John McCain labels the Social Security system a ‘total disgrace’

July 9, 2008

It’s possible John McCain decided he doesn’t really want to be president after all. It’s a tough, demanding job, and maybe McCain came to the conclusion he’s just not up to the task. It seemed like a good idea to him last year, but maybe he bit off more than he could chew. It’s too late for McCain to bow out, but he can ensure his defeat by saying the most breathtakingly dumb things imaginable.

Take Social Security, for example, one of the most popular and successful government programs in American history. McCain recently said he supports privatizing the system. Then he said, he doesn’t want to privatize the system. Then he said he would privatize the system, he just doesn’t want it to be called privatization.

Listening to him talk, it sounded as if John McCain, after more than a quarter-century in Congress, simply didn’t know how the Social Security system works. And this week, McCain proved that he simply doesn’t know how the Social Security system works. Here’s what he told a town-hall audience in Denver on Monday:

“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.”

OK, let’s take a deep breath here. Social Security is a pay-as-you-go system. Current workers pay into the system to provide benefits for retirees, and when those workers retire, the next generation will pay their benefits. That’s what Social Security is. That’s how it works. That’s how it’s always worked.

If McCain wants to argue that privatization is a good idea, fine. He’s wrong, but we can have the debate (again). But it appears that McCain is desperately in need of some kind of remedial Government 101 education, because he literally described the Social Security system as a “total disgrace.”

At this point, John McCain is starting to make George W. Bush look like a sophisticated policy wonk.

Now, I know what you’re thinking. Maybe McCain just slipped up. He was tired and said something he didn’t mean to say. This couldn’t possibly reflect his feelings on the Social Security system. He knows he’d lose Florida if it got out that he considers the system a “total disgrace.”

But it’s true. Here’s how he talked about Social Security on CNN yesterday morning:

“On the privatization of accounts, which you just mentioned, I would like to respond to that. I want young workers to be able to, if they choose, to take part of their own money which is their taxes and put it in an account which has their name on it. Now, that’s a voluntary thing, it’s for younger people, it would not affect any present-day retirees or the system as necessary. So let’s describe it for what it is. They pay their taxes and right now their taxes are going to pay the retirement of present-day retirees. That’s why it’s broken, that’s why we can fix it.” [emphasis added]

It’s literally breathtaking. As Nick Baumann put it, “McCain is saying, again, that the problem with Social Security is that Social Security is Social Security, instead of something else.”

I know many political debates focus on subjective matters of opinion, but let’s make this abundantly clear: what McCain is saying doesn’t make any sense. It’s complete and total nonsense. The poor man is utterly clueless.

As for what happens next, my reaction was the same as publius’:

…I’m hoping that an intrepid member of the press corps will ask John “Details” McCain a simple question: “You said that the way Social Security has been funded for the past 75 years is a ‘total disgrace.’ In your view, how exactly should it be funded?” And if he starts mumbling about private accounts and market returns, the reporter should follow up by asking how he intends to cover the short-term resulting gap.

Quite right. Keep in mind, however, that McCain made his “total disgrace” comment in a town-hall meeting, with a phalanx of reporters in tow, and not one of them reported on his comments in any way. Literally, zero.

If the Obama campaign and the DNC don’t take advantage of this, they’re missing a huge opportunity. McCain has made a campaign-changing mistake.

Update: The video of McCain’s comment is online.

If people stopped listening to so much rap music, and instead married more beer heiresses, they wouldn’t NEED social security.

  • I am speechless….he’s seriously starting to make Bush look relatively smart and intelligent.

  • The meme so popularized during the 2000 election (remember the Social Security “lock box”?) is that the Social Security system is broken. It’s not. It’s strong and viable for years to come. At some point, it will start paying out more than it receives, and it would be better to make sensible plans for that eventuality, but right now it is the most stable economic institution we have. It far more stable than any Wall Street firm or corporation. It is more stable than the banking or insurance industry. It is far more stable than Medicare or Medicaid. It is more stable (and useful) than the litany of farm and corporate subsidies we pay for. And it is more stable than our energy future. Social Security represents a huge gusher of money for capitalists who so far haven’t figured out a way to tap it. That’s what privatization is all about.

  • I look at the millions of Americans who have lost everything BUT their Social Security, due to the “rape of America” by the 401-K criminal cabal—and then I see that Mr. Keating Five now wants to give the Social Security benefit to the “alternative retirement program” serial rapists, as well.

    Why does a man that can hate America so much want to be America’s president?

    Unless, of course, he’s really one of the terrorists….

  • McCain has made a campaign-changing mistake.

    He could call his wife a cunt on camera and it wouldn’t be a campaign-changing mistake.
    The media wants a nail-biting horse race…
    They will report whatever it takes to make it neck and neck going into the final turn for home.

