By PETER BAKER
WASHINGTON — In speech after speech lately, President Obama has vowed to oppose a Republican proposal “to cut education by 20 percent,” a cut that would “eliminate 200,000 children from Head Start programs” and “reduce financial aid for 8 million college students.”
Except that, strictly speaking, the Republicans have made no such proposal. The expansive but vague Pledge to America produced by House Republicans does promise deep cuts in domestic spending, but it gives no further detail about which programs would be slashed. So Mr. Obama has filled in his own details as if they were in the Republican plan
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Mr. Obama has also said that Republican leaders are “pushing to make privatizing Social Security a key part of their legislative agenda” and that “it’s right up there on their to-do list” with repealing his health care program.
FactCheck.org called that claim “not true.”
No plan to privatize Social Security is in the Republican pledge. Some prominent Republicans, like Representative Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, have proposed a more limited voluntary plan, which would allow covered workers under 55 the option of dedicating one-third of their Social Security payroll taxes to a government-managed investment account.
But the last Republican Congress refused to even vote on a similar plan advanced by President George W. Bush in 2005. moreWTF? Republicans aren't calling for privatizing Social Security and repealing health care reform?
Updated to add that big lie about Republicans in the snip.
Factcheck.org, October 2004:
Kerry Falsely Claims Bush Plans To Cut Social Security BenefitsNPR, November 2004:
Bush Eyes Privatizing Social Security in Second TermFactcheck.org, February 2005:
Bush's State of the Union: Social Security "Bankruptcy?" (in which they ask the burning question: "But how severe would those benefit cuts be?")
Senator Kerry,
January 2005SEN. KERRY: Precisely what I said in 1996 is "We should consider" a number of these things. We did consider them. I considered them. Others did. I rejected them. And I have said again and again throughout the campaign this last year, I do not believe we have to raise the retirement age. I'm not in favor of it. I am absolutely opposed to cutting benefits, and I believe we can save Social Security in any number of ways, Tim, other than what President Bush wants to do.
President Bush is hyping a phony crisis. The crisis in America today is 45 million Americans who don't have health care. The crisis are 11 million children that I just talked about that we ought to be covering with health care. You know, Social Security does not run out as the president says and become bankrupt in 2018. It can pay 100 percent of the benefits until 2042, and after 2042, it can pay 80 percent of the benefits. And all you need to do to move Social Security into safety, well into the 22nd century, into the next century, is to roll back part of George Bush's tax cut today. His tax cut takes three times the deficit of what is contained in Social Security.
Now, there are any number of other things that you could do to try to fix it smart. What President Bush wants to do is put at risk something that has stood up not as an investment program but an insurance program, an insurance against poverty. Without Social Security, 50 percent of seniors would be in poverty. Without Social Security, people with disabilities, widows, orphans, children would not get help. And the president is willing to put that at risk so that you have $940 billion in fees that go to Wall Street and a whole bunch of young people get to invest money in who knows what, and there's no guarantee that money will be there for them in their lifetime.
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SEN. KERRY: Well, Tim, you can call it what you want. I mean, if you think rolling back to the level that we had in the 1990s, when an awful lot of our friends made an awful lot of money and people did very well in America--if you think that's raising taxes, then you can go ahead and have that definition. I think it's rolling back. I think it's rolling them back to a level of responsibility.
What you have today is irresponsibility. The president is going to add $4 trillion to the debt of this nation just with his tax cut, which is $1.9 trillion over the next 10 years, and his Social Security plan, which is about $1.6 trillion. It's almost $4 trillion, just in those two choices the president is making. Now, you can look at--look at this headline. Here's a headline that ought to send shudders through America: Central Banks Shun U.S. Assets. This was last week in The Financial Times. Why are they shunning U.S. assets? Because of the fiscal irresponsibility of this administration. And the president's plan on Social Security is not only dangerous for Social Security, it's dangerous for the fiscal long-term health of our country.
Now, I'm for creating wealth with young people. I think they have a right to try to have better means of being able to put money away for retirement. But there are plenty of ways to do it without privatizing, without putting it at risk. If the president would say to us, "Look, let's all get together and make sure Social Security is going to be saved the way President Clinton did, for the long term, and we're going to do it without privatizing it but we'll find one of these ways of doing it that's responsible," we will be at the table and we will join him to depoliticize it.
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April 2005:
U.S. Senators Launch Social Security Tour at Pace (PDF)
June 2005:
GOP wants Social Security surplus in private accounts / Conservatives see it as only way to save the centerpiece of Bush's domestic policy
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