What About Social Security Was McCain Calling a “Disgrace?”

“you will not have Social Security benefits that present-day retirees have unless we fix it”
It is a disgrace. What’s the problem with this straight talk?

McCain spoke the truth, it was not originally set up for people working now to pay for currecnt retirees, the money each person put in was to go to that person!
But anyhow libs are trying to scare people by distorting what McCain said.
Libs are disgraceful, where is Obama who pledged clean politics, oh thats right he flip-flopped on that too!!

“So…what exactly was McCain calling a disgrace?”
By my reading, McCain is criticizing the fact that SS is a pay as you go system that–given the aging of America–is going to collapse under its own weight.
It is a disgrace that for decades American’s have been lead to believe that they have been “paying into” Social Security, when in fact they have simply been paying to fund those currently receiving benefits.
It is more or less a Ponzi scheme, but long deemed the “third rail of politics,” none of our Washington representatives have spoken honestly about it, let alone tried to do anything about it. Except for John McCain.

spock: actually the system was set up for present day workers to pay for present day retirees. Think about the first day it started. If it was set up for a workers contribution to come back to themselves their wouldn’t have been payments for years.
The problems for many of us younger and middle aged people is that there are too many older voters who will only benefit by postponing the problems. Simple fixes are:
1.) raise the retirement age for everyone now (may limit to everyone under 60)
2.) change the system to allow people to postpone benefits to work longer (if they choose) for the economic benefit of both the worker and the ss system
3.) purge waste from the system – currently inefficient
4.) lower ss tax rate but remove the cap for a net increase in receipts but making workers below $100k more cost competitive to the rest of the world. This leads to increased number of workers.
5.) increase the number of highly educated young professionals who legally immigrate into the u.s. They are net benefit to the system.

Reagan “fixed” social security by doubling the payroll tax – which Reps and Dems alike then spent to finance everything BUT the Social Security Trust Fund. So there’s plenty of blame to go around. (In fact Reagan raided the fund to “balance” the budget upon the advice of none other than Alan Greenspan.)
How do we fix it? I think Obama is probably right with his plan to raise the payroll tax on higher income earners, but unless that money goes into the famous Gore-proposed lockbox, Washington will just spend it frivolously. I don’t agree with his plan that seniors earning under $50,000 pay zero income tax as those lost taxes are just more money to be made up by other taxpayers or cuts in services.
I also disagree with plans to privatize SS. The proposed 2% invested in personal accounts won’t amount to much considering the need to finance ever-increasing lifespans – plus the plans I’ve heard guarantee a minimum rate of return regardless of how stocks perform. If we can’t afford the current system, then how can we afford to finance failed investments? At any rate, McCain with a Dem Congress will never get privatization passed, so I’m not too worried about it.
It’s a mess, that’s for sure!

OK, here’s the best example of a massive problem with a McCain “reach across the aisle” fix. Immigration.
How’s that working out for ya?
Wouldn’t even vote for his own bill now, he says. Flip. Flop. Hippity. Hop.

oh and jake love how you drag talking points memo through the dirt
lol
at least they report,
i see stories for obama i see stories against obama,
i see stories for mccain i see stories against mccain on TPM
on here i see stories against obama
i see stories against mccain but also against obama, and i see stories that could go further and dig deaper and actually go after mccain, but they stop short with stupid question like your last line
do some stuff on mccain and maybe youll be elevated to the spot of muck raking blog

Why don’t you politicians quit raiding the fund for your pet projects, otherwise get rid of it.

geevil, that is not straight talk, but crude misunderstanding, straight ignorance of how social security works. Old McSame does not know economy.

Iran is a “grave threat”, according to BO today, after it tested long range missiles. Let it be recalled: Iran is not a threat because its size is much smaller than USSR, according to BO just one month ago.
According to BO, his position on anything, everything has been the same, only you less-educated people are cynical about what he says.

Oh, I’m sorry. Did I say McCain proposed no solutions to the demographic problem he calls a “disgrace.” Then I mentioned immigration? Maybe that is why he favored amnesty for all those payroll taxable aliens with their many children.
Maybe once he is done dropping cartons of Marlboro’s on Tehran, Mc Cain can send a pack of smokes a day to seniors to solve Social Security.
Hope v. Hapless

trust me McCain doesn’t know what he is saying when it comes to this stuff.
Jake you know that early in the campaign he was HORRIBLE at economics questions…
and he is still horrible…
I’ll have a beer with him…but I don’t want him in the white house.