  • John McCain says the Social Security program is a “total disgrace” one day after saying that the American economy is in “shambles”. Why does John McCain hate America? Next he’ll be saying the War in Iraq is a mistake!

  • So McSame, is the fact that the money you pay for insurance that is used to pay other people’s covered expenses a disgrace? Is the fact that you pay taxes that are used to pay for infrastructure work in places that you will never visit a disgrace? Is the fact that you put money into a savings account that is then used to give loans to other people a disgrace? Because in my mind, Social Security is acting the same way as these things (in particular the last one). Maybe there are other examples that are better or make more sense than these. I’d love to here them and have them ready for the next moron that spouts the kind of nonsense that McSame is spouting.

  • I’m sure that McCain would like to bring back the system that worked so well when he was a child in the middle ages.

    “Bring out yer dead!”

  • I’ve said before that to me has that deer-in-the-headlights, how-the-fuck-did-I-get-myself-into-this? look on his face whenever you see him now. He wanted to be nominated and fawned over at the convention, he wanted to elected and inaugurated…but there is no interest, desire or passion to actually BE the President. He wants the pomp but not the work. He wants to be a Queen Elizabeth who can bomb someone. If elected, he would get to drop his bombs then step aside and let the Republican Party’s real choice (his VP) take over. He looks freaked out and terrified by the the thought of actually having to BE the President. He’s in way over his not very smart head and it shows.

    John McCain has been presented as a straight talking, maverick, lone wolf for years just like the dime novels that created Buffalo Bill’s legend.

    John McCain is like Diana Ross. The IDEA of Dina Ross is great. In reality, she kind of sucks. Well in reality, he kind of sucks, too.

  • He wanted to be nominated and fawned over at the convention, he wanted to elected and inaugurated…but there is no interest, desire or passion to actually BE the President. He wants the pomp but not the work. He wants to be a Queen Elizabeth who can bomb someone. If elected, he would get to drop his bombs then step aside and let the Republican Party’s real choice (his VP) take over. He looks freaked out and terrified by the the thought of actually having to BE the President. He’s in way over his not very smart head and it shows.

    That’s the most accurate description of George W Bush that I’ve ever…

    Oh crap, you were talking about McCain, weren’t you?

    Damn – he really is running for Bush’s third term isn’t he? I now fully expect him to name Dick Cheney as his Veep.

    (Actually, McCain is different from Bush in one very glaring respect here – Bush loves to campaign. That seems to be the highlight of his life – going out to thousand-dollar-a-plate dinners, cracking jokes on the stump, finding ways to smear opponents – he loves that stuff. McCain seems to hate it. At least there’s one thing he can point to to differentiate himself from W.)

  • Social Security privatization is just one of McCain’s “Flippity-flops”

    (Flippity-flop = not a traditional flip-flop, but for example it’s when you say you are against privatization, but then say you are for something else, but that something else ends up being the very definition of privatization)

    Another example of a McCain flippity-flop: On climate policy he’s for cap-and-trade, as long as the caps are not actual caps.

  • It will take a real grassroots effort to get this out to the public. Although I see cracks in the shields the Corp Media has wielded for McCain, this one is too big to let out.

  • This is where it is important to consider how Hon. Sen. McCain went from the mavericky Senator he was to the craven, inanity he is today. My thesis is that he really, really wants to be President; and he’s deathy afraid that being himself will lead to a repeat of the defeat he suffered in 2000 (the memory of which he still suffers from today). Thus I posit that he has abandoned his ego (in the sense of his sense of self) and now channels his advisors and contributors (to the degree that these are separate).

  • One of the enduring mantras of the Reagan Reaction has been the bankruptcy of Social Security and the need to privatize it. But one needs to look no further than the present economic problems being spawned by the sub-prime loan crisis. It’s all about consolidation of wealth and screwing the folks on the bottom.
    The new buzz phrase on right wing radio is ‘american exceptionalism’. This is from the folks who talk about Obama’s elitism. Just as with Social Security, they love to toss around non sequitur phrases that generate false imagery to obfuscate the truth.

  • If the way social security has been funded for the past 75 years a total disgrace, then why are we here, 75 years later, with a system that if left totally alone is projected by the actuaries to be finacially sound for another 75 years?

    And in 75 years, will the system be financially sound for another 75 years after that? Probably, as long as the basic funding mechanism – pay as you go – is left alone.

    IF the arguments of the right were valid, the the projected time for social security to fail would be getting closer with each passing year, and that has not happened, nor is it projected to happen.

    I can think of a couple of scenarios where social security might begin to fail – negative population growth, and failure to fund the system. Barring some calamitous planetary event, I doubt we are going to experience negative population growth. But financial failure of social security will be guaranteed if money starts being funneled away from the trust fund and into personal/private accounts. The right wishes to set up a self-fullfilling system of failure.

