He couldn't have been any clearer in last night's debate. Responding to a question about prioritizing a list of issues, including entitlements, Sen. McCain answered:
My friends, we are not going to be able to provide the same benefit for present-day workers that we are going -- that present-day retirees have today. We're going to have to sit down across the table, Republican and Democrat, as we did in 1983 between Ronald Reagan and Tip O'Neill.
To clarify: If you are contributing to Social Security today, you can ignore the estimated retirement benefit stated in your annual Social Security statement. That benefit is based on the current law, at the rate currently being paid to retirees, plus cost of living increases. In McCain's view, providing that benefit to present day workers when they retire is an impossibility.
Is this a new position announced for the first time during the debate? Let's examine the web record...
As a platform statement, what McCain said in the October 7 debate seems to conflict with the statement on the official McCain - Palin 2008 web page (Home->Issues->Economic Plan->Government Reform)
John McCain will fight to save the future of Social Security, and he believes that we may meet our obligations to the retirees of today and the future without raising taxes. John McCain supports supplementing the current Social Security system with personal accounts - but not as a substitute for addressing benefit promises that cannot be kept. John McCain will reach across the aisle to address these challenges, but if the Democrats do not act, he will. No problem is in more need of honesty than the looming financial challenges of entitlement programs. Americans have the right to know the truth and John McCain will not leave office without fixing the problems that threaten our future prosperity and power.
So he believes we can "meet our obligations to retirees ... of the future ..." What obligations are those? Does that mean the obligation to pay benefits under the current formulary? Or are these some undefined (reduced) benefits to which Sen. McCain refers?
However, in the same statement, he supports "supplementing" Social Security with personal accounts, "but not as a substitute for addressing benefit promises that cannot be kept." So again, we may as well take the benefit calculator off line, because the promises must be broken.
So the current McCain position is that was must meet our obligations, but the promises cannot be kept. OK, glad we cleared that up. After all, we have "the right to know the truth," but not the right to count on receiving a set level of benefits from the system that many have paid into for decades.
In another apparently official position (I could not navigate through the menus to this page, but Google found it), he steps up his assault on entitlements:
Promises made to previous and current generations have placed the United States on an unsustainable budget pathway. Unchecked, Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare obligations will grow as large as the entire federal budget is now in just a few decades. Without comprehensive bipartisan reform to America's entitlement programs, the nation will be unable to meet the challenges of providing vital medical and social security assistance to future generations.
Diarists have already pointed out the McCain plans to savage Medicare and Medicaid for $1.3 trillion, so why hasn't more attention been paid to his abandonment of Social Security?
When it comes to Social Security, the spotlight has been on McCain's support of privatization.
FactCheck.org had an article calling the Sen. Obama's attacks on McCain's Social Security plan a "whopper," when he said at a September 20 rally in Florida:
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.
Not true, says the article:
Nobody born before Jan. 1, 1950 could have participated, and anyone born on that date would be 58 years old now. The earliest possible age for receiving Social Security retirement benefits is 62, for early retirement at reduced benefits. Full retirement age is currently 66, and scheduled to go up to age 67 in coming years.
So FactCheck.org implies that the only risk to Social Security from McCain's plan is from the privatization portion, which is optional.
For all the good they have done this election cycle, in this case, FactCheck needs to check their facts.
The threat to Social Security benefits under McCain couldn't be clearer. He has abandoned any pretence of honoring the Government's Social Security contract with American workers. We must fight to keep the benefits we are entitled to. Spread the word! Vote Obama!