Reply #50: Gosh you forgot the fact that Dean said he misspoke on that 8 year old

[mzmolly]

position.

Courtesy of deandefense.org

Here's the background of the non-scandal:

On June 22, 2003, Tim Russert asked Gov. Dean on Meet the Press about his 1995 "prescription" statement for balancing the budget. Here is the statement (from the MTP transcript):

MR. RUSSERT: ...calling for that, and this is what Howard Dean said. "The way to balance the budget, Dean said, is for Congress to cut Social Security, move the retirement age to 70, cut defense, Medicare and veterans pensions, while the states cut almost everything else. 'It would be tough but we could do it,' he said."

Dean said in the MTP interview that he is no longer in favor of raising the retirement age. Roll the tape:

MR. RUSSERT: But you would no longer cut Social Security?

DR. DEAN: But you don't--no. I'm not ever going to cut Social Security benefits.

MR. RUSSERT: Would you raise retirement age to 70?

DR. DEAN: No. No.

MR. RUSSERT: Would you cut defense?

DR. DEAN: You don't have to do that either. Here's what you have to do. You got to get rid of the tax cuts, all of them, and then you have got to restrict spending. You've got to control--well, here's what we did in Vermont. We had some mild tax cuts in the '90s, not the huge ones that most other states did. Secondly, we put a lot of money into a rainy day fund, and I never let the Legislature spend more than the rate of growth of the economy, so the biggest increase I think we had in the almost 12 years I was governor was I think 5.2 percent or something like that. And then we paid off a quarter of our debt, which is what Bill Clinton did when he was president.

Now, we're not cutting higher education, we're not cutting K through 12, we're not cutting Medicaid for kids, and we have a balanced budget. So if you restrain spending, which is long-term spending, that's the key to balancing the budget. But you've got to get rid of the tax cuts because the hole is so very, very deep. And Social Security, I--the best way to balance Social Security budget right now, other than stop taking the money out for the tax cuts, is to expand the amount of money that Social Security payroll taxes apply to. It's limited now to something like $80,000. You let that rise. I also would entertain taking the retirement age to 68. It's at 67 now. I would entertain that.

His last statement on June 22 about this issue indicates that he is no longer in favor of raising the retirement age to 70. He said he would "entertain" raising the retirement age to 68, though.

The controversy: On August 5, 2003, the nine Democratic Presidential candidates participated in an AFL-CIO forum covering a wide range of labor issues and concerns. Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) verbally attacked Howard Dean's position on the Social Security retirement age. Here is the transcript of what he said in response to a question about Social Security:

KUCINICH: I think that money belongs to Main Street, not Wall Street. That's why when I am elected president I'll block any efforts to try to privatize Social Security. And we need to take the retirement age back to 65. The fact of the matter is that workers everywhere -- you understand that, because when you work a lifetime, 20, 30, 40 years at a job, people get to 65 years, you know, they can be tired. And they deserve to be able to retire at age 65 at 100 percent benefit. But some of the candidates up here, though -- you know, for example, my good friend, Mr. Dean, has said that he'd move the retirement age to 68. One time he talked about moving it to 70. This is a night for truth telling. Which of the candidates here will take the retirement age back to 65? Which of the candidates here will commit to blocking the privatization of Social Security? Which of the candidates here will make sure that workers, when a company goes bankrupt, will be able to stand first in line with the banks to be able to protect their retirement savings?

Now, it is this author's opinion that Kucinich either mistakenly or deliberately distorted Dean's position by only using his 1995 statement that Tim Russert's researcher dug up for Meet the Press. When Kucinich said "he'd move the retirement age to 68", he was distorting what Dean said by slicing Dean's statement as broadly as possible without getting called on it.

Here is Dean's reply to Kucinich:

DEAN: Yes. Bob , when we first looked to the rules for this debate, we were told if anybody mentioned our name, that automatically gave us a minute.

I'm not going to go back and ask you to change the rules, but I think I'll take 20 seconds just to tell everybody that I have never favored Social Security retirement at age of 70, nor do I favor one of 68.

Now let me talk a little bit about unions.

(APPLAUSE)

No, not 65.

The "never favored" phrase is what is generating all the controversy. If you look at the 1995 statement, Dean misspoke by using the phrase "never favored". To Dean's credit, he admitted he misspoke the next day.

As of this writing, he is no longer in favor of raising the retirement age. His position has changed, and he now believes that the salary contribution limit to Social Security should be adjusted. According to the Newsday article, he is in favor of raising the salary limit from the current $87,000 or removing it completely.

Later, in an Iowa speech, he says that he is not in favor of raising the retirement age to 68. (Check out minute 36 of the C-SPAN archive of the event for the full answer). He does not get into the history of his position. Here is his statement:

DEAN: Sure, I'll be happy to. Let me respond to one other thing that Dennis said. Dennis is a good guy, but he said that I approved of increasing the Social Security age to 70. That is not so. I do not approve of increasing the retirement age. If we want to fix Social Security, we want to do it by uncapping the amount of income. A CEO who makes 45 million dollars a year pays the same Social Security tax as somebody who makes 85 thousand dollars a year. That's ridiculous. The President gave all that money away to that CEO. We ought to at least have them pay their fair share of Social Security. We'll get that one off the table right now.

In summary, here is the evolution of Dean's positions on Social Security in chronological order:

Gov. Dean used to be in favor of raising the retirement age to 70.
After President Clinton demonstrated that Social Security could be better-funded with a strong economy, he gave up that position.
Given Social Security's current state, he later entertained the idea of raising the retirement age to 68 (it is currently 67).
Currently, he is against any increase of the retirement age.
In order to fix Social Security, he is now in favor of either raising or removing the salary contribution cap (currently set at $85,000, according to Gov. Dean, or $87,000, according to Nedra Pickler of the AP).
As far as the controversy is concerned, he admitted he misspoke at the AFL-CIO event within 24 hours after the misstatement was made.

Sources:

AFL-CIO August 5, 2003 debate transcript:
Meet The Press June 22, 2003 transcript:
C-SPAN: Dickinson County, Iowa - Arnolds Park Meet-and-Greet: (Minute 36 - Question about WTO)
Admittance of misstatement:

http://www.newsday.com/news/politics/wire/sns-ap-dean-social-%20security,0,2509226.story?coll=sns-ap-politics-headlines

http://deandefense.org/archives/000671.html