  • You’d think that in mentioning the disgraces of Social Security, McCain might also mention Congress’s habit of raiding the Social Security trust fund to mask the deficit.

    Another disgrace Senator McCain might mention is the current National Debt. It was 5.6 trillion dollars when Bush took office, it is now approaching 9.5 trillion. Debt service alone costs half a trillion dollars annually. It was a Republican president with a Republican Congress who voted most of that increase but, that’s a disgrace that goes unmentioned.

    In my case, they’ve been taking my money for Social Security for forty-four years. They even raised the Social Security deduction substantially with the explicit promise that the increase would pay for my benefits. Apparently, reneging on that promise isn’t a mentionable disgrace either.

  • The Obama campaign should start running TV ads in Floriduh immediately, and saturate the Miami area with McSame’s stupidity. All those Jewish grandmothers who are worried about Israel might just decide they’ll go with the ‘schwartzer’.

  • The media wants a nail-biting horse race…

    I’m beginning to wonder if its more than a thirst for ratings that comes with a close race, and also about wanting to deny a President Obama a strong popular mandate from electorate, thus diminishing his political power with respect to the next Congress.

  • Can we have our cake and eat it too?

    I realize the debate about SS privatization is disingenuous on the Republican side. And I won’t advocate for it. But what about a national savings plan? Is that such a bad idea? That’s basically all the Republicans are really advocating for, except they want to ditch SS once the private accounts are set up.

    Everyone receiving a paycheck can elect to have a pre-tax percentage deducted from their paycheck (or not at all) up to a certain percentage. The investment options could be as narrow as savings bonds, or as wide as international mutual funds or even the stock market. Though I’d like to imagine that we’re all patriotic enough to want to get our country out of foreign debt and therefore only make savings bonds or other government securities available for investment.

    I wish someone were advocating for this….

  • JT, we currently have national private savings accounts of the type you suggest. They are called IRAs. They are voluntary.

    What the administration wants is to take money away from social security, because that is the primary way to guarantee the failure of the social security system.

  • JT — Al Gore was advocating for that in 2000. Of course, it didn’t matter, because his face looked orange and he was sighing a lot and oh, that other guy looks like I can have a beer with him so I’ll vote for him elections don’t matter LOL…

  • OK. But SS has some problems:
    1. It will begin running a deficit in about 10 years. How do we make up the deficits? The IOU has no funds. So, who gets taxed to pay the deficits (fund the IOU)?
    2. In many cases poor and lower middle class young are paying the benefits of rich americans. Some people can with some justification call this a disgrace. If you are progressive, how do you defend this regressive tax?
    3. Some of the “fixes” in SS turned on the self employed. I pay double taxation, the so called self employment tax. So, I am paying 15% on an income that is 100 X less than some executive who pays 7.5% on himself and his multi billion dollar company pays the other 7.5% on the first 90+ thousand dollars in their income. Please tell me how fair this extremely regressive tax is?
    4. Congress continues to “borrow” from the SS surplus to help make up deficits in the general fund. Part of this operating deficit results from Bush’s tax cuts on the rich. So, my double taxation on SS, medicare and medicaid is helping to give the rich a tax cut on their income. Please, tell me how this is fair.

    I am sure McCain ain’t got the fix and he may not even be addressing the real problems with the system. But, don’t use that to sugar coat a flawed system.

  • John McCain is an intellectual total disgrace. This man has proven himself to be as hollow, shallow, ignorant and stupid as George Bush. Worse, we can’t call attention to this fact because he gets the war hero exemption from any criticism.

    We’re in danger of putting this guy in charge for another horrific four years. There’s no telling what his shoot-from-the-hip intellectual style might blast out next. It might even resonate with the general public.

    I hate to say it, but what he’s pointed out here could gain some traction. In effect, he’s telling younger workers that the federal government is stealing from them in order to pay cushy benefits to seniors, preventing them from securing their own retirement benefits with their own money, as only they know how to do. It has some appeal to the sound bite crowd, aka, the vast majority of us.

    This man is just plain dangerous. I’m not kidding. He scares me.

  • @jhm #14
    There’s a faulty premise there, in that you’re assuming that McCain was a “maverick” at any point. He is what he has always been. He’s an old guy with a sugar momma who got elected to Congress because he couldn’t become a General. Just like Bush, he has a serious inferiority complex and wants to find some way to outshine his father. Just like Bush, he has always been eager to hang out and party with successful people that he can never be. He spent the 80’s working to shield the Keating 5, just like Bush worked to benefit Ken Lay. Both got the press to re-write their own personal histories to be only peripherally involved in these business-as-usual pay to play political scandals. McCain has more in common with W. than just having the same, tired, worthless policy ideas.

  • The theory of private accounts sounds nice.

