“If my opponent had his way, the millions of Floridians who rely on it would’ve had their Social Security tied up in the stock market this week,” Mr. Obama told a Florida audience.
Oddly, The Times did not include Obama’s remark that followed: “Millions of families would've been scrambling to figure out how to give their mothers and fathers, their grandmothers and grandfathers, the secure retirement that every American deserves.”
That remark by Obama was completely false, and even a New York Times reporter would have known it was wrong. Obama’s first lie was that current Social Security recipients would have been affected. Senator McCain has been very clear for over three years that all current retirees would continue drawing exactly the same Social Security benefits and would not be affected in any way by his partial privatization plan. Further, he has also been clear that his plan would be totally voluntary, and that current workers would have the option of continuing under the old system or contributing to a privatized account.
As FactCheck.org summarizes:
- The private accounts would have been voluntary. Anybody fearful of the stock market's risk could simply stay in the current system.
- Obama's reference to "casino culture," disappearing "nest eggs" and gambling with "your life savings" are also misleading exaggerations. Only a little over one-fourth of any workers' total Social Security taxes could have been invested (a maximum of 4 percent of taxable wages, out of the total 15.3 per cent now paid, split equally between worker and employer.)
- Speculation in individual stocks would not have been permitted. Workers would have had a choice of a few, broadly diversified stock or bond funds.
- While McCain has voted in favor (of) creating private Social Security accounts in the past, and endorsed Bush's 2005 proposal (which never came to a vote in Congress), he is not making a strong push for them as part of his campaign. In fact, a search for the term "Social Security" on the McCain-Palin Web site brings up the following: "No documents were found."
The last point illustrates how far Obama is willing to go in his panic-driven attempts to scare elderly Floridians into voting for him. Obama has to have Florida, or he will end up like Gore and Kerry, so he has chosen to demagogue and lie about an issue that hasn’t even been raised by Senator McCain.
Of course there are always two possibilities: Obama may be too stupid to know about the Republican privatization plan, or he may be intentionally lying. Since Obama is a college graduate, I don’t he’s that stupid, so obviously he’s a liar.
Still, it’s a stupid liar who lies about something so easy to check up on. However, Obama probably thinks the Main Stream Media won’t call him on it, and even if they do, the old folks in Florida won’t notice.
You know, Obama may not be that stupid after all.
Democrats have been lying about and demagoguing Social Security for decades and getting away with it.
Why change now?
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