McCain Sparks Controversy with Social Security 'Disgrace' Comments
By Jonathan Weisman and Michael D. Shear
blog.washingtonpost.com
John McCain once said economics was not his strong suit. Well, today, Social Security became a problem for the presumptive Republican nominee, too.
In remarks at a town hall meeting in Denver Monday, which are only now catching up to him, the presumptive Republican nominee laid out what he likes to call "a little straight talk."
"Americans have got to understand that we are paying present-day retirees with the taxes paid by young workers in America today. And that's a disgrace. It's an absolute disgrace, and it's got to be fixed," he said.
If that payment system is a disgrace, it has been one since Social Security was created during the Great Depression. For as long as the popular program has existed, today's workers have paid the benefits of today's retirees. Future problems are projected as Baby Boomers retire and the ratio of workers to retirees begins to shrink to levels that may not be able to support the benefits now promised. But the system has not changed since Franklin Delano Roosevelt created it.
Reaction to McCain's statement has been slow to burble, but it is beginning to burst.
"What I don't understand is why reporters don't ask: If Senator McCain doesn't want payroll taxes to fund Social Security (as has long been the case), then how does he propose to pay for it?" asked Reed Hundt, former chairman of the Federal Communications Commission and a Barack Obama supporter, on the Talking Points Memo blog. Matthew Yglesias, on the Atlantic magazine's blog, said McCain decided that urinating on the third rail of American politics would be a good idea. And the Democratic National Committee convened a conference call with union leaders and liberal economists to blast the Arizona senator's comments.
McCain sought to clarify his remarks this afternoon on the Straight Talk Express. Young people, he said, "are paying so much that they are paying into a system that they won't receive benefits from on its present track that its on, that's the point."
The Social Security trustees "have clearly stated its going to go bankrupt," he said, adding that this is what he meant when he called the system a disgrace. "I don't think that's right," he said. "I don't think it's fair, and I think it's terrible to ask people to pay in to a system that they won't receive benefits from. That's why we have to fix it." |