    But who does the actual investing of your money in the stock market? A subsidiary of Halliburton that got a no-bid contract? Who pays the fees the brokers charge? The individual taxpayer. And how much of your money will be eaten up by these fees?

    Who watches to prevent fraud and abuses? When millions or perhaps billions of dollars are pumped into the stock market this could will lead to some major stock manipulation and losses to the “account holder” all the while the brokers are reaping millions in fees and paying minimal taxes in capital gains.

    When millions of government dollars are in the hands of individuals, fraud and abuses are next to impossible to prevent and those that are invested in the “Private Accounts” will be the biggest loosers with nothing to fall back on.

  • 23.On July 9th, 2008 at 10:03 am, lou said:
    OK. But SS has some problems:
    1. It will begin running a deficit in about 10 years. How do we make up the deficits? The IOU has no funds. So, who gets taxed to pay the deficits (fund the IOU)?
    …..
    I am sure McCain ain’t got the fix and he may not even be addressing the real problems with the system. But, don’t use that to sugar coat a flawed system.

    This is basically like saying, what do my kids do for college if I borrow all the money from their college fund and don’t pay it back? The system isn’t flawed, the system works fine. You are the problem. In the case of Social Security, the system is set up with more than enough money but Congress keeps borrowing the surplus. They will either pay the IOUs back from general taxation or more likely adjust the intake for the SS system so future employees are paying more than they should have because Congresses of the last 27 years couldn’t balance a damned budget. The system isn’t flawed, the idiots we elect to govern us are.

  • John McCain: Maverick? Or mouthy whiny bully who can’t follow orders?

    In the GOP, apparently it’s to-may-to, to-mah-to

  • lou:

    1. Social Security will soon begin paying out more than is coming in, yes, but it has been building up a massive surplus for over 25 years to meet that need. The increase in payroll taxes paid by baby boomers was sold by Reagan in the 80’s as the way to prevent youngsters from having to pay more than their fair share in payroll taxes to support the baby boom generation’s entry into the social security system. So baby boomers have paid in way more than was necessary for the retirees of their generation to build this surplus up so there would be enough in the fund to cover their increased strain on the system. Now the time has come to use that surplus that the baby boomers built up for their own retirement. Don’t blame my generation.

    Where the problem comes in is the deficit. This is a problem for current income tax payers, but it has nothing to do with the way the social security system has been funded through FICA taxes. It has to do with the fiscal irresponsibility of the Reagan, Bush1, and Bush2 administrations constant deficit spending, and increasing debt.

    2. The way the benefit formula works favors poor and lower income workers far more than the rich. A worker making an average of $10200 per year will have about 79% of that income replaced by his benefits at retirement. A worker whose average income is $37,000 will have about 45% of that income replaced at retirement. So the worker who paid in more gets less as a percentage of income back in return. The reasoning behind this inequity is that the higher end wage earner has the ability and opportunity to save and create other retirement investment vehicles than a low end wage earner has because he is presumed to have more disposable income, and that he will invest it wisely for his own future benefit. You can read up on it at http://www.ssa.gov.

    3. Every employee pays half and every employer pays half of the social security tax. You have choosen to wear both hats, employer and employee. [I was self-employed, too.] As an employer, you get to deduct the employer’s half as a business expense. You are not paying double taxation.

    4. Congress borrows nothing from the social security trust fund. By law, the trust funds are dedicated to payment of benefits and expenses of the social security program. Again, the problem comes in because of the deficit spending done by republican administrations over the past 25+ years. The surplus in the social security trust is, however, being used to mask a large part of the deficit, because of an accounting trick called the unified budget. This accounting trick has been employed by all administrations since at least the 70’s, rebublican and democratic alike.

    Social security may have some problems, but the problems are not those that the right has been trying so desperately to sell. I hope you will learn what you will get from social security when you retire or heaven forbid, become disabled, or die with dependents left who need financial support. Don’t throw out the baby with the bath water.

  • the fascist criminal phux want to loot Social Security because it it the last untapped pool of public capital left in the WORLD…it sits there and it taunts them…the are obsessed with stealing ALL that money.
    And don’t think any different: any and every effort to “reform” Social Security is a camouflaged effort to steal every fuuuking cent…

    Social Security is like the Constitution. Yeah, it’s inadequate, and creaky, and of another generation…but it’s all we got, and all we’re gonna get, ever, from the oligarchs and autocrats running the place. just leave ti the PHUQUE alone, goddamn it…

  • Damn – he really is running for Bush’s third term isn’t he? I now fully expect him to name Dick Cheney as his Veep.

    This, by the way, is my personal tinfoil-hat nightmare. The Constitution says you can’t be President more than twice, but it says nothing about being Vice President. Over the past 8 years, Cheney has run all the strands of government through his office. Since they’re planning to steal the election anyway, why not name Cheney and have him be Vice President for life…?

