Sen. McCain, Social Security, and Disgrace

As many of you may have heard, Sen. John McCain, during a town hall forum, described Social Security as a "disgrace." You can see the entirety of his comments here.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NCOtRAJef9Q

You can also see an analysis from Talking Points Memo on Sen. McCain's comments and his past remarks on Social Security here.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R3RnHR9Dxmo&NR=1

What this comment gets to the heart of is Social Security Privatization. What he called the "disgrace" of social security was the way in which it is financed. The same way it has been financed, for over 70 years, is that current workers pay for the benefits of current retirees. Sen. McCain gave us no solutions at the town hall, like the woman asked for in her question, but talks about sitting at a table together with Democrats to fix it, like President Ronald Regan and Tip O'Neill did.

What is left is what Sen. McCain has advocated for in the past, voluntary private investment accounts much like President bush has proposed. All this does is steal money away from Social Security and puts it into the hand of Wall Street brokers. If anyone has been watching, investing money in the stock market recently has not been a smart financial decision. If that plan had gone into effect back in 2000, retirees would see less in their accounts today than what they put in.

The true disgrace is that for the last 7 years the president and the congress have been borrowing from the Social Security Trust Fund and the Lock Box to pay for war, tax cuts for the rich, and Medicare Advantage insurance companies. All they have managed to stick into the Trust Fund Lock Box is a stack of IOU's.

See Rep. DeFazio give a speech back in 2001 on the issues here

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D-ErdU8Ck8g

We can continue to finance Social Security in the same way its always been done, for an eternity, if we stop stealing from Social Security (money meant to keep seniors out of poverty) to pay for tax cuts for the rich, corporate give aways and war.

We are apparently not doing a good enough job in letting the government know just how important Social Security is to us. Please write letters to the editor, call into radio talk shows, write the candidates, and tell your friends about this important issue.

Be prepared for some action in the next week or so on this issue.