What can we do to make sure people understand the potential threat to Social Security, and their radical views on abortion? Seems Ryan let slip some things that he'd so far been told to 'forget' by the Romney campaign.
I'm sure the Obama machine will be ready, but I hope that progressive bloggers will pummel Romney-Ryan on these two issues. These are new. We already have the 'no specifics on taxes', and warmonger angles. But until the VP debate these two hadn't become very visible topics. An astute moderator would follow-up on these, let's hope the moderator on Tuesday asks about them.
We must make seniors and women understand what's coming based on what Ryan himself seemed to suggest at the debate.
On abortion: This is a good chance to bring back Akin.
On Social Security: What better chance to tie back Bush to Romney-Ryan via Bush's failed privatization attempt?
Here's the thing, even if Romney-Ryan will deny all of this and walk it back, and perhaps its not Romney's identical position, but hey just having a conversation on these issues is shaky terrain for the GOP.
via TPM:
In the vice presidential debate Thursday night, Paul Ryan seemed to indicate that a Romney-Ryan administration would support the idea of giving younger Americans the option to move their Social Security benefits into private retirement accounts.
The Wisconsin congressman and House Budget Committee chairman talked up the concept when asked about his and Romney’s backing of President George W. Bush’s failed Social Security privatization plan.
“For younger people,” Ryan said. “What we said then and what I’ve always agreed is, let younger Americans have a voluntary choice of making their money work faster for them within the Social Security system. That’s not what Mitt Romney’s proposing. We say no changes for anybody 55 and above.
“And then the changes we talk about for younger people like myself is don’t increase benefit for the wealthy people as fast as anybody else, slowly raise the retirement age over time,” he said. “It wouldn’t get to the age of 70 until the year 2103, according to the actuaries.”
Ryan championed plans in 2004 and 2010 that would shift Social Security funds into the private market. Participants would be permitted to invest one-third of their Social Security taxes in stocks and bonds. Although the plans contained mechanisms to protect payouts to beneficiaries against market fluctuations, nonpartisan studies found that it could destabilize the program’s solvency in the long-term. Bush tried and failed to enact a altered version of the plan at the beginning of his second term.
The extent of Romney’s support for privatization is questionable because his official Social Security platform calls for incrementally raising the eligibility age and lowering benefits for high-income recipients. It does not mention the privatization proposal, but Ryan’s remarks indicate that the Romney-Ryan ticket supports the principle.