Penn ACTION has taken the lead on exposing Pat Toomey as not only the biggest threat to Social Security east of Nevada’s Sharon Angle, but also as a hypocrite on the issue.
- Pat Toomey Waffls On Social Security Privatization
Toomey has long been a supporter of Social Security privatization. A chapter in Toomey’s book, The Road to Prosperity, details a plan to allow workers to invest their payroll taxes on Wallstreet instead of being part of the Social Security system.
Yet in a speech in Harrisburg, taped by Penn ACTION’s Jeff Rousset, Toomey claims that
“I’ve never said I favor privatizing Social Security,”
Our work in capturing Toomey’s flip-flopping on the issue was reported in Paul Krugman’s blog and in Philadelphia and Harrisburg newspapers.
Social Security privatization is a terrible idea for a few reasons. First, it puts our Social Security benefits at risk. If your Social Security contributions had been in Wall Street accounts in the last five years, they would have lost 20% to 50% of their value.
Second, private accounts undermine the universality of the Social Security program. Everyone has the right to create their own private retirement accounts now. Social Security is designed to provide a floor of retirement benefits to everyone, as right of citizenship that is risk free and available to all. Risky private accounts undermines the guaranteed benefit on which we can all rely, not matter what happens to our private accounts.
In addition, while defenders of Social Security present it as a way to make the system more solvent, their real political motives are quite different.
One motive is to undermine political support for Social Security by undermining the universal character of the system. Social Security has almost universal support today among the American people because we all benefit from it. If it becomes just another private retirement account which benefits some people more than others, we will undermine political support for maintaining benefits at levels that allow all seniors to retire with dignity.
And the other questionable motive of Toomey and his fellow privatizers is reward their wealth friends by funneling billions of dollars to investment managers on Wall Street.
Americans are suffering greatly because of Wall Street financial shenanigans. This is no time to put our retirement benefits at risk and reward them.