friends with the communist. reagan thought that they treated the people like barnyard animals. people who live under communism live like slaves. he made a moral judgment that you're not supposed to make, but he made it. here was his initial problem. all these old guys, they all died. finally he got mikael gorbachev. he was well educated. curse you, he wasn't educated.

gorbachev was an educated man. it did not start off well, and reagan got a lot of flak when he came back from iceland where he was supposed to have a big arms talk to get rid of these missiles. gorbachev flat would not do it. but reagan had from the beginning of his presidency, he went off in may to visit the first year -- he went to visit someplace in idaho or colorado -- and he asked his guide, the colonel general, what are our defenses against this? he says, we don't have any. we can't do it. he said what do you mean?

if the soviets decide on a first strike, they would not hit -- the first strike was going to hit everybody. reagan went back to berkeley where he had good connections for being governor, and he said that we have to get something going here. it could have worked. it terrified the russians and the soviets because they did not have the money to do that. this was an anonymously expensive proposition to set up all these huge space stations and satellite when they entered space. this was in the norma's tool that reagan had. every time they would have a meeting, he would say we need to do away with this number of missiles or that.

but you have to do away with the star wars thing. he said, i'll give to you. once we get it finished, i'll give it to you so that nobody can shoot missiles at anyone else. they're not? >> no, they didn't want that. as a result, the soviets stewed and grieved and grumbled. then reagan went over in 1985 where there was the berlin wall. he made a great speech. and he had made friends with gorbachev. he still was determined -- he wanted to get that down. he said this in his speech, the state department was horrified that he said such a thing. mr. gorbachev, if you want

peace, bring down this wall. the germans were thinking that mr. gorbachev lives on the other side of the wall, and reagan is going to be gone tomorrow. everybody was stunned. suddenly, the german people picked it up on both sides of the wall. gorbachev knew that he was having problems. first of all, he had a terrible economic start -- the people took power and you saw the whole eastern bloc of the soviet union began to crumble. reagan was out of office at this point by a dear, -- by a year. if you could think of one single point that brought down soviet communism in the east, he

actually -- satellite countries such as czechoslovakia, poland, hungary -- he went to visit moscow and gorbachev. gorbachev was happy about it. reagan made a speech in moscow. he talk to these guys. they never heard anyone talk about democracy and freedom. it was against the law. he was cheered, and so he left. that was his legacy. his legacy is that he was a lot smarter than anyone gave him credit for. one of the things that i found -- presidents always have speech writers. but reagan wrote his own

speeches. i have the books with his own handwriting in them. he kept a diary. reagan kept a diary, which is extremely articulate. he wrote letters, and they are collected in places. i was fascinated by the turn of this guy's mind. he was so clear. he was so smart. he was a meat and potatoes guy. he had a branch ranch you love to go to in the mountains outside of santa monica. -- excuse me, santa barbara. santa somebody. [laughter] >> one of the things he did, the press would always go with telescopic cameras -- they paid

$10,000 for the lens -- they would wait all day long to see what would happen. one day he [inaudible] -- [laughter] >> suddenly the reporters go crazy. then he smiled. [laughter] >> what i thought i do here, i hate reading things, if you want to read something, i will let you read it. the last couple of pages of this book that i wrote sums up, i think, what reagan was and what he did.

it is only by page and a half in the book. he passed away of alzheimer's disease. he wrote a lovely note -- i didn't include it here, but he explained what was going to happen to them and he knew and he basically had a good time and thanked everyone for their kindness. he even thanked sam donaldson. on june 3, 2005, ronald reagan passed away at his home in bel air. he was 93 years old. on june 9, his body was flown to washington dc to lie in state in the rotunda of the u.s. capitol. where 1000 -- 104,000 mourners viewed it on june 11. the funeral service was held at the national cathedral, attended by many of the world's greatest

leaders, including his old adversary, mikael gorbachev. he was buried in california at the reagan -- ronald reagan presidential library. on his gravestone were inscribed words from the speech of the dedication of the library. i know in my heart that man is dead. that what is right will eventually try him if there is purpose and worth to each and every life. during his political career, -- today they are still those who belittle his career and the

ultimate failure of soviet communism. but there are many others who remember reagan fondly and greatly, mainly from his record of 34 television network addresses to the american people. what these people were called him and no matter what their politics or his, was a man of great means. of straight talk. good humor and good will. he was a [cheers] president no matter what came his way. there were times he could be angry. reagan had a clear sense of right and wrong, which infuriated many of the leading academics and established journalists. most of whom still remain

convinced that applying such moral convictions to politics can be dangerous. in contrast, reagan believed he knew what was right and wrong as he saw it. above all else, reagan was an american original. he had his heart rates and times and lived an important life and guide his own hat. he had come along way. a poor boy from illinois. he knew he was poor, a sportscaster, movie star, president of the screen actors guild award, governor, and president of the united states. and it was all because he did not get a job at montgomery ward in 1932. that was the way he's done. if you ever visit the reagan library you will notice that

there is a concrete slab monolith. on the side that faces west, it is painted in colorful graffiti of butterflies and flowers. but the site reminds gray. that is an actual 338-pound chunk of the berlin wall sent by the citizens of grateful germany as a symbol of reagan's tear down the wall speech. the monolith, reagan said let our children and grandchildren come here and see this wall and

reflect on what it meant to history. let let them understand. each year they come, by the tens of thousands, the schoolchildren will read the words and look out over the valley ridge. just a little to the right and most fittingly, also facing west. you arty know the end of the book. you have been a great group of guinea pigs, and i hope i have not taken up too much of your time on this night. thank you all for coming so much, and we can sign some books if you like.

