McCain Lies About Social Security Privatization

In March, after ThinkProgress caught Sen. Joe Lieberman lying to cover up Sen. John McCain's support for Social Security privatization, I posted video (with the help of reader Tom M.) from 2004 of McCain, in response to an audience question, explicitly backing Social Security privatization by name.

Q: Will privatizing Social Security be a priority for you going forward?

...

McCAIN: Without privatization, I don't see how you can possibly, over time, make sure that young Americans are able to receive Social Security benefits.

Today at a Nashua town hall (his best forum!), McCain himself lied about his position, saying:

I'm not for, quote, privatizing Social Security. I never have been. I never will be.

The DNC just juxtaposed today's video with the 2004 video.

There's some evidence that McCain is currently stronger than Obama with voters over 65. If they see him lie about Social Security, that edge won't last very long.

Cross-posted at LiberalOasis.

Comments

[unitron]

A: "Without privatization, I don't see how you can possibly, over time, make sure that young Americans are able to receive Social Security benefits."

B: "I'm not for, quote, privatizing Social Security. I never have been. I never will be."

Therefore, he's not interested in making sure that young Americans are able to receive Social Security benefits. No lies, no contradictions, no problem. :-)

If you die when you're supposed to be alive and bringing home the bacon, that's when life insurance pays off. Social Security is death insurance. If you fail to die when you get too old to work, or if you fail to remain un-disabled when you're of the age when you should be working and bringing in money, that's when it pays off. It's not a retirement plan. It's a safety net when your retirement plan does an Enron.

The Federal government can pay back the SSA by printing more money. If the money were put into state and municipal bonds, they would have to be paid back with real money, and they could be used to rebuild our crumbling infrastructure.

If SS is "privatized" the brokers will churn the accounts and even if they buy and sell the right things at the right time, all the money will disappear as commissions.

[PioneerKing]

BILL:

Sorry to disappoint you - McCain will lie at the drop of a hat.
McCain is to be lauded for his military service and his status as a former POW honored, but McCain must not be perceived as being above reproach.
McCain has been caught on numerous occasions telling big fat lies, or as those in the media like to say misspoke, or flip-flopped.
McCain"s ability to lie without hesitation or provocation makes the Clintons look like novices at misspeaking.

[BubbaC33]

Obama folks might wwant to resist the urge to attack the McCain stance on Social Security. IN a little over a year Obama has flip-flopped from a position similar to Ms. Clinton to one based on the thinking of a right wing think tank funded by the GOP. The scare tactics Obama has used recently are far too close to the Bush position on SS. The simple fact of the matter is the system is in need of an infusion of cash, which could come in the form of repayment of the money taken from the surplus. And if this is linked to a prohibition on future raids on the SS surplus the system will be fine.

[appleknocker]

Obama could really make some hay by campaigning against the privatization of Social Security. He could educate the public about the fact that the system doesn't need drastic changes (at least in the near future). He could point out the fallacies in the "Social Security is doomed" propaganda that has dominated the MSM for the last 2 decades, to the point where people like Mourningdude accept it as "reality."

But he can't do any of these things because doing so would be a betrayal of his Wall Street patrons.

[fact finder]

Will they want to privatize Your privates when every thing else is privatized. Might as well the prison system as well as a lot of other state and federal systems have been privatized why not your reproductive organs. Privatization is about corporate profit nothing else. If you don't think so tell me how a for profit can do the job cheaper than a non profit.

[Querent]

The Repigs have been trying to take control of my (and everybody else's) reproductive system for a long, long time.

[ProudNeoCon]

Obama just announce that he will apply Social security taxes to all incomes over 250K. Welcome to more income re-destribution... People who make 250K + are not going to get larger payments from Social security, yet they will pay more taxes... Welcome to equality of outcomes rather than equality of opportunity.

It used to be that Social Security wa a pension plan for elderly, now it will be another welfare program...

[fact finder]

proud; People who make 250k per year do not normally need Social Security. Their 201 k's will take care of them for many years also they probably have stock dividends up the wazoo. By the time they retire they will have the house paid for and every thing else, if they manage the money well. If not then the deserve to live like the rest of us. 250K per year = 1 million over a 4 year period. Multiply that by 20 years and that is 20MILLION dollars.

If People like the very wealthy did not draw S.S. there would be more money for the average guy/ gal.

[Querent]

"It used to be that Social Security wa a pension plan for elderly . . ."

When was that, 1940?

[hstanfill4112]

I would say he is confused but someone might think I was was calling him old........................

[bronceye]

Neverending senior moments.

[MourningDude]

McCain never said he supported it, and he never voted for it. All he did was acknowledge reality.

Let's hear Obama refute McCain's statement. Let's hear him tell us that young workers will get full social security benefits when they retire without implementing individual retirement accounts.

He can't do that because he knows he will sell young people down the river when push comes to shove.

[hopeless277]

The Corporate Media has declared that John McCain is incapable of 'lying'. He can only 'misspeak'. Plus he gets three tries to clarify his misspeaks before they report on what he says. They have also outlawed the word 'confused' with regards to McCain. They claim that the term is ageist(sp?) and makes him out to be, well, confused when maybe he was just 'misspeaking' again. Failure to adhere to these rules nullifies your invite to the Correspondents Dinner next year.

[ez14livin]

i was for privatizing social security before i was against it

no wait

i was collecting social security before i was paying into it

no wait

i was spending social security before i knew what for

no wait

i was privatizing social security to finance halliburton

no wait

i was socializing privately to secure election funding

yea that's it

[zendem1]

McCain keeps painting himself into a corner and the msm is giving him a free pass..They think he's a swell guy..

[Independent voter]

McCain is a lying dog - don't act so surprised

[Researchguy66]

What's gutting social security currently is the continued use of the trust fund to finance running government debt. At some point, the social security tax will turn into nothing more than a very regressive way to raise government funding and will have nothing to do with retirement.

I don't like the idea of privatization personally, but it certainly seems better than the alternative. As an employer, I pay a lot of money into social security and I'd really like to see it benefit the people that I'm paying it for.

[MourningDude]

Spending the trust fund is not a Social Security issue at all. That debt is no different than any other debt we've accumulated.

The reality is that all the dour predictions about the trust fund going bankrupt and trillions of dollars in unfunded liabilities already assumes that ALL money borrowed from the trust fund is paid back, with interest.

Now, if you were saying that we never should have borrowed the money, but should have been investing it at a higher rate of return, that's a valid point. But Obama is strongly opposed to increasing the rate of return on SS money, so you're chasing your tail.

[ProudNeoCon]

yes it is different. the interest w pay to the Social security trust is less than 50% of what we pay for other debt. So in essence we are stealing from the trust...

[only1Demvoter]

Well, with that answer it is clear that they are admitting to gutting the Social Security reserves.

It ain't ' straight talk ', but it does represent transparency.


More to follow. -ralph