Over the weekend, Barack Obama appeared in the battleground state of Florida and made to scare citizens over McCain's votes on Social Security. Obama claimed that McCain voted for a plan that would have seen the Social Security benefits of "elderly women" at risk in the stock market during the recent wildly fluctuating market. Telling his audience, "if my opponent had his way, the millions of Floridians who rely on it would've had their Social Security tied up in the stock market this week," Obama tried to claim that the elderly would have lost their money because of John McCain. FactCheck.org called these claims "not true."
That's not true. The plan proposed by President Bush and supported by McCain in 2005 would not have allowed anyone born before 1950 to invest any part of their Social Security taxes in private accounts. All current retirees would be covered by the same benefits they are now.
In other words, Obama's attempt to scare old women that their benefits would have been at risk if McCain had his way is an outright lie. The truth is, McCain voted for a plan that would have allowed anyone under the age of 58 to opt to have their benefits invested in the stock market, but only if they wanted them to be invested.
As FactCheck.org notes on September 19, they explained an Obama lie that held that McCain would have cut Social Security benefits by 50%. In this one they also correct the lies Obama told on the 20th.
FactCheck.org notes Obama's words in Daytona Beach, Florida:
And I'll protect Social Security, while John McCain wants to privatize it. Without Social Security half of elderly women would be living in poverty - half. But if my opponent had his way, the millions of Floridians who rely on it would've had their Social Security tied up in the stock market this week. Millions would've watched as the market tumbled and their nest egg disappeared before their eyes. Millions of families would've been scrambling to figure out how to give their mothers and fathers, their grandmothers and grandfathers, the secure retirement that every American deserves. So I know Senator McCain is talking about a "casino culture" on Wall Street - but the fact is, he's the one who wants to gamble with your life savings.
But the truth is something else entirely.
That's untrue. All current retirees would be covered by exactly the same Social Security benefits they are now under what the Obama campaign likes to call the "Bush-McCain privatization plan," which Bush pushed for unsuccessfully in 2005.
Is this the way Obama is making his "new era" in politics by using lies to scare old people?
FactCheck.org's Newsweek piece goes on to clear up exactly what it was that the Bush plan that McCain supported would have done and none of it put the benefits of "elderly women" at risk in any way whatever.
In any case, kudos to Newsweek once again for hosting the truth. But one wonders if the rest of the Old Media will follow this example and highlight Barack Obama's blatant lies on the campaign trail?
