Here's a very brief report from ABC7's 10pm broadcast last night on John McCain's recent comments about Social Security:
Unfortunately, the report glosses over McCain's original comments, made at a town hall event in Colorado 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."
Dispelling any notion that this was just a verbal slip-up, McCain then repeated himself on CNN Tuesday morning:
"So let's describe it for what it is. They [younger workers] 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."
What's incredible about these statements is that they suggest McCain just learned how the Social Security system works -- that the benefits paid out to retirees each year are funded by payroll taxes taken from current workers' paychecks -- and that he finds it "disgraceful." As the Economic Policy Institute's Jared Bernstein wrote: "It betrays a really quite scary lack of knowledge about basic government." Indeed.
Ezra Klein makes an apt analogy:
There are criticisms that people make of Social Security, most of them relating to a mismatch between the program's revenue and its future obligations. But McCain's comment is very different. It's like if lots of people made fun of one guy's car because it was broken down, ugly, and lacked headlights. Then one of the dimmer members of the group, sensing an opportunity to jump in, piped up with, "yeah, four wheels and an engine? What's with that!? When you gonna do something about that!?" Everyone would sort of look at the guy for a moment while they registered that this person didn't understand how a car worked. Now imagine that this person was applying to run an auto shop. And people were taking his application seriously. That's sort of the situation we're in.
Meanwhile, former FCC chair Reed Hundt had this to say about the comment: "What I don't understand is why reporters don't ask: If Senator McCain doesn't want payroll taxes to fund Social Security (as has long been the case), then how does he propose to pay for it?"
Well, in order to ask such questions, the reporters would have to play the original clips. In ABC7's case, that didn't happen.
To Ron Magers' credit, however, he did point out that McCain hasn't offered any specifics about how he would "fix" Social Security. News reports often note Republicans' declarations that they will "fix," "save," "cut," or "balance" certain programs without noting that they lack any plan for how to do so.
UPDATE: The DCCC just sent out a press release asking Rep. Mark Kirk whether he agrees with McCain's comments regarding Social Security:
“The people of Illinois’ 10th District deserve to know whether Representative Mark Kirk agrees with Senator John McCain’s assessment that Social Security is ‘an absolute disgrace,’” said Jennifer Crider, Communications Director for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. “It’s disgraceful that Senator McCain and Republicans in Congress support privatizing Social Security while the cost of gas and groceries skyrocket and the DOW plunges. Representative Kirk has a simple choice: will he do what’s best for his constituents and fight to protect Social Security or will he do what’s best for Senator McCain and gamble away Social Security?”
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