McCain Adviser: McCain ‘Supports Private Accounts’ For Reforming Social Security
McCain Adviser: McCain ‘Supports Private Accounts’ For Reforming Social Security
On Bill Bennett’s radio show yesterday, former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina — who is currently a leading economic adviser to Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) — said that McCain is interested in “taking on finally the reform of Medicare and Social Security.” “He is absolutely convinced that this must be tackled in his term as president,” said Fiorina.
Asked by Bennett about “any particular suggestions” McCain is making to change the programs, Fiorina said that he “supports private accounts as one of the ways to reform the system”:
Well, I know that he has been very favorably inclined to the report that came out a little bit ago, the Republican party made a number of suggestions which he embraced. He has on other occasions said that he supports private accounts as one of the ways to reform the system. But I think he, and I think he will continue to be supportive of those.
Listen here:
It is unclear exactly which report Fiorina is refering to when she says McCain has “embraced” a “number of suggestions” by “the Republican Party,” but the “109th Congress Republican Agenda” says the party supports “voluntary personal retirement account[s].”
In his new “economic plan,” McCain says that he “supports supplementing the current Social Security system with personal accounts – but not as a substitute for addressing benefit promises that cannot be kept.” But this contradicts what McCain told the Wall Street Journal last month:
Asked about the apparent change in position in the interview, Sen. McCain said he hadn’t made one. “I’m totally in favor of personal savings accounts,” he says. When reminded that his Web site says something different, he says he will change the Web site. (As of Sunday night, he hadn’t.) “As part of Social Security reform, I believe that private savings accounts are a part of it — along the lines that President Bush proposed.”
Bush’s proposed plan wasn’t supplemental. Instead, he would have allowed workers to “divert a portion of Social Security payroll taxes to fund private accounts,” which would have resulted in “reduced Social Security payments from the government.” In March 2005, only 33 percent of Americans said they “supported private retirement accounts in exchange for a reduction of guaranteed retirement benefits.”
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So, will the MSM press ask McCain about private accounts?
Or did someone “misspeak”, a la LIE???
April 17th, 2008 at 8:13 pmcaption:
“We are going to rid ourselves of the scourge of unhealthy poor people, once and for all!”
April 17th, 2008 at 8:14 pmSocial Security is the last really big pool of the People’s money these momma-boffin thieves haven’t been able to steal.
They’ll never stop trying. They’ll do everything, try anything, say anything to get their mitts on all that cash. It’s like the oil in Iraq: they won’t use it but they’ll control where it goes, which is even greater power.
April 17th, 2008 at 8:19 pmSame Fiorina who was run out of HP for being an absolure unmitigated disaster as CEO of HP? She proved herself to be an idiot then, things haven’t changed.
April 17th, 2008 at 8:20 pmIS THIS THE IDIOT WHO IS SPENDING $40 BILLION MORE THAN THE REPEALED EARMARKS ARE WORTH?
WOW…WHAT AN EXPERT….CAN’T DECIPHER THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN 60 AND 18…..BUT I GUESS IN REPUGLICAN MATH 2 + 2 = 22
April 17th, 2008 at 8:23 pmRepukes have spent our social security….they just don’t talk about it. Bush is printing trillions of dollars without reguard to government revenue or assets and handing it over to coporations..we will hear about it after the election.
April 17th, 2008 at 8:28 pmCountdown to extinction for the Republicans.
April 17th, 2008 at 8:29 pmHP ex-Exec Carly Fiorina who was run out of the company for, among other things, corporate spying?
April 17th, 2008 at 8:30 pmSounds like she’s perfect for McSame.
OT,our union has endorsed Obama.We just hung up a poster “Utility Workers for Obama.” We also got news that our health insurance rates are going up AGAIN! Hopefully President Obama will get universal healthcare rolling and protect OUR Social Security.
April 17th, 2008 at 8:31 pmIf you watch the Frontline about universal healthcare in other democracies it will make your blood boil. The American system is a shameful joke. A shameful, evil degrading joke.
April 17th, 2008 at 8:34 pmMind you that private accounts isn’t necessarily bad. If we accept that SS should be old age insurance then it works just as well with private accounts as it does for a pooled trust. Moving to private accounts would be tricky, because those of us alive would pay for current expenses and our own future retirement but after that it would basically work about as well as social security does now.
Complaints that private accounts are there to rob poor people and enrich the republicans are partisan and overblown.
Obama 08
April 17th, 2008 at 8:39 pmFiorina could NOT run a typewriter company, she got pushed- out by BAD old men, now she’s working for one????
April 17th, 2008 at 8:54 pmFrom an article entitled Fiorina out, HP stock soars.
Link below.
Yes, Carly, by all means…work your magic with the McCain campaign. You go, girl!
Link.
April 17th, 2008 at 9:02 pmMcCain also wants to privatize the VA system.
http://www.johnmccain.com/ Informing/ News/ Speeches/ 3d837545-5ac8-4124-929c-33c3f0ee9fe5.htm
Remarks By John McCain To The Members Of The Veterans Of Foreign Wars (VFW)
April 7, 2008
John McCain: “I believe that we should give veterans the option to use a simple plastic card to receive timely and accessible care at a convenient location through a provider of their choosing.”
April 17th, 2008 at 9:10 pmprotonk says:
“Complaints that private accounts are there to rob poor people and enrich the republicans are partisan and overblown.”
Well, until some complaint about a republican plan about anything actually turns out to be overblown and not and understatement, you might want to reserve your judgment.
April 17th, 2008 at 9:16 pm@ shawfassett what is so wrong with that? have you ever BEEN in a VA hospital? Required VA care? In 90% of the cases I would prefer to seek care outside the government run facilities. That doesn’t mean that suddenly the VA would stop helping people (as the funding is still there) and you can’t really argue factually that the VA is a better provider of health care than the average private hospital.
Just because it is proposed by a republican and involved reducing government doesn’t mean it is bad. There are plenty of reasons to not like the republicans and john mccain, but this isn’t one of them.
April 17th, 2008 at 9:16 pmSpare me on privatization! This is nothing more than sending tax dollars to higher paid private companies and into the pockets of the crony CEO’s who run those companies.
Look at the tax collector debacle. They collect 48 million out of more than a billion in outstanding taxes.
Screw the private corporations! I am tired of funding the CEO’s second, third and fourth house, car, and boat.
April 17th, 2008 at 9:17 pm@ bobwurst:
“Well, until some complaint about a republican plan about anything actually turns out to be overblown and not and understatement, you might want to reserve your judgment.”
English, %^#%$$%$er, do you speak it?
I interpret this as you saying I should withhold judgment of criticisms of republican plans until those plans come to pass. Ok. Maybe. Most criticism is fine. but comments like “Fiorini couldn’t run a typewriter comapny….blllaaarrrggh…” and the like aren’t helpful. Comments like “ZOMG, private accounts mean the republicans will steal everything just like Exxon-Mobil….” aren’t helpful.
there are plenty of valid reasons to criticize private accounts. whether or not private accounts are a good thing is an open question. But stop claiming that it is a social justice issue just because republicans are on the other side.
April 17th, 2008 at 9:20 pm@ Ms. Joanne:
Do you understand what a private account system means? Do you know that you don’t have to give money to any company in a private account system? It isn’t the same as “privatizing social security”, even though that term is vague enough to encompass a half-dozen possible solutions.
April 17th, 2008 at 9:22 pmProtonk = New Concern Troll…
April 17th, 2008 at 9:23 pmHuh?
I’m not trolling. I just happen to know a bit about the subject and it really upsets me that progressives basically turn into conservatives with different triggers on some subjects.
April 17th, 2008 at 9:25 pmProtonk = New Concern Troll!!!
April 17th, 2008 at 9:27 pmSocial Security is not only a retirement program, it pays out for those who are disabled to minors of parents who die. Exactly what private accounts will pay those promised benefits? It’s a scam, a sham, and another attempt to dismantle another successful New Deal program.
Does Social Security need help due to demographics, yes, but privatization is a sure stake in its heart, but that’s what these scumbags want.
April 17th, 2008 at 9:31 pmTo understand Fiorina finacual accrunim, one only has to study the performance of HP’s stock since she was chucked. It has more than doubled in that short few years. I would not want her as my investment advisor!
April 17th, 2008 at 9:32 pmWell, that what Limbaugh bragged…
They were going to get rid of EVERYTHING to do w/ the New Deal….
And Social Secuiryt is one of the last pieces still in place…
April 17th, 2008 at 9:32 pmMcCain has no substantive knowledge of or consistency on policy issues. It’s all being crafted by the lobbyists running his campaign. This is only a hint of things to come.
