Senior Interest Groups

Historically and at the present time, seniors have enjoyed more political influence and have benefited more from government programs and services more than other ôin-needö groups. However, while polls demonstrate seniors are a ôpopularö and ôlegitimateö recipient group with Americans, an attitude is growing that ôthe elderly are too powerful, and their programs too immune to the budget cuts necessary to eliminate federal deficit,ö (Day, 1990, p. 3). This analysis will argue that the elderly have not grown too powerful nor their programs too immune from budget cuts. Rather, the powerful interests groups purporting to represent seniors are often those who are too powerful and too immune to political influence.

Perhaps the reason powerful interest

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ts inception in 1965,ö (Gettinger, 1995, p. 2950). A mail campaign to seniors, orchestrated by the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare, convinced seniors they were being fleeced through higher premiums. As such, a ôstorm of protest swept Capitol Hill,ö with 195 members changing their votes the next year resulting in an appeal of the law, (Gettinger, 1995, p. 2950). In actuality, the seniors organization and the mailing were spearheaded by James Roosevelt, eldest son of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, which resulted in an attack on legislators that caused Senate Minority whip Alan K. Simpson to declare, ôWeÆre not confused; weÆre terrorized,ö (Gettinger, 1995, p. 2950). We see in the above example that seniors are powerful en masse to legislators, but that throughout history more often than not groups purporting to represent them are powerful interest groups with an agenda in their own right. This was evidenced in 1983 when seniors once more besieged legislators in protest that help repeal a new law that had required taxes on interest and dividend income. Instead of RooseveltÆs organization, this time the powerful banking lobby orchestrated one of the largest and most powerful senior organization
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Approximate Word count = 2371
Approximate Pages = 9 (250 words per page)

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