Again, all we get from MSM is minor coverage on the failings of John McCain. Has anyone lost their seat on the McCain plane yet? Has anyone in MSM got kahoonies enough to speak up at a level strong enough to get the attention of the country? We have another incompetent running for president, and he’s getting a pass!!

The disgrace is that this Ponzi scheme wasn’t dismantled years ago and totally privatized.
The municipal workers in Tx who found a way out of it retired with twice what anyone else gets and you young folks will be totally screwed thanks to the dems..not the republicans, the dems..LBJ put SS trust funds under general revenues so he could fund his “war on poverty”. That’s where the blame lies from day one and continues today.
This sytem can STILL be privatized, turned into the type of system the congress and all the Fed employees enjoy, it can be done with an age indexed turn over over a 20 year time span,but again, the dems won’t do it because they will lose control of you, you won’t be dependant on their nanny state…I hope you kids wake up and send these democrat bums packing. You will save everything they worked for.
Ask a pol if he’d run by saying he will take 13% of every dime you earn and give you some back if you make it to 70, but keep it if you don’t, I dare them to answer.

The real disgrace is how the federal government continues to raid the SS funds to fund itself. The other disgrace is he is pandering. McCain and his rich wife couldn’t care less about how average americans made ends meet. They have never experienced needing government assistance so they have absolutely no connection to average americans. However, he will gladly pander to you today for a vote on Tuesday 11/4/08.

We’re not even funding Social Security anymore. We’re borrowing against it to pay for a war that McCain has no hesitation of continuing.

Why does McCain care anyway. He has no interest in keeping SS strong after he’s gone. The whole Republican mindset is to amass as much wealth as they can for themselves, leave everybody else out to dry and justify it by saying GOD wants them to be rich and prosperous.
Yeah, tell that to Jesus.

I think Gitlin’s response is the most important one in the article. Why don’t the major networks [ALL of them] consider this amazing and frighteneing criticism of our Social Security system by a presidential candidate a major story? Somehow — probably without even being aware of it — it’s been decided that a McCain presidency will be more rewarding for media than would an Obama presidency, so they are giving McCain a free ride, slack from a rope that isn’t anchored anywhere. {It’s the same self-interest that had them egregiously favoring Obama over Clinton a few months back. Their irresponsibility cuts all ways.) Makes me want to puke.

There is no disgrace. There is only rank political opportunism by McCain. The Social Security crisis does not exist. Right now, the trust fund is growing, building up a surplus that will be used, as planned, for funding boomers’ retirements. Based on current, conservative projections (for example, they use economic growth rates over the next 40 years that are lower than any 40 year period in US history), this money is fully adequate until around 2044, and they are fully adequate FOREVER if 1) our economic growth rate is only .5% higher than projected, or 2) the payin is increased by, for example, the extra payin by people making more than $250,000/year, as Obama has (responsibly) proposed.
So there is no need for a big solution, and there is no benefit for private accounts. Of course, McCain wants to undermine Social Security and create private accounts, so $1Trillion can be diverted to his buddies on Wall Street. So he yells and yells about a “crisis.”
McCain. Just like Bush. Maybe just a bit less honest.

McCain, like most wealthy conservative Republicans, hates Social Security.
Maybe, one of these days, the media will report that basic fact.

The disgrace to which McCain refers is that younger workers, who do their part for society today, will, unfairly, not be rewarded with those very same benefits, themselves, as seniors later in life, which they currently help provide to retirees.

McCain, by his own admission, knows little about the economy. (How he can justify not learning about it sooner, after all his years in Congress voting on many issues that affect the economy, is another question.) Here he has glaringly shown his ignorance of how Social Security was designed to operate.

Part of the SS problem is Senator Mccain and others like him – who collect SS benefits to the tune of 24,000.00 a year and who most assuredly do NOT need it.

It’s a disgrace nothing is being done to fix it just like the oil drilling situation. The liberals always say how the fix won’t take place until 10 years down the road. 10 years later nothing has been done and they use the same excuse.
Posted by: geevill | Jul 9, 2008 3:31:04 PM
The republicans controlled all branches of government house, senate and presidency for years prior to 2006. So why didn’t they do it then? Because they are pandering hypocrites.
I’m John McCain and I approve this message.