McCain and Social Security

I've been shocked by how little play John McCain's recent remarks on Social Security have gotten, especially considering his record of support for the Bush administration's unpopular privatization scheme. Maybe that's soon to change:

On Tuesday, a coalition of Democratic strategists, labor unions and liberal activist groups that helped defeat Bush's efforts in 2005 plans to launch a similar campaign. They intend to target McCain and dozens of GOP congressional candidates who have supported proposals to allow workers to divert some of their payroll taxes out of the Social Security system and into private investment accounts.

If this can soften McCain formidable support among his fellow seniors, that'd be a big deal for obvious reasons. We've rarely had a presidential nominee who's been so openly contemptuous of America's retirement security programs.

Comments

Better very very very very late than never, I guess.

Posted by colleeniem | July 14, 2008 5:37 PM

He's contemptuous, and rightfully so.

Posted by Mike | July 14, 2008 6:09 PM

I've been waiting for this to happen. I remember Clinton clobbering (demagoguing) Tsongas on Social Security in 1992. This time the attack ought to be easy, on account of McCain actually being against Social Security. I don't see how he can possibly win the old states (FL, PA, WV) with his record.

Posted by Chris M | July 14, 2008 6:13 PM

"He's contemptuous, and rightfully so. Mike"

You must not be someone with parents, grandparents, or even great-great grandparents, or you wouldn't think so. SS is a great program that supported my grandmother in the poverty to which the depression had reduced her and enabled my parents to have a secure and happy retirement. And I bet that's the same for most folks. Only young snots and old guys who've married multi-millionaire heiresses think there's something wrong with it, and the former will change their tune (especially when they realize that they've been told lies about SS not being there when then need it).

Posted by David in NY | July 14, 2008 6:15 PM

There's a lot of time before November.

And it's RIDICULOUS that this was subject to a media blackout. I get that it's very fashionable among media elites to think that social security is going to destroy the nation, and that we must get rid of it. And to look down upon the little people who need it to avoid an impoverished old age.

But I'm sorry, they don't get to actually decide to hide John McCain's position on Social Security because they think the nation needs some strong medicine.

This is important to millions of American voters. They do have a right to know.

Posted by anonymous | July 14, 2008 6:20 PM

I have a friend who was raised by very Republican parents. He only recently converted to the good side. But he's still convinced that social security 'won't be there' when he retires. That misinformation campaign was painfully effective.

Posted by mpowell | July 14, 2008 6:21 PM

The problem is that any reporter who talks about how John McCain's antipathy for the entire Social Security program is likely to hurt him will be tarred as liberally biased. And we can't have that.

Posted by Boots Day | July 14, 2008 6:23 PM

Swing and miss Mr. David in NY.

Try something a little less vacuous.

Posted by Mike | July 14, 2008 6:48 PM

McCain's gaffe-ridden week did pass with remarkably little media attention, especially on the SS issue. But he has left these doors wide open. When the Obama campaign needs this ammunition, it will find its quiver full.

I'm thinking about the debates in which the Arizona senator's sore points will be exposed to the widest audience in a setting where he will have to respond off the cuff, something he doesn't seem to excel in, if the press availables are any measure.

Posted by bab23 | July 14, 2008 7:04 PM

http://www.ssa.gov/OACT/TRSUM/index.html

Who's telling lies?

Posted by Mike | July 14, 2008 7:09 PM

Hi Mike,
Since SS is a paygo system, there will never ever be absolutely no benefits.
What we need to do is keep the pols from borrowing the shit out of it to cover their annual budget/pay down debt, then we could actually get a surplus, if the economy keeps chugging (crosses fingers).

Posted by colleeniem | July 14, 2008 7:21 PM

Anyone with half a mind can see the changing demographics in this country and immediately spot looming problems with social security and medicare. Any economy will struggle when the small working population is called upon to support a large retired population, and as the economy goes, so do the fortunes of the citizens of this country.

Posted by Mike | July 14, 2008 7:40 PM

Maybe Mike, but luckily we have millions of young workers from mexico. If we legalize them we can tax them.

Posted by mad6798 | July 14, 2008 8:11 PM

But he's still convinced that social security 'won't be there' when he retires.

