Moynihan retired this year as the senior Senator from New York, which he had served since 1976. Prior to that, he served as ambassador to India and to the United Nations in the Ford Administration and an advisor on welfare policy to the Johnson and Nixon administrations. Moynihan has been an active participant in the Social Security debates. Since that time, Moynihan concluded that trust fund surpluses were not in fact being saved and should simply be returned to taxpayers as payroll tax cuts. More recently, Moynihan has placed greater stress on the wealth-building aspects of personal accounts for Social Security.
Parsons has extensive experience in business, government and finance.
From 1971 to 1977, he held various positions in state and federal service, including First Assistant Counsel to former New York Governors Nelson Rockefeller and Malcolm Wilson and General Counsel and Associate Director of the Domestic Council under President Gerald R. Ford. Active in community affairs, he is Chairman of The New York City Partnership and the Upper Manhattan Empowerment Zone Development Corporation. He also serves on the boards of the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, Lincoln Center, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, and is a trustee of Howard University. A former aide to Robert F. Kennedy, Beard has taken a particular interest in the wealth-building aspects of Social Security privatization. John Cogan , former OMB Deputy Director and fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution.