Wow.
Americans have got to understand that we are paying present-day retirees with the taxes paid by young workers in America today. And that's a disgrace. It's an absolute disgrace, and it's got to be fixed.
I'll let Hilzoy take this one:
The fact that we are paying present-day retirees with the taxes paid by workers, young or otherwise, is not a disgrace, or a scandal, or a new development. Social Security has been funded this way since its inception. The first person to receive monthly benefits, one Ida Mae Fuller, had worked for three years, and contributed all of $24.75 to the Social Security Trust Fund. She lived to be 100, and collected $22,888.92 in benefits. Did the Social Security Trust Fund found that money under its pillow? Somehow, I don't think so.
Younger workers paid Ida Mae Fuller's pension. Workers who were younger still paid those workers when they retired. And even younger workers, like me, are paying for their Social Security benefits. This is not a disgrace; it's the way the system operates. And it's certainly not a sign that we've mortgaged our children's futures, or that something has to be fixed.One interpretation of this statement would be that McCain is being deceptive: trying to make a straightforward feature of Social Security seem like a scary new problem, in order to gin up support for his nonexistent plans to fix it. I tend to think that he just doesn't know how Social Security works. (This would explain why he doesn't see the problem with privatizing the system: the need to pay a generation's worth of transition costs.) However, it doesn't really matter which explanation is right: either one ought to be close to disqualifying.
John McCain: deceptive or stone cold ignorant? We report; you decide.
Sadly, the answer is simple: he's ignorant. John McCain doesn't care about the details of public policy. He never has and he never will.
His budget? It will be balanced because we will declare "victory with honor" in Iraq.
His tax cuts? They will of course pay for themselves. Didn't you know that a 0% tax rate would produce infinite revenues?
The Sunni vs. Shia conflict? All we need to do it get them into a room and say "stop the bullshit."
His gas tax holiday? Economists hate it, but what do they know about economics?
The Surge? It's working, and we're winning, and anyone who says otherwise just doesn't understand the military like him.
When it comes to policy, McCain just isn't a deep thinker. And the saddest thing is, until he decided to run for president he would have told you the same thing himself!
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