Bank
648 Mount Rushmore Road
Custer, SD 57730
What happened in South Dakota?
While fighting a wildfire in southwest South Dakota, a N.C. National Guard C-130 crashed, killing four crew members and injuring two more from the 145th Airlift Wing in Charlotte.
What started the wildfire?
A motor home traveling on U.S. Highway 18 caught fire, pulled over and the fire spread to the surrounding grasses. The fire crossed the highway and continued to spread until help from the Guard and others was sought, according to Lynn Kolund, district ranger for the Hell Canyon district of the Black Hills National Forest.
Who were our county connections?
* Senior Master Sgt. Robert S. Cannon � He was one of the crewmen who died in the crash. His wife, Melanie, is a Burns High School graduate whose family lives in Kings Mountain.
* Josh Marlowe � The Burns High School graduate was injured in the crash, treated and later returned home to Cleveland County.
Where did the crash happen?
The plane went down about file miles north of Edgemont, S.D., in Fall River County, according to officials in the region.
What caused the crash?
A U.S. Air Force crash report released in November stated that the crew of the aircraft misjudged weather conditions and flew into a wind burst that slammed their plane to the ground.
How was the crew previously honored?
Hundreds gathered days after the crash to remember the crew members at the National Guard post in Charlotte. The men�s names were inscribed on a monument honoring their memories.

subset: commoncrawl


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HANG TIME HEADQUARTERS — Father Time always wins. Not even the all-time greats can survive his pull.
Allen Iverson will become his latest victim sometime this week, with sources telling SLAM Magazine that the former Philadelphia 76ers star will "officially" retire later this week.
It's strictly a formality at this point for Iverson, who has not played significant minutes in the NBA since 2010 with the 76ers. His last game action professionally was in Turkey in 2011.
One of the league's most popular players during the height of his NBA career, Iverson closes the door on his career as one of the game's greatest scorers and one of the best 6-foot and under to ever wear a NBA uniform.
But it was clear months ago that he was prepared for this moment, per SLAM's Tzvi Twersky:
When he last spoke publicly, at a Sixers game on March 30, Iverson answered a question about continuing his career by saying, "My No. 1 goal is trying to accomplish to be the best dad that I can. And if basketball is in my near future, then God will make that happen. But if not, I had a great ride and I've done a lot of special things that a lot of guys have not been able to accomplish and people thought I couldn't accomplish."
Included amongst those accomplishments are: 13-year career averages of 41.1 mpg, 26.7 ppg, 6.2 apg and 2.2 spg; 71-game playoff averages of 45.1 mpg, 29.7 ppg, 6.0 apg and 2.1 spg. He also won one regular-season MVP award, four scoring titles and was named an All-Star 11 times. Maybe most impressive of all, omitting the obvious impact that he had on the culture off-court, was the resilience that the 6-foot guard showed in driving into the lane, into men a foot taller than him, time and time again.
"He might be the greatest athlete I've ever seen," Larry Brown, Iverson's coach from 1997-2003 and the current coach at SMU, told SLAM today. "I don't think there'll be another one like him.
"I'm sure we faced a lot of obstacles, maybe even on a daily basis, but when it came time to play, to try to win a game, he tried to play as hard as he could for his coach."
It's hard to put Iverson's career into words for those of us who witnessed his rise from two-sport (football) high school phenom to future Hall of Famer. Few players in the history of the game, drew the attention of fans worldwide the way Iverson did during his best days.
When he does make his retirement official, my main man Lang Whitaker of NBA.com's All Ball Blog and formerly of SLAM will reflect on Iverson's impact on the game and hops culture.


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Consumption, Not Inactivity, to Blame for Obesity
Challenging one of the most fundamental beliefs in our weight-obsessed culture, a group of researchers has found that physically active hunter-gatherers don't necessarily burn more calories than Westerners.The new study, published Wednesday, claims that modern humans share the same energy needs as their Paleolithic ancestors but just consume more. The research into cultural differences in physical activity and diet suggests that rising levels of obesity are the result of more than just sedentary lifestyles. It has been hard to pin down what exactly about modern life is responsible for obesity because data on the eating and activity habits of people before the industrial age are almost nonexistent. But now, researchers led by anthropologist Herman Pontzer of Hunter College in New York visited Tanzania, where a group called the Hadza live in a traditional "hunter-gatherer" manner, foraging for tubers and berries and hunting on foot with bows. The Hadza, numbering about 1,500, don't have electricity, and their diet consists almost entirely of wild food such as honey, baobab fruit and meat. The researchers expected that the Hadza expend a lot more energy than typical Americans, with their active lifestyle. They walk an average of 3.6 miles (women) and 7 miles (men) a day and were not only more physically active than Westerners but also have lower body fat. But the Hadza didn't burn more energy than Western men and women. "They are able to maintain a more active lifestyle and use the same number of calories," Pontzer said. Instead of being more efficient -- their metabolic rates are what would be expected for their body size -- the Hadza used the same amount of energy to get different things done. "A large proportion of their energy is spent on physical activity, and a smaller proportion is spent on other things," he said. But in both Hadza and Western populations, there was no correlation between physical activity and body fat. Pontzer says the implication is that energy intake -- in other words, how much people eat -- is the main factor behind obesity's prevalence in Western populations, not lifestyle differences. The research was published Wednesday in the journal PLoS ONE. Likely one-of-a-kind look Dale Schoeller, professor of nutritional sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said this study is, to his knowledge, the only analysis of energy budgets of an ancient lifestyle. He agreed with Pontzer's conclusion, that there is not a huge difference in energy use across very different populations. "Most people assume that being sedentary causes obesity, but there is a growing base of data that obesity causes people to be sedentary," said Schoeller, who was not involved with the study. The highly physical lifestyle of the Hadza contributes to their health -- they don't suffer from Western diseases such as diabetesor heart disease. But physical activity, Pontzer says, doesn't explain the difference in obesity. "It happens to be that (physical activity level) does not correlate well with how fat you become," he said. "We tend to say that obesity is a two-part problem: eating too much and not enough exercise," Pontzer said. "But emerging evidence is that population differences in obesity aren't related to energy expenditure but more to how much you eat. I'm not saying that physical activity isn't important, but it's not going to solve the global obesity problem." (c)2012 the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Visit the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel at www.jsonline.com


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Which Player's Injury Is More Significant, Ray Lewis or Derek Jeter? — Sports Survey of the Day
Ray Lewis and Derek Jeter are both the longtime leaders of their respective teams, and now both are out until next year. Which player's injury is more significant?
The Baltimore Ravens defense has been centered on Ray Lewis since the late '90s, and his performance has led to a stunning run of success, including one Super Bowl victory. He tore his triceps on Sunday, which has everyone wondering whether his team will be able to operate without him. The injury may even be a career-ender, though Lewis claims he will be back for his 18th season next year.
Derek Jeter also suffered a major injury, a fractured right ankle, which will keep him off the field until spring training. It's unlikely to end his career, but at the age of 38, who really knows?


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Gate of Writhen Iron
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| othernames=Iron Gate, Fourth Gate
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|Gate of Writhen Iron
|Other names
|Iron Gate, Fourth Gate
|Fourth gate on the Orfalch Echor
|Four-towered wall of iron, tri-gate of slender iron decor
The Gate of Writhen Iron was the fourth of the Seven Gates of Gondolin. It spanned the highest point of the canyon; after this gate, it widened out and became somewhat green and dotted with uilos. The wall and four towers appeared to be wrought of iron, and no lanterns hung from the ramparts. The wall was the thickest of all the Seven Gates. Between the two inner towers was the iron image of Thorondor, King of Eagles. The gate itself was made of three layers, each of iron wrought in the shapes of trees bearing flowers and leaves. Through these could be seen the sky. The gate followed the Gate of Bronze and is followed by the Gate of Silver.[1]