-AF
April 17th, 2008 at 9:35 pmAndrew Sullivan Is A Fraud
Correction:
To understand Fiorina’s financial acronym, one only has to study the performance of HP’s stock since she was chucked. It has more than doubled in that short few years. I would not want her as my investment advisor!
April 17th, 2008 at 9:36 pm@walttheman
acumen
and that’s a stupid way of checking it.
April 17th, 2008 at 9:39 pmI’m not arguing that Limbaugh et al. aren’t trying to destroy SS as a ‘vestige of the new deal’. I think they are foolish. SS is a great program. one way that might help its longevity and change some of the incentives is to change the sytem to one of private accounts.
this would NOT destroy the system and it would not impact disability payments. However, it wouldn’t fix the long run budget imbalance w/ medicare and it wouldn’t be easy to do (we would need to keep our promises to the current generations but allow for those now alive to invest in their accounts. SOMEONE would get double taxed.
It isn’t a scam. It isn’t a sham. Stop behaving like dittoheads. Please think stuff through before criticizing.
April 17th, 2008 at 9:43 pmProtonk Says:
and that’s a stupid way of checking it.
_________________
Then maybe this works better, Ace….
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6939785
Fiorina forced out at H-P
updated 12:49 p.m. PT, Wed., Feb. 9, 2005
SAN FRANCISCO - Carly Fiorina’s nearly six-year reign at Hewlett-Packard Co. ended abruptly Wednesday as board members forced her out, disappointed by her inability to transform a plodding technology giant dominated by printer sales into a more nimble innovator.
H-P’s stock, which has gone nowhere for two years and is down two-thirds from its peak in 2000, rose almost 7 percent after earlier soaring almost 11 percent on the news of her ouster.
Protonk = Concern Troll…
April 17th, 2008 at 9:49 pmProtonk:
Where do you work that you are such an expert? You have not yet shown how private accounts won’t gut the system. Just saying so doesn’t make it so.
BTW, a concern troll may even me more odious than a normal troll. Did I use that word correctly dikwad?
April 17th, 2008 at 9:49 pmI’ve thought it thru, and come to the thoughtful, measured opinion that Protonk is a concern troll… and an obvious one, at that.
April 17th, 2008 at 9:57 pmPray tell, what is protonk an acronym for?
Social Security supplanted by personal accounts is simply a way for wall Street and the corporate world to take peoples money under the guise of “investments”, pay themselves exorbitant salaries and bonuses, and when the time comes to balance the books, they say “Oopsie, now where did all that money go?
April 17th, 2008 at 10:04 pmSocial Security was set up as a trust by our grandparents who wished for their progeny not to suffer the same catastrophic collapse as they endured.
Our parents enjoyed good times, and squandered the moral obligation to honor their parents bequest of a vehicle for social justice and well being.
And now there are a lot of unhappy grandchildren facing pollution, corruption, and the fat bloated bankers saying:
“Trust us…. just give us your money, we’ll take care of you…….”
The same fat bloated bankers and robber barons who took from our grandparents.
Protonk: “I work in the sector that is eagerly awaiting your Social Security $$$$ so please listen to me.” As it wipes the drool from it’s chin.
April 17th, 2008 at 10:06 pm@ Blue state bob.
I’m an economist. and I never said that private accounts won’t “gut the system” if they are approached in such a way that current accounts are not paid for.
Here’s the trouble. We have promised people alive now X dollars for Social Security. If we want to switch to a system where people are forced to contribute to their own retirement (but not that of others), then we have some trouble. Either current debts go unfinanced (the “gut the system” approach) because your FICA goes from supporting everyone to supporting you OR you (people alive now) pay double (or some amount >100% ) in order to pay for the people we have currently promised AND in order to put money in your private account.
That’s a big time problem with the transition. but as a system goes, it isn’t highway robbery. It isn’t “giving SS money to companies”. It isn’t “ruining future retirement.” It isn’t even the same as the bush plan to invest the trust fund in the stock market.
April 17th, 2008 at 10:09 pmProtonk = annoying concern troll.
April 17th, 2008 at 10:15 pmI work in finance in NYC (we’re not all Republicans), I can guarantee you I don’t see protonk walking to work on Wall Street, and I for one at least understand the whole privatization idea is a bad joke. And honestly a lot of investment companies don’t want it, a lot of accounts with small balances, not worth it. Costs more in administration than any profit they would see, so protonk obviously doesn’t work at any finance company. It’s fun showing the trolls for the frauds that they are……
April 17th, 2008 at 10:15 pmPORKTON: Why don’t we just leave S.S. alone and allow folks to invest in IRA’s and 401k’s if they want to go that route?