They would sell the Navy for scrap before they cut people off Social Security. If somehow you managed to collect a group of politicians to do it, the program would be gone until the next election where everyone involved got thrown out on their ass.

Posted by Ed Marshall | July 14, 2008 8:53 PM

The media are such cowards. Thank goodness this group is coming together to expose McCain's disastrous economic policies, since the press obviously won't do it for them.

Posted by Blah | July 14, 2008 9:27 PM

Might I remind the lot of you, Bro LBJ Plundered SS. He was a Democrat. If he'd have left his greedy hands out of the pie it would still be solvent.. That pile of money was too tempting.. With the price of oil and the devaluation of the dollar. You won't have a pot to piss-in. If you would have had the opportunity to put some of that SS money in to a conservative personal savings account they would not have been able to get to it and the greedy politicians wouldn't have been able to rob your retirement.. Go cry somewhere else, the Government never does anything to make things better. Poor Democrats have been voting for Democrats for 50 years and they're still poor.. Wake up Americans..

Posted by DukeNukem | July 14, 2008 10:03 PM

DukeNukem gets Ronald Wilson Reagan's initials wrong. His post only becomes less coherent from there.

Posted by Circus Freak | July 14, 2008 10:48 PM

McCain has really turned into a contemptuous figure in this campaign. The sad thing is that so many in the media buy into his phony act, just like so many bought in Bush's act.

People, it's time to rise up in anger against McCain and let everyone we know just how dumb and wrong this man is; after the 8 years of Bush disaster we cannot afford another ignorant person in the White House who doesn't care about the people and just wants to start wars.

Posted by cm | July 14, 2008 11:27 PM

A big part of the reason that the social security thing hasn't happened is that most of the anti-privatization organizing was run through Hildebrand-Tewes, who now both work for Obama (along with basically all the staff they had) and don't have a lot of spare time.

Posted by Anonymous | July 14, 2008 11:32 PM

"McCain has really turned into a contemptuous figure in this campaign. The sad thing is that so many in the media buy into his phony act, just like so many bought in Bush's act.

People, it's time to rise up in anger against McCain and let everyone we know just how dumb and wrong this man is; after the 8 years of Bush disaster we cannot afford another ignorant person in the White House who doesn't care about the people and just wants to start wars."

Completely off-topic and not at all related to the discussion. Well done.

And for the person trying to claim that McCain's stance on social security is "disastrous," do some freaking research. I'm of course assuming that your comment was actually related to the topic at hand. Perhaps I'm giving you too much credit.

One more, legalizing Mexican workers? Seriously? Payroll tax is based on income generated. You can argue until you're blue in the face regarding why, but the recent wave of immigrants does not have (and won't anytime in the near future) the earning power to reverse the coming tide.

All of you need to do better.

Posted by Mike | July 15, 2008 12:05 AM

It doesn't exactly take much research to discover that even with no changes to the system and pessimistic economic assumptions people would still receive more in real dollars after the trust fund is completely depleted than they do today. This is with simply slashing benefits to match future receipts… not exactly my first choice but as a worst case scenario it’s hard to see how it would be the end of the world.

Do better Mike. Next time spend 5 minutes googling something before going around telling everyone how ignorant they are.

Posted by DJ | July 15, 2008 12:26 AM

lowercase mike here (well, one of 'em at least).

Medicare has some serious trouble Mike, Social Security has some very minor accounting difficulties, very very minor; although yes, it does suck that the government borrows from it and pretends it's not running as large deficits as it is.

Oh, by the way, I have "done the math."

Posted by mike | July 15, 2008 1:06 AM

I had a right-wing colleague at my office about 15 years ago who would climb up on the soapbox every now and then at lunch with his "Social Security will not be there for me" rant. Nothing would change his mind.

He's retired now, and collecting Social Security, just as I said he would be.

Posted by Mark In Ohio | July 15, 2008 8:23 AM

I'm of the mind that SS is a good program that needs tweaking. Yes, if we do nothing it will be solvent for another better-than-30-years - and we can do something to tweak it for the long haul.
I ask all of you who berate SS, What exactly is wrong with a social/economic program that protects the most vulnerable- the retired, the disabled and families of deceased payees? Doesn't the social fabric that binds our country depend on collective responsibility; especially for the most vulnerable?

