Another Baron Lie: “Privatize Social Security”

As I noted on Sunday, the gloves have come off. Mike Sodrel’s surge in recent polling has terrified Baron Hill and his liberal allies in Washington, and has spurred them to return to the same old negative campaigning we saw in 2006.

Mike Sodrel, as I noted before, made a proposal to avoid such unpleasantness, but was rudely rebuffed by Baron Hill. A positive campaign wouldn’t suit Baron it seems; he says that negative ads work.

Following their opening salvo of negative mail containing lies about the Fair Tax, Baron’s allies in the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee have put forward this ad:

Let’s fact check this, shall we?

(Read more after the leap)

First of all, the ad takes a quote from a recent radio appearance by Sodrel out of context. Sodrel’s interview included a lengthy discussion of the many challenges facing our economy, ranging from the price of gasoline to issues with the housing sector and the stock market. Sodrel’s exact answer was that “In relation to the world, I think that, yeah, the U.S. economy is fundamentally in good shape. It’s not going to stay that way long if we don’t make some serious adjustments.”

That wouldn’t make for a very good soundbyte, though, would it? Nope, nor would it make for a good 30-second attack spot. So Mike Sodrel’s answer had to be “reduced” and “tweaked” a bit, and then taken out of context to boot. The entire interview is available on the radio station’s website; you can download it here.

Second, it’s very in vogue for politicians to say that the fundamentals of the economy are strong or in good shape. John McCain did so (and was similarly misquoted) right before Sodrel did here (the above statement was in response to a question about what McCain had said), and Barack Obama did so as late as this Monday. McCain and Sodrel, at least, didn’t make such statements after the stock market started to really dive and right as it saw its largest plunge in history on the same day Obama said this:

Sodrel, like McCain, qualified his statement with a sober and realistic assessment of the situation. Both saw their opponents omit the full quote in favor of a short soundbyte for misleading 30-second attack ads (fair is fair; the same has been done to Obama, but only inreference to his earlier criticism of McCain).

Third, the ad repeats an old and discredited assertion that Mike Sodrel supports the privatization of Social Security. An ad in 2006 claiming just this was so discredited and untrue that there were calls for it to be pulled from the air. The very Courier-Journal article cited in the ad as the source of Sodrel’s position says that this is untrue. Back in 2006, I looked the article up. The text of it is available here. Mike Sodrel does not support the privatization of Social Security.

Fourth, the ad says that Sodrel supports “cutting guaranteed benefits.” As the CJ article cited also clearly notes, this is not the case. The article notes that Sodrel doesn’t favor any proposal that would cause a reduction in benefits. Indeed, it specifically notes he was concerned (and opposed) to such reductions.

Baron Hill and the DCCC love to throw around the notion that Mike Sodrel supports privatizing Social Security. It’s a game of misdirection, because Baron Hill (a former employee of investment firm Merrill Lynch) has stated repeatedly that he supports investing Social Security funds in the market to obtain a higher rate of return.

In 2004, Baron was caught on tape saying that he favored investing Social Security in the stock market. I saved this from when somebody put it on YouTube during the last campaign.

Imagine how Social Security would be fairing today, after that 777 point record dive on Monday.

But that was 2004, and this is 2008, you say. You’d be right.

Which is why it is just shocking that Baron Hill, just back in August of this year, said it again:

Not only did Baron say that he favored investing Social Security, he said that he was attending private, secret meetings to “fix” Social Security after the election.

Baron proclaimed that “everything is on the table” as a part of those secretive closed-door, backroom meetings.

And, for Baron, everything means everything, including raising payroll taxes and increasing the retirement age. Everything probably also includes things like benefit cuts.

In short, by the Democrats’ own definitions as described in their advertisements, not only Baron Hill supports privatizing Social Security and Mike Sodrel does not, but Baron Hill also supports things like payroll tax hikes and increases in the retirement age.

When it comes to Social Security, for Baron Hill, “Everything is on the table.”