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Oct. 3, 2007
Wheaton College Sports Information
NORTON, Mass. - The MIT women's volleyball team improved to 5-0 in conference play following a 30-13, 30-23, 30-20, victory over Wheaton College in a New England Women's and Men's Athletic Conference (NEWMAC) match on Tuesday night. The Engineers' overall ledger was raised to 20-1, marking the 27th time the program has surpassed the 20-win total in its 33 seasons of existence. Tech, off to its best start during head coach Paul Dill's 12-year tenure, has reached this milestone every season since he has been at the helm of the program.
This season is the second time MIT posted 20 wins through 21 matches, with the first occurring in 1982. The Engineers opened the 1988 season with 21 straight wins, which ranks second to the 41 consecutive victories that were racked up by the 1983 squad.
Wheaton took the opening point in game one on a kill from Sam Andreacchi before MIT rattled off seven straight points behind the serving of Lindsay Hunting. After establishing a 17-7 lead, the Engineers went on a 6-0 run to put the game out of reach.
MIT opened the second stanza with seven straight points on Hunting's serve, but the Lyons narrowed the gap to four (10-6). The Engineers pushed their lead out to nine on three occasions, including the latter at 28-19, before Barden Cleeland closed things out with the game-winning kill.
The final frame was tight in the early going, as Wheaton kept pace through the better portion of play. MIT created some breathing room with a five-point advantage (12-7), but the Lyons chipped away at their deficit to trail by two on four occasions, with the final such margin coming at 17-15. The Engineers used a 6-1 stretch to extend its lead before using back-to-back kills from Cleeland to complete the sweep.
Andreacchi and Lauren Kraus had eight and six kills, respectively, for Wheaton, while Becca Rose finished with 21 assists and 10 digs. Kristen Hunt led the team with 12 digs, and Andreacchi completed her double-double with 11.
Katie Rowe, Rose Zhong and Katrina Ellison led the MIT offense with 16, 12 and 10 kills, respectively. Carrie Buchanan paced the defense with 14 digs, while Zhong added 12. Amanda Morris and Cassy Piela shared setting duties, finishing with 31 and 17 assists, respectively.


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People with Last Names of Inkavesvanitc
USA-People-Search > People Directory > I > Inkavesvanitc > Page 1
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|Barrier Entry, Garage Door Control, Garden Lighting
Please note: These units are not compatible with the HORNET range.
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Thousands of employer group health plans are being cancelled each week by business owners desperately looking for ways to reduce their operating costs. As a result, millions of employees all over the US have been seeking out private insurance plans for themselves and their families. Many of them, never having had to shop for family medical insurance before, will be ill-equipped to decipher the many different types of insurance to choose from. Making the right choice for your family can make a huge difference on your pocketbook.
For healthy families looking for an affordable plan to cover catastrophic medical events, they should choose a plan with a high out-of-pocket limit. This means that you will be basically self-insuring for small amounts, but will be sufficiently covered for serious illness or injury. The higher your co-payments and out-of-pocket limits, the lower your monthly premiums will be. Just remember to be sure and have a high annual and lifetime payout limit. This ensures that you will be fully covered in case of big medical expenses.
A HSA or Health Savings Account is a great insurance product to help you save on your monthly premiums while making sure you are covered should the worst happen. This will help your insurance dollars go further. With a HSA you put pre-tax dollars into an account that you can use for eligible healthcare expenses. It can be used in addition to or in lieu of a regular health insurance policy. The amount rolls over from one year to the next and can help to make affordable family health insurance a reality.
If you have a young family that sees the doctor regularly; have someone in your home with a chronic condition or your family has a rather unhealthy history, you may want to opt for a family health insurance policy that has higher monthly premiums in exchange for lower out-of-pocket amounts. Budgeting your medical expenses this way is more efficient. It is also a good option for someone who does not have the high deductible amount in savings, because it will help them ward off high medical bills that could lead to financial problems.
PPO plans allow you to see doctors that are outside of the plans preferred network. A POS plan is less expensive but restricts your choices and control more. In an HMO your healthcare is completely controlled by a primary care doctor who is a part of the HMO. A PPO, or Preferred Provider Organization, may be a much better choice because you can use any health care provider that you choose. Alternatively a POS, or Point of Service, policy is one that combines features of both the HMO and PPO and may give you the choice you want at a better price than a PPO. Choosing the right type of policy that meets your family's needs is necessary because choosing otherwise in an attempt to find affordable family health insurance could mean spending more overall in healthcare.
These are some of the choices that will help you in your quest to find affordable family health insurance. You can feel comfortable in the fact that your family is protected in the best way possible to meet all your needs, while making sure that the policy is one that is affordable for your pocketbook.


text: After reading Tytus' Bio and knowing the Pre-Ternia Storyline. We have at least 2 Crue's of viliians. That we know of. The Horde and the Snakemen. So did Megator side with one of these or did he work on his own. Or maybe even an unknown character known to us of yet.