Posted by koki | July 17, 2008 8:03 PM

I'm of the mind that SS is a good program that needs tweaking. Yes, if we do nothing it will be solvent for another better-than-30-years - and we can do something to tweak it for the long haul.
I ask all of you who berate SS, What exactly is wrong with a social/economic program that protects the most vulnerable- the retired, the disabled and families of deceased payees? Doesn't the social fabric that binds our country depend on collective responsibility; especially for the most vulnerable?

Posted by koki | July 17, 2008 8:04 PM

Why do the comments never actually analyze the personal account scheme?

If retirees receive their retirement money from Social Security their support will come from those working.

If retirees receive their retirement money from "personal accounts," that is, investments in financial markets, their support will come from those working.

No difference. If there's a problem with one way then the same problem exists for the other way.

But nobody, it seems, will ever look at the personal account scheme and see why it is fatally flawed (for reasons other than what is said just above.)

Financial markets are not magic money machines. They are markets. As markets they will obey the rules of market behavior - as they do now. When buyers outweigh sellers prices go up. When sellers outweigh buyers prices go down. [That's what you see, for individual transactions, in the ticker data at the bottom of some cable TV channel screens. Ordinary market function, prices being determined by the interaction of buyers and sellers.] There is no way, with US demographics as they are, to prevent an eventual situation in which sellers (retirees or their heirs) outweigh buyers (current workers) if the main retirement security system of the US is switched to investing in financial markets. When that situation comes about it will make prices go down. When prices go down they will do so for a long time, obliterating the claimed advantages of the "personal account" scheme. Plus taking the rest of the investors in the markets used down at the same time.

McCain is using a form of "bait and switch" (as Bush did earlier.) He'll point out a possible future situation ("problem") with Social Security, refuse to allow consideration of any practical means of dealing with it, and then trot out "personal accounts" as a guaranteed winning strategy. It ain't. It's pretty dead certain a guaranteed losing strategy.

Does McCain use Bush's weasel-word approach, or has he even gotten that far? (You know, "Personal accounts offer a chance to get a better return than that computed for Social Security.") Uh-huh. A "chance." Rather less than the chance of winning the Power Ball Jackpot, but a "chance."

(Responses that are drivel about historic market returns are, as indicated, drivel. That approach isn't an analysis, it's propaganda to deceive the unthinking.]

Posted by hewhoasks | July 17, 2008 10:48 PM

"Hildebrand-Tewes" isn't the reason Bush's scheme failed. Bush couldn't even get enough support from Republicans in Congress. The support Bush wanted was to FIRST get personal accounts approved/accepted and SECOND to reveal the actual details. Bush disguised this by saying he'd leave it to Congress to provide the details, but that was just cover language for the decision to not reveal details. That way nobody could actually analyze the scheme and see, from the details, why it would fail. Approval would be based, in the Bush plan, on the propaganda he mouthed, not on any sensible financial analysis. (Sensible financial analysis would show that the propaganda was untrue.) It was evil politics of the most disgusting kind - although not particularly outstanding in that regard, given that evil politics was (still is) administration SOP.

Thankfully, enough Republicans refused to go along with what Bush was trying to do to begin the destruction of Social Security.

Might as well point out that one of the common arguments for switching from Social Security as it is to a plan based on financial markets is that when annual surplus isn't enough to cover the annual increases in benefits paid it will be necessary to obtain the needed money from other taxes. Well, folks, when you borrow money you do have to repay it. (Alternately, those making that argument suggest that the government might default on repaying the trust fund. They never mention that it is politicians like themselves who are the most likely ones to try to engineer such a default. What they are really concerned about is not retirement security for American workers but avoiding having to pay any taxes to repay the debt owed to Social Security. They're probably right that some of those taxes will hit the rich but the tax increases were an obvious part of the plan from the first day. You borrow, you have to repay. Simple. Now they try to paint it as something far different.

Posted by hewhoasks | July 17, 2008 11:04 PM