Obama face time

For about 45 minutes Monday, Dan Martinez was literally the right-hand man of the candidate he hopes will be the next president.

Martinez was one of six local residents who participated in a panel discussion with Democratic hopeful Barack Obama on Monday. The topic of the event, meant to be a more intimate give-and-take than the usual "canned speech," as Obama put it, was Social Security and retirement, but the Illinois senator encouraged the participants to bring up whatever was on their minds.

Obama's task was to be curious about the panelists' concerns even as he assured them he already knew about the problems they faced and had plans to fix them if elected.

Martinez, a 32-year-old North Las Vegas resident with three young children, told Obama he works in real estate and, with the recent housing downturn, went through a six-month dry spell when not a single listing sold. His family was forced to live off savings, wiping out the nest egg he had worked so hard to amass.

As a self-employed person with multiple obligations, had he given retirement savings a thought, Obama asked? "Or did you just say, 'I'll worry about it when I'm an old man like Barack Obama?' "

Martinez said, "When times were good, I was able to put money away ... but that dry spell depleted it." Now, he said, housing sales have improved a bit and his wife has gone back to work, but saving for their children's college and paying for health insurance eats up most of their income.

The cost of health insurance came up frequently during the panel. Obama said his plan for expanding health coverage would put money back in people's pockets, while his retirement security plan would make it easier for them to save.

The retirement plan consists of automatically enrolling workers in 401(k)-type programs, government matching funds for savings, and shoring up Social Security by raising the ceiling, currently $97,500, on income subject to payroll taxes.

"My friend Warren Buffett makes more than $97,000 and he still only pays taxes on the first 97,000," Obama said. "And I've said that's not fair. If people make a little bit more, they can afford to pay a little bit more on the payroll tax."

Buffett, the billionaire investor and mega-philanthropist, has said he supports both Obama and his chief Democratic rival, New York Sen. Hillary Clinton, for president.

Clinton says Obama's proposal to lift the payroll tax cap constitutes a tax hike on the middle class, while Obama says the taxpayers who would be affected constitute a small, relatively wealthy minority.

In addition to Martinez, the panel included a 56-year-old man who wants to retire but wouldn't be able to afford health insurance to treat his thyroid cancer if he left the work force. There was a 59-year-old woman whose husband recently died, leaving her with the choice of either collecting widow's benefits she can't live on, or going back to work and thus making herself ineligible for the benefits.

A 30-year-old woman said she'd been in the work force for 10 years and was struck by how many fewer job opportunities there seem to be than there once were. Her main concern, she said, was better public schooling for her 9-year-old son, whose classes she said have more than 30 children in them.

George Hicks, 56, said his arthritis was making it difficult to keep working as a cook at Circus Circus, but he had years to go before he'd be eligible for even a partial pension from the Culinary union. His wife Norma Hicks, 70, said since she retired as a waitress, her Social Security checks haven't gone far toward paying the mortgage, much less helping their grandchildren go to college.

"I want to see my grandchildren go to college," Norma Hicks said. "My son's babies are very intelligent, but they're probably not going to be able to afford it because he's not going to be able to afford it."

Obama interjected, "We're going to make sure they can afford it."

"Well, I know if you get in ..." Hicks said.

"We're going to make sure because I'm a big believer that every young person that's qualified should be able to go to college," Obama said, as Hicks corrected herself: "When you get in."

Obama said under his plan students would get help with tuition in exchange for pledging to perform some kind of national service. "So just make sure they're keeping their grades up, OK?" he told Hicks. "Grandmas, I know, can be kind of soft on their grandkids."

After the discussion, Obama had an informal, private session with a few hundred UNLV student supporters. Monday afternoon, Obama left Nevada for Los Angeles.

In an interview, Martinez said he'd never been involved in politics before, but Obama's message had inspired him and he'd started volunteering for the campaign a few weeks back. "I've been canvassing and making phone calls," he said. "I want to let people know there is an alternative to the self-proclaimed queen."

Events such as Monday's roundtable, Martinez said, showed him that "Senator Obama is reaching out to the average American person to find out what they're struggling with, what they think would help them and their families."

Contact reporter Molly Ball at mball @reviewjournal.com or (702) 387-2919.