John McCain Wants to Dismantle Social Security as We Know It

A Washington Post headline tells us that “Candidates Diverge on How to Save Social Security,” referring of course to Barack Obama and John McCain.  Problem is, McCain doesn’t want to “save” Social Security, unless by “save” you mean “destroy,” which, you know, is kind of the opposite.

How do I know this?  John McCain said so.

I’d like to start out by giving you a little straight talk. Under the present set-up, because we’ve mortgaged our children’s futures, you will not have Social Security benefits that present-day retirees have unless we fix it. And Americans have got to understand that.

Americans have got to understand that we are paying present-day retirees with the taxes paid by young workers in America today. And that’s a disgrace. It’s an absolute disgrace, and it’s got to be fixed.

I’ll let another blogger explain:

So when McCain calls the functional way that Social Security has worked for 75 years a disgrace, what you can conclude is that he wants to destroy the system. He’s on the record as favoring private accounts, even in this bear market. We know all the reasons why that is so, not the least of which is that it would be a trilion-dollar present for the financial services industry.