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Monday, May 19, 2008
Obama scares the old folks
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Barack Obama is such a hypocrite.
He will not wear well over the coming general election campaign.
Campaigning Sunday in Oregon, a state he should win handily on Tuesday, Obama did what Democrats have done for decades: Spooked the old folks on Social Security. He told a crowd of about 130 at an assisted living center in Gresham, Ore., that John McCain will threaten their Social Security checks. Sleazy. What a hypocrite. Takes the high-horse to complain about the politics of division and diversion and resorts to the only game Democrats running nationwide know: Scaring the daylights out of grandma and grandpa, the vulnerable, weak and confused.
He throws his own grandmother under the bus because that’s what he needed to do win, and then frightens ours into jumping under it for the same reason. No shame.
McCain threatens their Social Security checks because he supports what Democrats call privatization of the the system, Obama told the old folks. “Let me be clear, privatizing Social Security was a bad idea when George W. Bush proposed it, it’s a bad idea today,” he said. “That’s why I stood up against this plan in the Senate and that’s why I won’t stand for it as president.”
Nobody alive or dead has ever threatened the sacred cow that is Social Security. Admittedly the system’s in desperate financial trouble over the long haul. For those young enthusiasts attracted to the Obama campaign, it’s a lousy investment. Now 12 percent of the population is over 65; by 2030, it’ll be 10 percent. Fewer workers support more retirees. Throw in the medical costs of caring for the elderly and more and more of the earnings of the young will be transferred to the old in the coming decades, setting up generational conflict.
Obama’s response is to raise payroll taxes on “the rich.” That brilliant idea at least gets him past November where he presumably can reach across the aisle to invent a new solution that he’s not now discussing.
President Bush’s proposal in 2005 was to allow young workers to divert a portion of the taxes they pay into accounts they would own, control and could pass on to their heirs. Demcrats reacted as Obama does now. Congress never took it up.
Obama said in Oregon Sunday that McCain will raise the retirement age for benefits or reduce annual cost-of-living increases to retirees.”We have to protect Social Security for future generations without pushing the burden onto seniors who have earned the right to retire in dignity,” he said.
McCain spokesman Tucker Bonds said McCain knows Social Security needs fixing, “but raising taxes should not be the answer to every problem.”
Obama promises a new tomorrow, but he is so yesterday. Scare the elderly to win campaigns. Use Social Security to buy their votes to stay there. That’s not change. It’s what Democrats always do, which is why Social Security’s in the mess it’s in.
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