PrintSeptember 20, 2008
Democrats up to their old scare tactics on social security
The new Obama ad that attacks John McCain on social security is so brazenly a lie that FactCheck.org calls the claims made that John McCain wants to cut social security benefits in half a "falsehood."
A new Obama ad characterizes the "Bush-McCain privatization plan" as "cutting Social Security Benefits in half." This is a falsehood sure to frighten seniors who rely on their Social Security checks. In truth, McCain does not propose to cut those checks at all.
The ad refers to a Bush proposal from 2005 to hold down the growth of benefits for future retirees. Compared to the buying power of benefits paid to today's retirees, that would not have been a "cut" for anybody. It would have been a "cut" of half only in relation to benefits now promised to retirees who have yet to be born. And for average workers, that "cut" in 2075 was projected by one of Obama's own economic advisers to be 28 percent, not "half."
The ad also says McCain voted "in favor of privatizing Social Security." The term "privatizing" could give the wrong impression. McCain does support creating government-managed accounts that would allow individuals to invest some portion of their Social Security payroll taxes in widely diversified stock or bond funds.
There is nothing new in Democrats attacking Republicans while making false claims about social security cuts. They do it in virtually every election and usually with some success since the media - as in this case - refuses to call the Democrats out on their lies.
One interesting note; the Obama camp must have known how grossly untrue this ad was. They never told the press they were going to run it. After a news advocacy group recorded it and FactCheck.org noticed the lie, the Obama camp released this statement:
Update Sept. 20: A day after this article was first posted the Obama-Biden campaign e-mailed an announcement to reporters with a script of the ad, saying it "began airing last week in key states across the country." We had originally called the ad "Social Security," the name CMAG assigned to it when first seen. The campaign calls it "Promise" and we have changed the name here to reflect that.
They may have changed the name of the ad but the lie is still there. And the fact that they never had a news release about the ad until after FactCheck called them out for their lie means they wanted to get as much mileage from the ad before they were forced to take it off the air.
As the old saying goes, "A lie will make it halfway around the world before the truth finishes tying its shoe laces."
