Senate’s AARP Hearings to Expand to Other Groups

Sen. Alan K. Simpson (R-Wyo.), castigating the American Assn. of Retired Persons for its money-making and lobbying activities, said Tuesday that a planned series of congressional hearings will be expanded to cover other nonprofit, tax-exempt groups--including veterans organizations.

“Please don’t feel that I am picking on the AARP,” Simpson said during a hearing where the nation’s biggest senior advocacy group was criticized for its $86 million in federal job-training contracts and the profits it makes from selling insurance to members.

Simpson said his panel’s inquiry will “include other organizations that abuse their nonprofit status.”

The senator has been in a bitter dispute with the AARP, accusing the 32-million-member organization of lying about the impact of Republican plans to deal with the impending bankruptcy of Medicare. And the AARP, backed by a number of other senior lobbies, says Simpson is trying to deter it from playing a major role in the debate over Medicare, which will be the focus of the budget fight this summer.

Senior groups “simply ask for more and more from the federal Treasury,” said Simpson, chairman of the Social Security subcommittee of the Senate Finance Committee. “The AARP asks for more--that is their theme, their motif.”

However, he said, the overriding purpose of his hearings is to consider the activities of the growing population of nonprofit organizations that pay no federal taxes. He did not specifically name any other groups.

A 13-page AARP statement distributed outside the hearing room gave a detailed explanation of the organization’s activities to rebut what it described as “efforts to categorize AARP as just a big business operation or an irresponsible, overly powerful lobby.”

“To the contrary,” the statement says, “AARP is a multi-dimensional membership organization that is truly motivated by its desire to improve the social welfare of the older population of the country.”

Simpson “has been a longtime critic of this organization,” the AARP said. “It is clear that we have a different vision of the future of programs upon which the older population relies.”