  • ANy reform proposed by ANY politician–McCaint or Barry-O, especially– for security is a certain recipe for reducing the benefits for the people it is supposed to help, while increasing the amount the private sector can steal.

    That’s all any attempt at reform is. ANY reform from congress or the ShiteHouse will have the ultimate consequence of reducing benefits to recipients who’ve supported the system.

    Any pol who recommends ANY ‘Social Security Reform’ Should be stripped naked, flogges, det on a rail-road tie, tarred, and feathered and run the phuque out of town…

  • IOU,
    Of course SS has some problems. Actually, it has one problem: The Republicans’ resistance to any kind of progressive taxation. Over the years, a supposedly progressive income tax system has become more and more regressive, in that nearly everybody from rich to poor pays roughly the same proportion of their income. Originally, rich people paid more and poor people paid less, but Republican tinkering over the years (read Perfectly Legal by David Cay Johnston) has nearly eliminated that. If taxation became progressive again, some of the problems you list (which are not actually problems with Social Security) would be eliminated. Don’t conflate fiscal irresponsibility (i.e. tax breaks for rich people) with the Social Security system itself.

  • IOU said: “I am sure McCain ain’t got the fix and he may not even be addressing the real problems with the system.” Well, that’s the understatement of the year. Look closely at what McCain said:

    “I want young workers to be able to, if they choose, to take part of their own money which is their taxes and put it in an account which has their name on it. Now, that’s a voluntary thing, it’s for younger people, it would not affect any present-day retirees or the system as necessary.”

    There are only two ways of allowing young workers to “take part of their own money which is their taxes and put it in an account which has their name on it.” 1) let them divert a portion of their taxes that is not going to Social Security; or 2) let them divert a portion of their taxes that is going to Social Security. The first option would aggravate the existing deficit (even more than McCain’s existing proposals) by taking money away from the Feds: either you get to invest your money in a retirement fund or the Gov’t can spend it on bombs; you can’t do both. The second would basically wreck the existing Social Security system because (as McCain says) “right now their taxes are going to pay the retirement of present-day retirees.” But that would be completely contrary to McCain’s claim that his proposal “would not affect any present-day retirees or the system as necessary.” So which is it?

    The worst part is, I don’t think he even understands the problem he’s talking about. I would feel better if I thought he was just a lying, double-talking politician, but I think he’s really as clueless as he appears.

  • Social Security, I love this subject because for me it will be a reality with in a few short years. So my personal reflections are of many dimensions and love to talk about the serious misrepresentations by Mainstream Media and politicians. It is a long essay of ideals but try to think through, I think many of you will agree with me.

    America, Global economics tell us that this age is producing the largest retiring group of a population ever recorded in history. For a capitalistic system a huge consumer market that is ready to open up into a system that is already stressed with economic problems will occur. But, Boomers as that part of the system could save it self, and promote Democracy according to the Constitutional advantages of a free society. The reality, politicians know this is a powerful economic engine rolling over into the future and are posturing now for the power grab.

    To a politician that is a concern for several reasons. Two jump out to me: one the new retiring class has a fundemental income designed to be given back to millions of American’s and in other countries the same is likely to happen. Two, this retired electorate is capable of changing tide of politics if they don’t get a reasonable return on their Social Security.

    Because Boomers will be able to create over sight and fine tune the mismanagement of government poor over sight and huge corruption due to loyalty secrets and profiteering that a major portion of the American population has been screwed out their fair share. Here, presented in the argument of fair taxation and deliberate job manipulations by political means that omitted with deliberate intentions to leave out inherent rights of the citizen. Oh yes our Supreme Court is guiltily of avoiding this simple right to the electorate for generations.

    Ladies and Gentleman it is absolutely a deception to say government has no control over a free economy while Presidential candidates continue to rant how they will create millions of job.

    Very simple and clear, Social Security is O.K. but has several problems; one serious problem is the value of each account. A horrible omission and a deliberate dupe to the ordinary citizen to think there was no interest formed on any monies taken and stored for Social Security redistribution is a huge misconception. Consider that after time moves through all the storms of business cycles that are definitely controlled by the government and legislation are retroactively proportioned inherent adjustments for each citizen. If this is not done to account for living conditions very simply abuse and investigations that would likely result in a huge condemnation and neglect by long time politicians will likely occur. All will result in massive convictions and failed policies that result in convictions to fines and jail sentences for long time politicians. This could also involve favorite types Democratic or Republican. Actually Social Security is “THE” issue. That’s why Iraq is a tough Republican problem, Americans simply can’t afford it.

    Each America citizen has more money then they think in return for Social Security. Those Boomers who started working in the sixties have amassed a fortune with the proper adjustments to be paid out at this time. Actually many Americans have been screwed for many decades.