April 17th, 2008 at 10:15 pmMcDonald’s is my guess.
April 17th, 2008 at 10:16 pmIf you laid all the economists in the world end to end they couldn’t reach a conclusion. Yep, that explains Podunk.
April 17th, 2008 at 10:18 pmProtonk Says:
I’m an economist.
OK, that was funny.
April 17th, 2008 at 10:19 pmPodork is an economist and I’m the freakin’ Queen of England. Everything he learned about economics he heard on Rush Limbaugh’s show.
April 17th, 2008 at 10:20 pmFiorina is a jerk. She was a complete failure at HP. That’s why they kicked her ass out. Ironically, she is another Hillary Clinton-nothing but smoke and mirrors and a lot of media hype. “Superwoman” in a pants suit. A media creation at best!
April 17th, 2008 at 10:24 pmLooks like the economist had to attend to an “economics matter” in aisle 4.
April 17th, 2008 at 10:36 pmSTFU.
April 17th, 2008 at 10:42 pmHow short is McCain’s memory? He wants private savings accounts “along the lines that President Bush proposed.” McCain apparently doesn’t remember that Bush spent months, and millions of our dollars, travelling across the country trying to convince Americans that private savings accounts for SS was a good thing, and no one bought it. His SS tour was supposed to only last a month, I believe, and he ended up extending it for several months because he wasn’t convincing people. Is this another McCain “senior moment”?
April 17th, 2008 at 10:48 pmEasy on guys, Protonk is being logical and reasonable. This is an issue that has affected every country recognising that there won’t be a future work-force to pay for it. There is an issue here. Future generations are being penalised, the Japanese know it, the UK knows it, the Germans know it and the USA is no longer moneybags now so what is so special about it?
April 17th, 2008 at 10:53 pmI’m sorry, Bobby. But you and Protonk, as posters, are new to me. Yet your sales pitch seems oddly familiar. My bullsh*t meter is is crackling like you’re toxic.
April 17th, 2008 at 10:59 pmThe reason any kind of switch to “private accounts” (in whatever form they take, be it stock market, CDs, or what have you) is bad is because the retirement money would not be guaranteed! It does not matter that, overall, through the life of the market, stocks have always gone up, because they went up at the expense of others that went down to nothing, and those accounts held some people’s retirement savings. If not for Social Security, the retirees that lost everything in ENRON stock would be worse off than they are today.
Social Security is GUARANTEED. That is why it is superior to private accounts, which are not.
Good night, everyone.
April 17th, 2008 at 10:59 pmBefore Fiorina arrived at HP, the portraits in the lobby were of Mr. Hewlett and Mr. Packard. After she arrived the portrait in the lobby was her. Then she screwed up the company and was deposed.
April 17th, 2008 at 11:19 pmTypical Republican. Grandiose and incompetent.
I miss the Republican Party of the 1860’s.
April 17th, 2008 at 11:25 pmPrivate accounts? Hmmm where have I heard that before???
April 17th, 2008 at 11:32 pmCarly making decisions that she might want to tell Teflon John McCain. Carly will have to explain it to McCain like he’s a 6 year old as he said he doesn’t know anything about Economy.
April 17th, 2008 at 11:39 pmGreat - let’s give our SS fund over to the same group that brought us Enron, oil manipulation, the mortgage crisis, dot com boom and Hundreds of million dollar CEO bonuses . . .
McSame was thought/voted worse than Bush in 2000, and in 2008 he shows why Bush was the better choice . . . wrong in 2000, defiantly WRONG in ‘08.
April 17th, 2008 at 11:47 pmAlpuz3. I am an avid reader of this site, certainly not a regular poster. I was curious about the subject but I just saw a few people were quick to jump on Protonk. I don’t see protonk yet as a concern troll. Maybe I am wrong,
Social Security is an economic issue, more than a political one and it will need to be addressed in time, just as other countries are struggling with such problems. Unfortunately, the USA has not exercised prudence over the last few years on the Chinese credit card.
I am actally ‘yorkshire miner by roots’, a real socialist.
I would rather Obama try to deal with it than McCain! God not that man!
