Thursday, October 2, 2008

Social Security Issue

It appears the issue of Social Security has reared its ugly head again in the 10th District race.

Chris Carney used the recent downturn in the stock market as a way to highlight the risk involved with Chris Hackett's private accounts:
"My opponent, for example, wanted to base Social Security in the stock market. What a disastrous plan that would be," Carney said. "To privatize Social Security on top of something like this would just be ruinous. I think plans of privatization, especially based on the stock market, have been disproven now."
Hackett was forced to clarify his position and noted that he would not change benefit calculations for those close to retirement. Instead, he would phase in a private account system for young workers. Hackett further distanced himself by stating, "I think it's pretty clear that he's trying to misrepresent my position. It's a scare tactic, which is pretty typical of a guy like Chris Carney."


Connecting Hackett to drastic Social Security reform is something Carney has been trying to do from the beginning. It was one of the first policy points Carney issued against Hackett and continues to do with the Club For Growth references.

One thing that I'm not clear on about Hackett's plan involves carve-out or add-on accounts. The carve-out account approach is more what the Club For Growth lobbyies for which would replace existing benefits. Whereas an optional add-on account would be used to supplement benefits. Of course, the add-on approach would function as an additional tax which I'm sure is not a big selling point to Hackett. Carney sounds more like an add-on guy by stating he would support an opportunity for investment but not a change in the benefit system.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

If you don't have the sense to realize that the stock market is a long term investment Congressman Carney, I'm not sure you are the right person to represent this district.

Please stop trying to blow smoke, and obfuscate the issue. No one is talking about putting all of your Soc Sec money in the stock market. With a balanced portfolio, long term, a solid stock is always a better investment than the federal government.