McCain: Social Security problem must be fixed

When will weathervane pack it in? This is embarrassing.

http://www.thestate.com/309/story/145780.html

McCain: Social Security problem must be fixed
By BRUCE SMITH - Associated Press Writer

PORT ROYAL, S.C. --
Republican presidential candidate John McCain said Tuesday that Congress' failure to act on Social Security shows there is more concern about partisan politics than the good of the nation.

"It's disgraceful and outrageous that Republicans and Democrats have not sat down together and worked out this Social Security problem," the Arizona senator told 100 people attending a forum sponsored by the AARP in early voting South Carolina.

The speech came on the 72nd anniversary of the signing of the Social Security Act by President Roosevelt.

"A half a century ago there were 16 American workers who supported every retiree, today it is three and soon it will be two," he said. "Around 2020 you will have more money going out than you have coming in. That's going to be a crucial time. Should we wait until 2020?"

McCain said as president he would deal with the matter, but did not offer specifics. He said a bipartisan effort was needed and a plan should be developed "working with you, working with AARP, working with the smart people in America and say, 'OK Congress, here's a plan to fix Social Security. Vote up or down.'"

He said Social Security is a $3 trillion unfunded liability and told the group he doesn't want to hand future generations a broken system.

"I want to do the hard things," McCain said. "If Congress doesn't want to do it, let me do it. Let me do it. I'll fix it for them."

You bastards have just been stealing half of what we put into it for the past 20 years to hide your tax cuts to your fat cat campaign backers.

That's the crisis, asshole, not the amount we're getting socked to pay for it.

You want to fix Social Security? Take our overpayments out of your greasy hands.

and exempt the first $10,000 of income to the FICA tax but after $10,000 tax the rest.

That will begin to solve the problem. The Republicans merely want to destroy social security.

They have attempted to destroy social security since the 1930's.

why should the ueber-rich get off paying their share? Especially when it is such a small percentage of their wealth, vs. the percentage of income for a person working at minimum wage.

Unless you get the overpayments out of the general fund FIRST, raising the cap or raising the contributions won't do a damned thing except continue to fund more tax cuts for the rich.

It will NOT fix Social Security!

RAISE THE CAP!!!! See! It could be the shortest bill in years!

SS WAS in pretty decent shape because back in the 80's Congress raised the cap and raised the retirement age to 67. It was done to purposfully build up an excess to cover the retirement of the baby boomers. BUT, Good old reckless Shrub decided they didn't NEED all that extra $$ floating around, and he cut the taxes for his buddies and gave it all away!

I wouldn't trust you to figure out what's going to happen six months or even six weeks from now. And you're trying to tell me you know what's going to be happening 50 years from now? Delusional doesn't begin to describe it. Go hug Bush again, you tired old fraud.

for starters, John. With interest. Never should have been taken to put into the General Revenue Fund for the pork you and Congress allocated.

Then we'll talk . . . .

on the middle class ever, Social Security would be there forever. Was St. Ronnie LYING? To me and the nation? Not St. Ronnie. He would not lie. Social Security is fine. St. Ronnie said so. --end of story, go home McCain.

to pay for all the tax cuts he gave the super wealthy and corporations we wouldn't be so behind in the SS fund. And now just look at what the bush administration has stolen from it.....I guess that money was itching the hands of the wall street thieves. They thought bush was going to let them get their hands on it.

You assisted in creating this mess. F off

before that, in my 40's and I do not believe nor am I counting on social security to be solvent when I retire. There is no way under the current system it can be. I don't want my children and grand children paying as much in taxes as will be required to fund the system the way it currently set up. Our entire political system is broken and needs to be repaired. We have lost our way, politically and governmentally speaking, and need radical change to get back on track. Both parties are more concerned with only what they need to do to be re-elected and don't care one bit about what is the best thing for the nation as a whole, and I believe the current congressional leadership has proven that to be true.

I think we're all a bit disillusioned with the current leadership, but what are our options at this point? Certainly not the rethugs, who got us where we are to begin with. I can only hope changes will happen and Congress will be at least trying to do the right thing. So many issues...

and Social Security was a new insurance program.

He collected until his death at 89.

You have simply bought a lot of horseshit propaganda.

Social Security has never been an investment program. It is an insurance program. It was designed to be funded on a year to year basis by contributions from people who are still able to work, the same way auto insurance payouts are funded by people who have not had accidents.

Reagan is the original fearmonger, raising payroll taxes SIX TIMES but not taking the enormous overpayment out of the general fund. Your Social Security premiums have been ROBBED for over 20 years to cover up the shortfall caused by reckless tax cuts to rich men.

The only "crisis" in social security is the false one that will happen when enough boomers retire to justify the high premium rates and Congress will finally have to face the disaster their tax giveaways to fat cat contributors have caused.

Welcome to DU.

social security for any kind of retirement income since I started working at age 14. I will fund my own retirement and IF I get any kind of social security payout I will donate it to a worthy cause. I am so angry with the entire political system and both parties I could just spit. Why does no one in power care that THEY are mortgaging the future of this nation and it's citizens to put a buck in their own pockets. And I do mean both parties in that "they".

We had to cash out our meager retirement funds so Hubby could get health care. I will have to depend on "inheriting" his SS as widow's benefits, as he probably won't make it to 65. I am unable to work as I care for him and have my own problems.

The choice came down to keeping our money and not having healthcare or improvering ourselves and being able to access the health care system for the poor. We had no choice; Hubby was going into renal failure and heading towards dialysis. Once on dialysis he got SSDI and Medicaid, but not until he was disabled. By that time, we were broke.

Social Security needs to be there for folks like me.

meant that I couldn't save it in a personal account. I saved as much personally as I could, which was a lot more than many people were able to save. But still, I'm dependent on Social Security when I retire a couple of years from now. And I'll probably have to continue to work at least part-time for a few years.

I'm damn mad about any discussion about "fixing" Social Security by assuming the older people who've paid for it should be doing the fixing.

Sorry, it's the high-income people and corporations who have to pay up. They got their tax breaks and invested their money while they took mine. Now it's time to give it back. And there are way, way more of us than there are of them.

Remember us? We're the Baby Boomers, the "bump" in the demographic charts. And we vote.

Wash. Post lets McCain's false claim on Social Security go uncorrected, attributed bogus view to privatization opponents

Washington Post staff writers Michael A. Fletcher and Jim VandeHei quoted Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) in a March 23 article* falsely asserting that in 2042, "we stop paying people Social Security," but failed to correct his erroneous claim. The Post also wrongly attributed to unnamed "opponents" of Social Security privatization the inaccurate view that "the system's core problem" is that "benefit payments are estimated to surplus tax receipts by 2018."

In fact, though the Social Security trustees predict that the system's trust fund will be exhausted in 2042, the program will still be taking in new revenue from payroll taxes at that point. According to the 2004 report of the Social Security trustees, even if no changes are made to current law, "Present tax rates would be sufficient to pay 73 percent of scheduled benefits after trust fund exhaustion in 2042 and 68 percent of scheduled benefits in 2078." Because scheduled benefits are expected to rise faster than inflation, 73 percent of benefits scheduled for 2042 would still be greater, in real terms, than the benefits that today's retirees receive.

http://mediamatters.org/items/200503240002

*http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A56913-2005Mar22.html

Security surplus..."

South Carolina Senator Ernest “Fritz”Hollings on October 13, 1989:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=1570334&mesg_id=1572542