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Housing Coordinator;[Record group 60-16-1]
Development Coordinator
Agency Function
- Unavailable
- Agency History
- The Office of Housing Coordinator was established in 1954 as part of the Office of the Mayor. It was the responsibility of the office to formulate policy for a comprehensive attack on the problems of inadequate housing, blight, and neighborhood deterioration, and to establish priorities for a positive program by working with the various agencies in the field. In 1956, its duties were expanded to include long-range planning for commercial and industrial development as well as residential development, and the name of the office was changed to that of Development Coordinator. The Development Coordinator represented the Mayor in consideration of housing and redevelopment matters. Some of the functions of the Development Coordinator were later transferred to a newly created office of Deputy Managing Director for Housing, and the office itself was reconstituted in the early 1970s. Both offices of Development Coordinator and Deputy Managing Director for Housing were merged into the new Office of Housing and Community Development in 1976.
Overall planning of local governmental approaches to housing and redevelopment became particularly urgent with the enactment of the federal Housing Act of 1954. This act broadened the concept on which the national redevelopment program was based from merely clearance of blighted areas to include a whole gamut of operations - incorporated into a "workable program" - deemed necessary to prevent the spread of blight. The city placed the direction of creating and implementing this workable program into the Office of the Development Coordinator.
- Archival Records
- 60-16-1.1 Annual Reports (1954, 1961, 1963-1965)
60-16-1.2 Files (1954-1970)
60-16-1.3 Leadership Program - Evaluation Project Files (1955-1960)
60-16-1.4 Community Development Administration. First Year Community Block Grant Prgram (1975)
Click on a folder or file to return to that level...
PhILS Home
City Agencies
Current Agency Information Sheet. (Text-only version of this page)
Send your comments to firstname.lastname@example.com
Last updated on November 8, 2000


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For many pregnant women, bumping up their flossing routine -- much less scheduling their first dental visit in years -- may fall last on their to-do lists.But for dentists and doctors, the connections between the oral health of mothers and the health of their babies -- before and after they're born -- are vitally important. "Prenatal dental care is huge," said Justin Rader, director of the Dirne Dental Clinic in Coeur d'Alene. "It's big for the fetus's health, for the mother's health." Many women miss out, however. According to a 2010 report released by the Spokane Regional Health District, just 56 percent of women reported they visited the dentist while they were pregnant. That kind of data isn't available about North Idaho residents, said Linda Harder, a health education specialist at the Panhandle Health District. But, seeing a need, the district provided free fluoride treatments and cleanings to some low-income women. "With those gals, quite a few of them had not seen a dentist in years, and it was pretty horrendous," Harder said. That's during a time when women's oral health may be at especially high risk, which research suggests could put their babies' health at risk, too. Here's why pregnancy is hard on mothers' mouths -- and how oral health can affect pregnancy. Pregnancy changes what you eat -- and what you can't stand. For many pregnant women, the smell or taste of toothpaste induces nausea, and they brush less thoroughly. Meanwhile, they indulge pregnancy cravings or eat sugary snacks or sugary drinks to try to combat first-trimester nausea, which also can contribute to decay. Then there's the vomiting. When women experience morning (or afternoon or evening) sickness, the acid can erode teeth. After morning sickness, women should rinse their mouths with water and use a fluoride rinse, but hold off brushing for 20 minutes to allow the acid to dissipate, said Melissa Haidu, dental director at CHAS. The acid softens tooth enamel, and brushing them right away just makes it worse. Pregnancy hormones affect your mouth. Bleeding gums are common in women who never suffered that problem before pregnancy. "A lot of my pregnant patients come in and say, 'My gums are just bleeding and bleeding and bleeding, and I don't know what to do,'" Haidu said. Researchers say high progesterone and estrogen levels are connected to gingivitis. "For pregnant women, your hormones are out of whack," said Jessica Pearson, dental department supervisor at the Riverstone Family Health Clinic in northeast Spokane. Swollen, tender gums can lead to serious bacterial infections in your mouth, called periodontitis. Research suggests bacteria from infections in your mouth can reach developing fetuses. A cavity in your tooth can affect your whole body, Rader said. When pregnant women allow a cavity to go untreated, "they're affecting not only their health but the fetal development." When a pregnant woman has a tooth abscess -- a collection of pus, basically, as a result of decay or a broken or chipped tooth -- acid and bad bacteria are injected into her bloodstream when she bites down, Rader said. The bacteria can reach the baby, slowing its development, he said. The research isn't conclusive, according to the oral-health report by the Spokane Regional Health District. But early research suggests there's an increased risk for preterm birth or low birth weight among women with dental infections, the report said. As the bacteria enter the bloodstream and then the uterus, they trigger the production of chemicals suspected of inducing preterm labor. With every sweet kiss comes a dose of bacteria, too. The relationship between the oral health of mothers and their babies' health continues after the babies are born. Each person has his or her own oral microflora, which is what dentists call the bacterial environment in your mouth. Good bacteria help ward off bad ones, creating a "healthy biofilm" around your teeth to protect them, Rader said. Bad bacteria contribute to tooth decay. When mothers kiss their babies, share food or silverware with them or transfer saliva in any way, they're transferring their bacteria. Women with healthy mouths will transmit less harmful bacteria to their babies, improving the child's chances of good oral health. "Babies are born without all the bacteria in the mouth that we have," Haidu said. "They have some, but not the mess we have." (c)2012 The Spokesman-Review (Spokane, Wash.) Visit The Spokesman-Review (Spokane, Wash.) at www.spokesman.com
|Blood Pressure
|Bone Health
|Chronic Pain
|Eye Sight
|Healthy Kids
|Lung Health
|Men's Health
|Oral Health
|Senior Health
|Weight Management
|Women's Health


