Both Barack Obama and John McCain talked about the future of Social Security in town hall meetings today. Aren't you curious about the level of discourse about how to keep this critical, fundamental feature of our nation's social safety net going when the baby boomers retire?
Let's reframe the question: Do you really want to know?
This morning, Obama opened a town hall in Columbus, Ohio, by reminding the audience that McCain still favors private savings accounts for Social Security, the idea that went down like the Hindenburg when Bush proposed it in 2005.
"Privatizing Social Security was a bad idea when George Bush proposed it; it's a bad idea today," Obama said. "I mean, imagine if your Social Security right now was tied up with the Dow Jones. How would you feel when you woke up in the morning and you heard that the Dow had gone down 400 points? You wouldn't feel real confident about the stability of your nest egg."
McCain, naturally, jumped on the use of the word "privatizing" at his own town hall meeting in Pemberton, New Jersey. "My friends, I do not and will not privatize Social Security," McCain said. "It is a government program, and it's necessary, but it's broken, and we've got to tell the American people that we've got to fix it. And we've got to sit down together the way that Ronald Reagan and Tip O'Neill did back in 1983 and fix Social Security."
He couldn't deny that he had any interest in private savings accounts, though, since he does. "I would like for younger workers, younger workers only, to have an opportunity to take a few of their tax dollars, a few of theirs, and maybe put it into an account with their name on it," McCain said. "That's their money; that's their money."
So far, it's just an argument about words (what does "privatizing" mean?) and whether the accounts should be treated as a big deal or not. In an interview two years ago, before he launched his latest presidential run, McCain told me he thought private accounts are still a good idea for Social Security. But they never should have been the centerpiece of the discussion in 2005, he said, because "they don't have much to do with saving Social Security."
They still should be part of the package, McCain said, but "the way to start the conversation is, 'The system is broken,' " he said. And that's exactly how he framed the discussion today.
But then the two campaigns moved quickly to take other proposals off the table, too. One of McCain's domestic policy advisers, Doug Holtz-Eakin, criticized Obama in a conference call with reporters for saying he'd lift the cap on the Social Security payroll tax -- so wealthier people would pay more -- without offering more benefits to them.
"He has conclusively taken steps toward breaking the link between taxes paid and benefits received. That's been a core principle of the social contract in Social Security," Holtz-Eakin said.
And Obama went on to shoot down two other ideas for keeping Social Security solvent over the long term: raising the retirement age and cutting cost-of-living adjustments. The cost-of-living adjustment doesn't really keep up with rising costs, Obama said. As for raising the retirement age, "the idea that you're going to keep on working until you're 72 or 73 -- not on your own terms, not because you decide you want to be in the workplace, but because you have to, to keep food on the table or pay your electricity bills -- that, I don't think, is our best option."
There aren't that many ideas on how to keep Social Security solvent when it starts paying out more in benefits than it gets in tax revenues. Most experts say there are only a few ways to do it: cut benefits, raise revenues, or some combination of the two. Both Obama and McCain have said in the past that they're open to lots of ideas to reach a compromise. So the more ideas they take off the table in the campaign, the less they'll have to work with in the White House.
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