April 18th, 2008 at 12:00 amWhat no one remembers is that up to many years back, about 35% of the national debt was in war bonds that kids bought in school a quarter or so at a time and will never be redeemed. Now the irredeemable portion of that debt has dropped to less than 2%. The Piper is waiting in the wings.
April 18th, 2008 at 12:45 amOn top of that the SS fund has been raided for the past 40 years to pay then current expenses. When the system ceases to bring in excess revenues, it would collapse. This the fundamental reason that Republicans want to switch horses (or is it cash cows?) at this time.
Uh yeah. When the private accounts were proposed early in the Shrub administration and the market bottomed out soon afterward - proved how good private accounts were.
What about the folks with a significant amount of their retirement in stocks who now can’t retire because of the lousy market these last few years ?
My sister is disabled and was set up with a fund from my mother’s estate which should have carried her for life. The fund administrator lost 50% of it when the market crashed.
Private accounts indeed!
April 18th, 2008 at 1:33 amRepublicans never wanted Social Security nor Medicare to exist in the first place. They called it ’socialism’. It is. Now we are supposed to believe that they would never do anything to harm those two programs?! Stop insulting my intelligence. Like ’specialist f’ said, there are IRAs and 401Ks for people who want to go that route.
Social Security greatly reduced poverty for the over 65. And contrary to what Republicans think, that is a good thing.
April 18th, 2008 at 4:17 amThis woman failed stockholders of HP company big time, but left with huge and hefty retirement check in the tens of millions of dollars.
I don’t want to see her near anything linked to Social Security…or we are all in deep trouble.
But I’m confident that John McLose will not make it…
April 18th, 2008 at 6:59 amblue state bob Says:
Same Fiorina who was run out of HP for being an absolure unmitigated disaster as CEO of HP? She proved herself to be an idiot then, things haven’t changed.
April 17th, 2008 at 8:20 pm Recommend (6) | Report Abuse
Yep, exactly THAT person.
April 18th, 2008 at 7:23 amCaption Contest: “Gawd, these progressives are the angry ones”
April 18th, 2008 at 8:07 amIf it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
SS and Medicare are not broken……unless some sleazy republican wants to fix them. Their idea of “fixing” them would be to take from the poor and give to the rich. Robin Hood in reverse is the republican mantra.
April 18th, 2008 at 8:15 amHere comes the right-wing fear mongering campaign again.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xVrAv2D1H0I
April 18th, 2008 at 8:34 amReading the comments, and Protonk’s assertions, I find he’s being slightly dishonest in presenting his case:
Here’s the trouble. We have promised people alive now X dollars for Social Security. If we want to switch to a system where people are forced to contribute to their own retirement (but not that of others), then we have some trouble. Either current debts go unfinanced (the “gut the system” approach) because your FICA goes from supporting everyone to supporting you OR you (people alive now) pay double (or some amount >100% ) in order to pay for the people we have currently promised AND in order to put money in your private account.
I don’t think we ever were talking about mandatory accounts, so his either/or scenario is based on a false choice.
April 18th, 2008 at 8:35 amHere’s a solution for all the Protonks in the audience: remove the cap on FICA payments, and let the rich pay on every dollar earned, like everyone else. Why should they get special treatment?
April 18th, 2008 at 8:43 amIs America ready to elect a crazy old white man to be the next president?
April 18th, 2008 at 8:47 amI actually saw this on a car!
Do you understand what a private account system means? Do you know that you don’t have to give money to any company in a private account system? It isn’t the same as “privatizing social security”, even though that term is vague enough to encompass a half-dozen possible solutions.
So we have Protonk, contradicting himself.
April 18th, 2008 at 8:50 amHere is the former HP chairwoman who packed billions in company money to foreign countries to avoid taxes here in America. Now she has to privatize social security so that she and her very rich friends can pack America’s last resort insurance policy and your health care system into the hands of those friends. Then they will take your hard earned savings and meet their friends in Dubaai for the party.
April 18th, 2008 at 9:48 amAmerica looses and she and her friends sit on the beach and buy their health insurance and retirement with your sweat.
I found this in an article (link below) entitled Fiorina out, HP stock soars.
“The stock is up a bit on the fact that nobody liked Carly’s leadership all that much,” said Robert Cihra, an analyst with Fulcrum Global Partners. “The Street had lost all faith in her and the market’s hope is that anyone will be better.”
Yes, Carly, by all means…work your magic with the McCain campaign. You go, girl!
Link.
April 18th, 2008 at 5:50 pm