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Re: Multiple ESC ? (VS2010, ReSharper 5)
I don't know if it is VS2010, or ReSharper, or a combination, but between intellisense, automatic code insertion, etc., it seems like I usually need 2+ ESC keys to get to normal mode.
Can I map the ESC key to send 3 ESC keys when in Insert mode?


text: Hi, I have a two server setup with dedicated webserver and mail server. Mail sent to a hosted client domain from the webserver (e.G. a web form) is delivered via maildrop and not relayed to the destination as I would expect. It then can be found locally in the vmail directory on the webserver. Any other mail to other domains coming from the webserver is delivered correctly, just local domains are delivered, well, locally. I don't understand why, since mail from the outside arrives correctly at the mail server. Nov 10 10:57:42 webserver postfix/pipe[24329]: A30FF308D: to=<[email protected]>, relay=maildrop, delay=0.11, delays=0.05/0.02/0/0.04, dsn=2.0.0, status=sent (delivered via maildrop service) I'm running IPSConfig 3.0.3 on ubuntu 11.04 I checked mydestination in main.cf which points correctly to the hostname. webserver.domain.com Any hint where to dig would be appreciated. Where appart from mydestination does ispconfig or postfix think that they are responsible for a domain? The webserver is not configured as mail server at all. Thanks in advance


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Axis camera extension is a free tool for Trimble® SketchUp® software that provides 3D CAD camera models with interactive functionality to visualize the camera's coverage in your SketchUp® model.
Place Axis Cameras into your Trimble® SketchUp® security system designs. Make use of SketchUp's integration with Google maps to get a good overview over any outdoor surveillance project. Review how the camera fits into the building layout and easily spot if the camera view coverage is obstructed by columns or walls. Pan, tilt and zoom the camera to adjust the field of view to determine the optimal setup for the best video surveillance coverage.
The Axis Camera View function lets you view your SketchUp® model as seen through the Axis camera and the extension also gives access to a broad selection of Axis mounting accessories. To complete your system design, the extension provides a detailed camera listing and a bill of materials that include all Axis products that are included in your design.
You may also be interested in Axis Coverage Shapes
Axis Coverage Shapes for Microsoft® Visio® is an easy-to-use library of camera shapes for Microsoft Visio that helps you plan your surveillance solution. Import an existing drawing into Visio or use Visio's drawing tools to create your floor plan. Then drag cameras from the Axis Coverage Shapes stencil into the drawing and immediately visualize camera coverage based on camera field of view and required resolution.