    For me, reflecting back to my mother who was dying of cancer at the same time she was applied for social security disability benefits but was denied and died a few months later. One might think those benefits would roll over to family members, but no. Here is an irresponsible cultural denial of the most important social ideal. Here, I proclaim my personal “citizen’s executive privilege” was breached with intent and misguided affects that appear in basic tyranny.

    It is so angry to think a president a can have his own inherent privileges too far greatly above and beyond the law of the ordinary citizen. This called executive privilege with the same but opposite reality that is posed on the citizen. Here my argument is analogous but the value is substitute with information or knowledge rather then money. As a president to anyone he chooses such as Karol Rove to give executive privilege to reject or denied questioning by America Congress representatives of the electorate. Much more in value is a stake here compared to my personal Social Security. Actually it involves everyone’s Social Security benefit.

    To deny an electorates right to family members “honest earned” Social Security money is irresponsible breach of the citizen’s inherent rights in the Constitution. Also to deny the ability to talk and ask questions to a member of the government that is responsible and likely tied to bad or false judgments is a crime which definitely are inherent factors that need to be addressed in the living life time of individuals involved. Please not suppressed and buried for decades to be lost forever.

    Here is a good one. Where as we the people determine that all money with interest retroactively be calculated and paid in properly designed Social Security benefits that will be above the poverty level will commence immediately.

    In the event executive privilege is exercised by the president to individuals like Karol Rove to prevent public discourse to protect the president from false or corrupt actions the citizens have a right to grieve this and challenge the issue to result in, confinement to Karol Roves private residence at minimum. Secure and suspend all public money payrolls and benefits especially special interest groups and for retirement to all administration individuals connected to this alleged fraud, including the president, suspend the president’s ability to sign on any spending forward. Suspend and censure all public speaking in the public electromagnetic domain for all involved. Create a million dollar a day fine for every day the executive action. Or considered a breach, is in effect while open public hearing is held to solve the issue at the Congressional level to administer convictions and punishments that are final and relieve the supreme court of any involvement.

    With that said our balance in the deficit should be paid off very rapidly…with a very robust economy for America…

  • Of course McCain sees fault with a lot of things now that he is running for president. How many votes did Johnny Boy cast that made things the way they are?

    All talk McCain, no action!

  • Just an FYI, McCain called it an “absolute disgrace”, not a “total disgrace”. I imagine the meanings are equivalent but it’s best to keep the direct quote correct.

  • John McCain, Bush, Cheney, their administration, and the entire GOP is a disgrace. No news here!

    VOTE DEMOCRAT and be aware people that the next president will more than likely be able to appoint as many as three justices to the Supreme Court.

    Strict, conservative, evangelical, far right-wing republican justices WOULD BE A NIGHTMARE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!…and do even more damaged to this country.

  • I think McCain is probably referring to the changes to SS in the 1960’s that moved revenue to the general fund and changed accounting so SS revenue “counted” against the national debt. At least, that seems the most reasonable explanation for his unhappiness that money from workers is used to pay retirees.

    Both changes were cheap accounting tricks by politicians who were looking to spend more money without raising taxes or increasing the perceived deficit (apparently people used to care about that kind of thing).

    But that was 40 years ago. And if he wants to set aside a lump sum to cover already paid for benefits and start putting new SS revenue into that account, he should just say so. He’d get some support. Trashing the entire program doesn’t make any sense at all, politically or economically.

  • Calling for the campaign yesterday, I ran across a retired Naval officer a few years older than McCain, who told me that the reason you see no naval officers out there publicly supporting McCain (the only ex-military you see are all former Hair Farce lifer morons like Bud Day) is because he’s everything career naval officers hate: an incompetent who was only there because of the accident of his birth, who was advanced beyond his capabilities.

    But he’s staying “in character” – an incompetent only there because of the accident of his birth – just like Georgie. How Republicans think that becoming President trumps a lifetime record in incapacity, inability and incompetence is beyond me, but then I’m just a member of the reality-based community, not the we-can-make-it-up-and-it-will-be-true gaggle of morons.

  • Just one more example of the conservative philosophy of “I’ve got mine so fuck you.”

  • Does anyone notice that JSMcC*n’ts assertion that Social Security is broken is basically a slam at St. Ronald Reagan? After all, it was St. RR who ‘fixed’ Social Security by collecting more in FICA taxes than we needed to pay current retirees.

    Of course, it was also St. RR who ran up huge deficits and hid part of them by using the Social Security “Trust (yah, sure) Fund” surplus and accounting gimicry.

    This is like the Republican’t promise that Boy George II’s tax cuts would expire in 2011 so our deficit wouldn’t explode with the Baby Boomer Retirement in return for getting a deeper rate cut. Now maybe if the newly inriched upper class had actually invested that in job creation in America, our tax base would have grown so much we wouldn’t really need to let the tax cuts expire.