>> if you think of yourself as a team come and she said when i get a raise at work, he so proudly. it's like we got a raise, our family got a raise. but i really felt though she of redefined providing to include what her husband does and she had a lot of respect for what her husband was doing? >> liza mundy on the changing role of women as the breadwinners of the family and how that impacts their lives. also, america the beautiful, director of pediatric nurse surgery at johns hopkins in cars and compares the decline of empires past with america. and shares his thoughts on what should be done to avoid a similar fate. sunday at 3:30 p.m. booktv every weekend on c-span2. >> several items to tell you about this morning on c-span2. former senator george mitchell will talk about middle east peace and american security.

has comments to the government security conference are at 9 a.m. future. at 10 a.m. the head of the pension benefit guarantee corporation speaks on pensions and retirement security. also just before noon president obama will sign the so-called s.t.o.c.k. act, a bill that bans insider stock trading by members of congress. >> applications for social security disability insurance have increased in recent years with about three and a half million people applying for benefits last year. the social security administrations chief actuary says high unemployment and mental illness are responsible for the increase. stephen cross was joined by groups representing the disabled to talk about ways to incorporate the disabled into the workforce. and national academy of social insurance hosts this to our events.

[inaudible conversations] >> good morning, everyone. we are going to get started. good morning. my name is mark miller. i'm a columnist for reuters specializing in coverage of retirement. i write frequently about social security and medicare and other health insurance issues as well as pensions and personal finance. i'd like to welcome everyone, and thank you for joining us this money for our forum on why are more people claiming disability insurance, and what should be done about it. a special welcome to our viewers joining us live on c-span, and our thanks to c-span for covering this important issue.

is that better? sorry about that. could you hear me when i said all that? if not i will start over. the forum is sponsored by the national academy of social insurance, and nonpartisan, nonprofit organization made up of the nation's leading experts on social insurance. increasing public understanding of how social insurance contributes to economic security. the social security disability insurance program currently provides income support to more than 9 million people with disability than their family members, a total of more than $9.5 billion in benefits monthly. the number of people receiving benefits has increased together going over the past several decades. 6.5 million people receive benefits as recently as 2005, and in 1995, the number was one for .2 million. the disability insurance trust fund is projected to be exhausted in the near future, as soon as 2016 according to cbo

and 2018 according to the 2011 social security trustees report. journalists, researchers and congress have focused a great deal of attention on the growth and the number of ssdi beneficiaries. a number of questions have been raised about the program. does the growth reflect demographic trends and changes, or is the growth due to rules and policies? what is the role of the recession and the growth of ssdi? is ssdi becoming the new unemployment insurance? is ssdi fundamentally sound and sustainable in its current form, or does it need changes to ensure its long-term viability? can be changes to be small, or does long-term solvency require radical change? does ssdi discourage work? could more be done to encourage people to stay at work when they become disabled, or could more be done to encourage beneficiaries to return to work

after receiving ssdi benefits? a variety of reforms have been proposed. some propose augmenting ssdi to provide more assistance into keeping people at work, or returning to work. others have suggested creating another public disability insurance program which would be offered to people with a disability but significant capacity to work. requiring employers to purchase private disability insurance to keep workers employed is another idea that's been suggested. other proposals seek to completely change the way that disability benefits are designed and provided. this forum will export why the number of people receiving ssdi has grown, whether that growth will continue, and the implications of the growth for program. this will include discussion of some proposals for reform and reaction from members of the disability community to the presentations and proposals. first we will hear from for

three outstanding speakers. steve goss is the chief actuary of the social security of ministration. lisa act when the senior policy advisor at health and disability advocates, and dave stapleton, director of the center for studying disability policy at mathematica policy research. next we will hear brief responses to the presentations from marty ford, director the public policy office at the ark of the united states come in from tony young, senior public policy strategist at nish. tony is in route here and he will join us when he gets you. the full biographies of all the speakers are in your folders along with today's agenda, powerpoint from the presenters, and a point counterpoint article on ssdi that was published recently in the journal of policy analysis and management. one side of that debate is argued by virginia of nasi and lisa ekman. the other side was taken by economist richard burr conger and mary daly.

