The AP reporter had a brief interview with Santorum, but it’s not clear he asked those questions. Instead the story reported that Santorum offered “only modest details on how he would implement his proposed changes.” The reporter asked Santorum if changes should be made now. “I think we should, yeah,” the candidate said. “Obviously we’re going to have to go through a debate next year and figure out ways in which to make the revenues meet the expenditures.” How’s that for noncommittal rhetoric? The AP reported, though, that Santorum said he didn’t favor higher taxes or more deficit spending to shore up Social Security. Did that mean he supports Obama’s payroll tax holiday and making it permanent? Dot connection, please! The story did tell readers that Santorum “has not said how much money he hopes to save” with the changes he is contemplating. Put that in the “nice-to- know” category.
It would have been better to make Santorum expand on his point that those over age sixty-five are the wealthiest group of Americans because Social Security has pulled the elderly out of poverty. Yes, Social Security did that, but such a broad statement is misleading when you consider the wide swaths of poverty still existing among the elderly especially older women. One third of all beneficiaries now rely on Social Security for at least 90 percent of their income. The median income for older women receiving Social Security is about $15,000, for men about $26,000. The average monthly Social Security benefit is about $1200. That may not be a princely sum to the inside-the-Beltway crowd, but to someone who exists on that amount, even a $50 or a $100 cut means something substantial. Does Santorum believe those Americans must sacrifice too? Context, please!
Fry is correct. We need more red meat. The AP provided only a couple of bites.
Santorum is using the same Big Lie technique of other candidates (and the instigators of the Tea Party.) It is to make extreme but vague statements to attract angry, ignorant supporters, then if attempts are made to pin him down, exploit the further attention. His stridency and extreme sanctimoniousness are as repellant as Perry's careless senility and Gingrich's demagoguery.
#1 Posted by Robert Cogan, CJR on Mon 9 Jan 2012 at 10:01 PM
Trudy
you are on the right side, and you probably don't go nearly far enough to show that Santorum is raving mad or just lying through his teeth, but i was a bit puzzled by this:
"The AP reported, though, that Santorum said he didn’t favor higher taxes or more deficit spending to shore up Social Security. Did that mean he supports Obama’s payroll tax holiday and making it permanent? Dot connection, please! "
The payroll tax holiday DOES "favor" higher taxes or more deficit spending "to shore up Social Security. That's what's wrong with it... aside from the fact that it turns SS into welfare which is bad, bad, bad.
The fact is that Social Security has always paid for itself. That is the workers have paid for their own benefits. SS has nothing to do with "the deficit"... or did not have until the payroll tax holiday.
And it doesn't need to be "shored up." A payroll tax increase of one half of one tenth of one percent per year will enable SS to pay all "promised" benefits for the forseeable future (over that infinite horizon).
It is tragic that "the left" fails to understand this and falls into the Peterson trap of talking about SS as if it were welfare. And now that Obama has turned it into welfare, why, it turns out Peterson was right all along. Doesn't it?
In order to avoid the "higher taxes or more deficit spending" created by the tax holiday, or other ill conceived schemes to get "the rich" to pay for Social Security, some such crime against workers as Santorum is calling for will become the "obvious" thing to do.
#2 Posted by dale coberly, CJR on Tue 10 Jan 2012 at 03:09 PM
It is easy for those like Santorum who know they will never need Social Security and Medicare in their senior years to suggest cuts to or elimination of those programs. Too bad we can't require that our esteemed Congressmen and Senators live by the same pension rules we had to instead of getting lifetime pensions after serving as little as two years. No wonder they won't need SS and don't care if the programs disappear.
Why aren't we seniors forcing attention on our large group of citizens like the Tea Party managed to do? What I hear seniors say over and over is that many of the changes our Legislators are proposing to these important programs can never happen. Are you kidding me?! Our lives are in the hands of many people who are more concerned about using politics as the means to assuring their own financial futures than they are about the people they represent - unless those people happen to be wealthy supporters of those politicians. It seems to me that the political youngsters like Santorum are becoming more and more greedy. Heaven help us if Santorum makes it into the White House! He can, and will, make sure that every middle class senior lives in poverty at some point in their senior years - and likely at the time we need help most.
#3 Posted by Carol, CJR on Mon 27 Feb 2012 at 07:20 PM