    BUT THEY DIDN’T. So they shouldn’t get to keep their tax cuts.

    Never accept a Republican’ts promise that he will be good in the future. Either he’s lying or he’ll be replaced by some punk staffer who’ll not fulfill the first creep’s promise.

  • Social Security maybe popular though I haven’t seen much polling, but that’s only because Americans are economically brain dead. McCain said something unfortunate however totally true. Social Security is nothing more than a ponzi scheme. It taxes us and gives us a return on our investment of less than 2% per annum. Furthermore, our employers are taxed with no return. If you think this is a good program it’s only because you are as braind dead economically as the rest of the country.

    http://theeprovocateur.blogspot.com/2007/12/update-while-story-about-obama-getting.html

  • Your right someone should ask him why he called it a disgrace. But I bet he will just deny he ever said it. That has been his MO, before he does the flip-flop he denies he ever said he said wether there is video or not.

  • 32: On July 9th, 2008 at 10:54 am, anon, too said:

    “1. Social Security will soon begin paying out more than is coming in, yes, but it has been building up a massive surplus for over 25 years to meet that need.”

    This massive surplus is nothing more than an IOU. There are no funds stored away. The surplus has been spent! It wasn’t just used as an accounting measure to offset unified budgetary deficits. There no “there” there! Why do you think Al Gore campaigned about putting a lock box on the surplus funds? The only way that these IOUs will be cashed and utilized in the future is for them to be repaid in the form of new taxes.

    Ask just about any politician in Washington about these IOUs and I’ll bet none of them will give you a straight answer about them. And the democrats are the worse about the Republicans at lying about the “surplus” and stating there will be no problem until 2045. We will need to start cashing in the IOUs in about 10 years. The question remains — who will pay the taxes to put the IOUs back in the box?

    “2. The way the benefit formula works favors poor and lower income workers far more than the rich.”

    In a pay as you go system, some taxes currently collected from the poor are going into the pockets of the rich. You also assume that the system will also be solvent when the time comes for the young poor to collect their benefits. Ask any young person about this. Almost universally they do not think the system will be there for them to collect.

    “3. Every employee pays half and every employer pays half of the social security tax. You have choosen to wear both hats, employer and employee. [I was self-employed, too.] As an employer, you get to deduct the employer’s half as a business expense. You are not paying double taxation.”

    I am absolutely paying double the 7.5 % rate that an individual that works for a company pays. Every cent of my 15% taxation is derived from my own sweat. In comparison, a big company has the combined resources of thousands of workers plus billions of dollars in investments and income to pay for the employer portion.

    I can deduct the employer’s half on my income. But a deduction offsets but a small percentage of that 7.5%.

    “4. Congress borrows nothing from the social security trust fund. By law, the trust funds are dedicated to payment of benefits and expenses of the social security program. Again, the problem comes in because of the deficit spending done by republican administrations over the past 25+ years.”

    See comments on 1 above. Again, the massive surplus is a mirage. The bulk of it has been spent by Congress. Nothing remains but IOUs in a file in Washington.

    If a deficit in not on the horizon, then why did Obama propose raising the cap on what is taxed?

  • Lou said: “In a pay as you go system, some taxes currently collected from the poor are going into the pockets of the rich.”

    That’s an amusing conceit. If one stated, just for fun, that the dollar paid by the losest earning worker goes to pay the social security of the poorest recipient, and the dollar paid by the highest earning CEO goes to pay the social security of the richest recipient, would that make you happy?

    It’s like the people who cheat on their taxes by the amount they claim is used to pay for all the programs they disapprove of.

  • Why do people think a working Social Security program is more immoral than letting old people rot in poverty?

  • “…young workers to be able to, if they choose, to take part of their own money which is their taxes and put it in an account which has their name on it. …”

    Duh…that’s what SS does. There’s ignorant and then there’s stupid. Has McCain got the press so intimidated and blackmailed with the threat of no access that they are simply too afraid to challenge his ridiculous comments???

    Keep in mind lou…comment 49 that few people if any know how much of the SS fund money is actually there, has been there, or is illegally being used (like borrowing money from the company treasury, buying dope, selling it, then replacing the money and continuing doing the same thing off the profits made from that 1st “loan”) Bush/Cheney have operated in secrecy about most everything so these unchecked SS funds may not even be there…for sure..who knows?

  • According to the Office of Management and Budget under the Clinton Administration in 1999:

    ” These [trust fund] balances are available to finance future benefit payments and other trust fund expenditures–but only in a bookkeeping sense. These funds are not set up to be pension funds, like the funds of private pension plans. They do not consist of real economic assets that can be drawn down in the future to fund benefits. Instead, they are claims on the Treasury, that, when redeemed, will have to be financed by raising taxes, borrowing from the public, or reducing benefits or other expenditures.”

