What's Important 26

Twenty-sixth in a series.

McCain doesn't understand Social Security (or is a liar).

McCain told a townhall in Denver on Monday, "Americans have got to understand that. 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."

Of course, that's exactly how Social Security was designed to work, and has worked since its inception. Those "present-day retirees" paid to support the generation before them, and those "young workers" will be paid by those who are young when they're retired. It's a generational contract, and it means everyone's parents, not just the rich folks', will survive their old age in some comfort.

Here's Paul Krugman's take on this bizarre statement:

I’d guess that there are three things going on here.

First, McCain has no idea how Social Security works. That may sound hard to believe, but not to anyone who has spent any time in or around the federal government. Politicians, by and large, get where they are mainly by looking and sounding good; this may or may not go along with any actual understanding of governing.

Second, McCain lives in the Washington bubble; and as I wrote a while back,

Inside the Beltway, doomsaying about Social Security — declaring that the program as we know it can’t survive the onslaught of retiring baby boomers — is regarded as a sort of badge of seriousness, a way of showing how statesmanlike and tough-minded you are.

Finally, McCain has surrounded himself with people who hate Social Security. They probably tell him that it’s a doomed Ponzi scheme, and he believes them.

Here's another point to consider: John McCain has most likely never paid into Social Security (when he was in the military we didn't), and he does not (certainly not since his second marriage) depend on it. He could not care less, personally, whether it works or not, or is broken or not; he only wants to sound "serious" and "conservative".