Obama Lies About McCain’s Social Security Stance
By Justin Gardner | Related entries in 2008 Election, Barack, McCain, Social Security
In Florida recently, Obama himself claimed McCain’s privatization plans would extend to people who rely on Social Security income to live. But the record shows that’s provably false.
On his Web site, McCain says he “supports supplementing the current Social Security system with personal accounts — but not as a substitute for addressing benefit promises that cannot be kept.” The Web site does not specify how those accounts would operate. But McCain supported President Bush’s plan in 2005 to allow some workers to place a limited amount of their payroll taxes into private accounts, which would have been invested in stock or bond funds.That proposal — which never came to a vote — limited participation to people born in 1950 or later. None of today’s recipients of Social Security retirement benefits is old enough to have participated. So, under the specific plan that McCain weighed in on, it is wrong to say that “the millions of Floridians who rely on” those benefits would have them tied to the stock market. Some younger people who chose to participate would have their future benefits affected.
There’s no doubt that privatization is a very hot button issue, but Obama didn’t have to grossly misrepresent McCain’s position in order to hit home the potential dangers of it.
Shame on him for using scare tactics to drum up votes from Florida seniors.
This entry was posted on Sunday, September 21st, 2008 and is filed under 2008 Election, Barack, McCain, Social Security. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
September 21st, 2008 at 8:10 pm
Whenever someone says that the GOP uses fear to get votes (which I agree btw) I have said that they aren’t alone. Democrats have used the lie to elderly that the GOP will take their Social Security from them forever. The other is telling young people they will get drafted.
September 21st, 2008 at 8:23 pm
But if a significant number of working Americans choose to put their payroll tax into private accounts instead of the SS system (that is McCain’s plan, right?), then won’t that mean less money to pay for the benefits for retired Americans now? Granted, it’s going to run out of money sooner or later, but it seems the option of private accounts would speed things up. Maybe that would be a good thing, however, since it would force us to address the issue before it’s too late.
So I’d say Obama is telling a lie is he’s saying today’s seniors will suffer, but the criticism is not entirely baseless.
September 22nd, 2008 at 7:13 am
[...] weekend, Justin alerted us to lies Barack Obama is spreading about John McCain’s Social Security positions. Now, Ruth Marcos [...]