The "Truthwatch" page at Darcy Burner's website, referenced at the previous post, tries to defend her against a claim she said she supports raising payroll taxes to help fix Social Security.
Specifically saying:
Claim #2: "Darcy Burner wants to take a bite of your paycheck... Darcy Burner proposed a tax increase by raising the amount of income that would be subjected to Social Security taxes."The Truth: Social Security is a promise we've made to today's workers for their retirement. Darcy is strongly committed to protecting and strengthening Social Security, and will fight against risky privatization schemes being pushed by President Bush. She believes modest reforms are needed and there are a wide range of options to consider and examine. Darcy is looking for reasonable reforms that can ensure Social Security's solvency for generations to come, but she has not proposed or supported a tax on working families.
Obviously, someone found Darcy saying she supports raising the cap on wages subject to the payroll tax as part of addressing problems with Social Security. Then she dodges the charge in her response.
Her campaign is clearly concerned about this issue, as evidenced by the defense at her website, and this letter to the editor published in the Tacoma News Tribune. Note the obvious similarity between the letter and Darcy's official defense. Having personally ghostwritten dozens of letters to the editor in the past, I can guarantee that letter was drafted by the campaign for submission by a supporter.
So, the bleg is, has anyone seen the NRCC piece in question, or even the evidence that Burner made such a statement? If so, a scanned copy of the mail piece or any other related information would be appreciated given the Burner campaign's upset (send to ericearling at gmail dot com).
UPDATE: Thanks to Lynne in the comments for providing a link to Burner's interview with John Carlson earlier this year. The Social Security segment does start at the 15:30 mark. Burner clearly comes out in support of raising the cap on wages subject to FICA. She also claims only "small tweaks" are needed to fix Social Security, the usual Democratic mantra. However, raising the cap on wages subject to taxation is also a fairly typical option discussed by Democrats, even President Bush didn't immediately rule it off the table last year. So, why is Darcy Burner afraid to admit at "Truth Watch" that she did say she supports raising taxes in that manner? And since she does support raising the cap, does she also support raising the cap on benefits that also applies to taxpayers whose wages exceed the cap?
Posted by Eric Earling at October 06, 2006 06:30 PM | Email ThisHe has joined the other side, and they brought him on the team because they knew he would fold and allow another massive tax increase.
After just opening my latest property tax hike of 35%, 180k in additional value, I have no use for John Carlson any more.
Posted by: GS on October 6, 2006 06:37 PMWill "What's up Doc with the ethics comittee" go next?
Raise taxes to pay for services? wow unlike raise the defecit and spend more and leave it for the DEMOCRATS TO CLEAN UP AGAIN.
Thanks you Reagan and Bushes for teaching us how to use credit cards.
It just don't get any better than that.
Next.
Posted by: Smokie on October 6, 2006 07:08 PMNot trying to nitpick or call you a liar, but that figure seems really really high.
Posted by: Randy Mueller on October 6, 2006 07:15 PMWell they sure as hell can't be moderate. Any fourth grader can see how the system works. It takes money from those who are working to pay for those who have retired. As the larger demographic of the boomer generation retires, there are simply not enough workers to maintain their Social Security benefit at the same meager levels they are at now. And oh, how about inflation and the rising cost of living?
The only way to make Social Security keep its euphemistic promise is to greatly increase the tax on existing workers and/ or migrate the plan to more solid investments with return instead of relying so much on existing worker revenue.
But Darcy does not want to do anything prudent, she just wants to keep up the rhetoric for seniors. The Dems don't sell solutions, they sell status quo or worse.
Vote Reichert.
Posted by: Jeff B. on October 6, 2006 08:31 PMOnly a Democrat would call privatization risky when leaving the program as-is is a sure thing to lose trillions of dollars in surpluses spent and lost. And only a Democrat would jeopardize the security of seniors for a campaign issue based on a lie and the destruction of the program.
Darcy Burner is either so desperate for victory that she would abandon seniors and destroy Social Security, or she is dumber than a brick. Given that I'd never underestimate a Democrat's intelligence, that doesn't leave a very pleasant conclusion about Burner and the type of character she and her fellow Democrats display every day in opposing ANYTHING supported by Republicans.
And you know, with this like everything else Democrats destroy, when SSI is in crisis and people are demanding to know who to blame, you can be sure that Democrats will be right up front, with the support of the MSM, to blame Republicans.
Posted by: MJC on October 6, 2006 10:58 PMPrivatizing social security would cost $2 trillion dollars up front (the equivelent of the military budget for six years.) Where would that money come from?
Raising the cap on income over $100K is a perfectly logical solution that would actually contribute to Social Security's solvency.
Congress attempted to do just that in 1983, shooting for making 90% of all earnings taxable. But because wealth has become more concentrated since then, only 85% of income is subject to the social security tax.
When republicans whine about specific options being "unaceptable," they're diametrically contradicing their recited talking point from spring 2005, which was "you must be willing to put all options on the table." Democrats never said that. Republicans did, but they didn't really believe it, did they?
Posted by: Sorry Charlie on October 7, 2006 08:46 AMThe "smaller as a % of GDP" thing is only true of 17 of the last 25 years: the 1980s, early 90s and 2000s. Guess who was president then.... um... oh yeah, Regan and Bush-1 were the presidents who did a worse job handling the defecit than Bush in 2005.
When you're done making up economic figures out of your ass, maybe someone will take you seriously.
Posted by: Sorry Charlie on October 7, 2006 09:08 AMLet's see Charlie as you remove economic data from you own ample hindmost regions, you might recall who contolled the spending purse strings in the House and Senate during the Reagan/ Bush 1 years.
You still smell like rotten tuna.
Posted by: Smokie on October 7, 2006 09:43 AMIf Bush said privatization wouldn't "solve" Social Security's insolvency problem, he was probably doing something Democrats don't recognize; telling the truth. Privatization can't make up for the excessive promises made by the program, but it can extend the life of the program, as well as Medicare, Disability Insurance and Prescription Drugs for decades. It will also stop the theft of trillions more in surpluses that Democrats and many RINOs want to spend.
As for the cost of total privatization, whose fault is that? And equating it to 6 years of Defense Spending is the typical Liberal spin, even if you're off. It's actually closer to 4 years at our current $500 billion annual spending on Defense. But the conservative spin would point out that $2 trillion is not much more than a single year of our current social spending, which reached nearly $1.7 trillion this year. We're spending nearly twice as much on SSI and Medicare as on Defense alone.
The problem with our Federal social spending is not that we don't tax enough, but that we're spending too much so politicians can buy votes. The immediate problem, though, is not cutting benefits or raising taxes, but simply to stop the theft of the surpluses and invest them outside the government where they can't be spent. The immediate impact of that would be to reduce revenues that government spenders are addicted to. But even if privatization started today and only with the surpluses, the 2015 insolvency of Social Security could be put off for decades.
But that would require Democrats to concede an issue that they have been able to exploit to scare seniors into supporting them. It would mean Democrats abandoning their singularly focused opposition to anything Republican and actually putting the good of the people above retaining and regaining their power. And I'm yet to see evidence that Democrats really care about anything as much as their power, including protecting Americans from terrorism, or securing our economic futures.
Posted by: MJC on October 7, 2006 11:00 AMhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bleg
Bleg
A blog entry consisting of a request to the readers, such as for information or contributions. A portmanteau of "blog" and "beg". Also called "Lazyweb."