you'll also find a blue evaluation form in your packet and we really appreciate it if you would fill that out and return it to a nasi staff member before you leave today. we also encourage you to pick up copies of other nasi resources which are available at a table outside the meeting room. so, to begin i'd like to turn to steve goss. steve? [applause] >> thanks for setting this up and have the opportunity to talk to you all about social security disability programs, which i assume everybody in the room and hopefully who is hearing and seeing this event from elsewhere knows that social security does the program not reserves almost 9 million disabled worker beneficiaries in a country, and another couple million people who are children and spouse dependence of those disabled workers, so it's a big program answers a lot of people. and what i can really speak to

probably most effectively and hopefully usefully is the first of the two questions that are raised today. why more people are claiming or plan for social security benefits. so let me address that from the context of the projection that we make, our board of trustees and the administration, working with our advisory board and their technical panel and others in developing assumptions and projections to the future of what the cause of social security, the retirement system and the disability system will be looking like in the future. first of all, let me flip to a slide, got to have a picture. there are two ways i think that we could really address this question of why we have this run up in claims and people applying for disability. one of the near term cyclical phenomenon which relates to the fact that we've had a recent pretty significant recession in this country, as you all know. the recession resulted in a lot of people becoming unemployed. we went up to 10% unemployment

rate, and when people become unemployed basic way to continue having income. people who qualify for disabled for school and apply. so we did have an increase in a number of applications, and we did have an increase in the number of people starting to receive disability benefits. we express this in something without the disabled worker incidence rate. that's what you see on this chart. it's really just the number of people newly getting disabled worker benefits, divided by the number of people who are insured and could get the benefits. you can see the time of recession we have a run up in of the people darting to get benefits, as happens, but this is a temporary phenomenon from a cyclic phenomenon countered that we're projecting of course the number of new disability claimants who become beneficiaries went up through around 2010, will be coming back down. you can see the red line on your issuing what we were projecting for the number of people starting to get visibly benefits

had i not been a recession. well, there was recession and that changes everything and we had a big increase in the number of people coming on the role. that exceeded what we had. a number of these people will be people who might not have ever filed for disability benefits. other people are people who might have started to get benefits two or three years later as their personal medically determined the impairment deteriorated further. but this is really sort of a first effect that we might talk about in terms of increasing the number of people trying visibly which is the short-term cyclic affect. and longer-term effect, if we were really speaks to what mark mentioned, which is the solvency of social security program. the longer-term effect for the solvency of the social security program does depend on this classic relationship between the numbers of beneficiaries, the number of people paying in, what the tax rates are, and solvency for the social security program,

we're two different trust fund. where the old age survivors insurance trust fund and settling with a disability insurance trust fund. that i want is one where talk about principally today. and on this little chart you can see we're showing what the trust fund ratios are. the trust fund ratio is the ratio of the amount of money we have in reserve, are trust fund assets divided by the annual cost of the program. how many years could we pay out of just the reserves that are retained, and, of course, we don't have to pay our -- we're continuing income coming in all the time. you can see on this projection that for the old-age and survivors insurance fund have and the 2011 trustees report we are looking to be good out to about 2038, and for the combined old age and survivors insurance and disability insurance program if we put the funds together, we would be good until about 2036 for solvency based on the 20 of an trustees report. also as mark mentioned, that is the insurance trust fund which

is a separate legal entities so we have to pay attention to that, is projected at 111 trustees report to become exhausted, reserves to become exhausted in 2018. now, mark also mentioned the congressional budget office, president's budget are projecting somewhat earlier date, and you should understand since the time of our development of the assumptions and projections for the 2011th trustees report which was issued last may 13, last year, some things happen. weighted run up in inflation early in calendar year 2011, as a result we ended up having a cost-of-living adjustment of 3.6% instead of 0.7 that we've been asked them. the price of gas went up and we all know what that does to the general price level of everything in our economy. we had almost a 3% higher boost to benefit levels for 2012, and that will persist for years into the future, because c.o.l.a. stays with people who received a. at the same time by the way india 2011, the level of average taxable earnings, the earnings that are subject to payroll

taxes grew by about 1.5% less than we had been projecting. so the combination of a bigger benefit level and a lower earnings on average resulted in some negative effects for the trust fund. so you can anticipate our upcoming trustees report will probably have a little bit sooner date for trust fund exhaustion. the bottom line though is that 2018, 2016 cbo, they're both dates that are quite soon. and people who do want to work in this building, the next two buildings down, are paying a lot of attention to this and will surely make changes in the not-too-distant future. the one thing in my notes on this graph, the little blue line which is the trust fund ratio for the disparate insurance program in particular, there was a time background 1994 when it was heading down quite sharply before. there you can see that bounces after 1994 and it starts heading back to. what happened at the time was that congress simply an active something that we refer to as a

payroll tax relocation. they took the total payroll tax, which at that time then and still is a total of the 12.4% payroll tax, that is split between the oasi and the fund. they reallocated more of that from the oasi fund to the di fund, and that more equalized the financial prospects into the future for the oasi and the iphone and cause the di fund to struggling back up again. that's what we sustained the solvency, and i forgot to take a ride after that was enacted in 1994, our next report became a projected the trust fund exhaustion for the money would be in the year 2016. so it turned out that was a pretty good or lucky guess, take your pick. so this is really, and this speaks, let me mission, this speaks to the solvency as we describe it as mark mentioned for these programs. the reason we describe this as solvency in the context