    Tremendous surpluses, eh? The surplus was pissed away by both democrats and republicans. We’ll be paying for it one way or another.

  • A bit more clarity on the “surplus”:

    “How can I say that, given Social Security’s $2.3 trillion (and growing) trust fund? It’s because the fund owns nothing but Treasury securities. Normally, of course, Treasury securities are the safest thing you can hold in a retirement account. But Social Security’s Treasurys won’t help cover the program’s cash shortfall because Social Security is part of the federal government. Having one arm of the government (Social Security) own IOUs from another arm (the Treasury) doesn’t help the government as a whole cover its bills.

    Here’s why the trust fund has no financial value. Say that Social Security calls the Treasury sometime in 2017 and says it needs to cash in $20 billion of securities to cover benefit checks. The only way for the Treasury to get that money is for the rest of the government to spend $20 billion less than it otherwise would (fat chance!), collect more in taxes (ditto), or borrow $20 billion more (which is what would happen). The spend-less, collect-more, and borrow-more options are exactly what they would be if there were no trust fund. Thus, the trust fund doesn’t make it any easier for the government to cover Social Security’s cash shortfalls than if there were no trust fund.

    Social Security’s negative cash flow becomes so horrendous — hundreds of billions of dollars a year — that our nation’s 20- and 30-somethings aren’t going to let the government cover it, regardless of how many Treasurys the trust fund holds. So forget about 2039 or whenever. Starting worrying about 2016 or 2017.

    You can see this for yourself in Table VI.F8 in Social Security’s 2007 trustees’ report (it’s at http://www.ssa.gov/OACT/TR/TR07/VI_OASDHI_dollars.html#wp150920). Compare “income excluding interest” with “cost,” and you get cash-flow numbers. (I’m ignoring interest, because it’s paid with Treasury IOUs, not with cash.) You see that the system’s cash flow is projected at about positive $92 billion this year. Nice. But by 2020, it’s negative $96 billion, rising to about negative $280 billion in 2025 and half a trillion dollars in 2030. That is unsupportable, unless we plan to devote the entire federal budget to baby boomers’ retirement. Which I hope we don’t.”

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/17/AR2008031702702.html

  • You just can’t get it any better than John McCain personally writing Obama’s ad material for him.

  • Mike Volpe said: Furthermore, our employers are taxed with no return.

    It’s keeping around 13 MILLION seniors out of poverty and you say there’s ‘no return’?

  • Well, lou, I’m sure that Republicans would stiff their fellow Americans before they would default on hte debts to the Saudis, Japapanese & Chinese.

    I’m hoping that the Democrats wouldn’t.

  • This is what nobody seems to have realized about the present administration and its devotees, among which count Grover Norquist and John McCain: they want to undo all the FDR social programs. That’s why they aren’t upset about the horrible state of the economy. They are betting on the worst in people: that people vote their self-interests, and that, when threatened economically, the young will vote against the old. They are planning to create a war between generations, not just the one between classes.

    The mess they are leaving the next Democratic president cannot be readily repaired. For that he will take blame, just as Gray Davis took the blame for the mess left in California by his Republican predecessor. Then, when the Republicans win in the next round, they will cram their “reforms” down the throats of a distressed and vulnerable populace. It should be a piece of cake. We’ve already been taught to look after ourselves first, even to the point abandoning long-cherished ideals of fairness and equalilty. Watching this is like watching a runaway bus on a streep windy road when you know the brakes are gone but the driver hasn’t yet needed to apply them. There’s going to be a huge wreak. People will die as a result.

  • Social Security is a disgrace, but not because the youth’s are paying for benefits for today’s retirees. The problem is that you will pay more money into Social Security than you will ever see returned to you, essentially making you worse off for retirement and defeating the whole purpose of the system.

    You will have more money for retirement if you put (I think it’s 5.6%) of your paycheck into a long-term savings account as opposed to paying SS for 45 years and collecting payments for 10.

  • What a sham he doesnt need to take the money from the system because he pimps his wife for her money yet he still takes the money.

    Obama 08

  • Social Security is the biggest ponzi scheme in the history of mankind. When it first started there were 16 workers for each beneficiary. Now we’re around 2-3 per beneficiary. When the baby boomers retire in droves, it will drop to 1 or less than 1. At that point, why work when all you’re doing is paying for someone else to be lazy? It will crash.

    It happened in Albania in 1997. It will happen here.

    Why?

    The trust fund is gone. It is stuffed with government IOU’s.

    If your kid gets $50 for his birthday, puts it in his piggy bank, he got $50 there. If he takes it out, puts in an IOU in the piggy bank to replace the $50, and spends the money, how much money is in his piggy bank? Zero. The government did the same with the social security trust fund. The money’s gone, folks, deal with it. That’s why it is pay as you go, because everything’s already gone.

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