Linda McMahon Says She Backs “Some Of” a Detailed Republican Plan for Privatizing Social Security
August 17th, 2010
Linda McMahon Says She Backs “Some Of” a Detailed Republican Plan for Privatizing Social Security and Medicare and Slashing Guaranteed Benefits
Which Parts? We May Never Know
McMahon: ‘I just don't believe that the campaign trail is the right place to talk about that.”
Washington DC– In the same week that marked Social Security’s 75th anniversary of keeping seniors, survivors, and disabled Americans out of poverty, Connecticut U.S. Senate hopeful Linda McMahon (R-NC) said in an interview with CNBC that she backs “some of” a detailed Republican budget proposal put forward by U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI), the ranking Republican Member of the House Budget Committee, that would replace Social Security with a risky privatization scheme and replace Medicare with a voucher system that shortchanges seniors on medical care. When asked specifically about the Ryan’s proposed phasing out of Medicare, McMahon replied: “Well, I’m going to have to take a look at Medicare cuts.” Americans United for Change – the group formerly known as Americans United to Protect Social Security that led the national campaign to defeat President Bush’s plan to privatize Social Security in 2005 – called on McMahon to explain clearly which parts of the Ryan ‘roadmap to ruin’ she supports.
Washington Post’s Ezra Klein calls the ‘reforms’ detailed in Ryan's budget proposal “nothing short of violent.” Indeed, according to an in-depth analysis by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities: “[T]he Ryan plan would raise taxes for most middle-income families, privatize a substantial portion of Social Security, eliminate the tax exclusion for employer-sponsored health insurance, end traditional Medicare and most of Medicaid, and terminate the Children’s Health Insurance Program. The plan would replace these health programs with a system of vouchers whose value would erode over time and thus would purchase health insurance that would cover fewer health care services as the years went by.” Nobel Prize winning economist Paul Krugman agrees, stressing that Ryan’s Medicare proposal “would have higher, not lower, costs than our current system. The only way the Ryan plan could save money would be by making those vouchers too small to pay for adequate coverage.”
Tom McMahon, Executive Director, Americans United for Change:“There is a very serious proposal for privatizing Social Security and Medicare on the table from a Congressman who could one day be in a position to advance this Bush-era scheme to make Wall Street bankers richer. And the people of Connecticut deserve a straight answer from Linda McMahon on which “parts” of it she has thrown her support behind. Does McMahon support the part about cutting sick kids in Connecticut off from the children’s health insurance program? How about the part about raising taxes on middle-class Connecticut families? What about the part where guaranteed benefits would be siphoned off from the Social Security trust fund and placed in the hands of Wall Street bankers --- turning guaranteed benefits into a guaranteed gamble. Has McMahon had enough time yet to ‘take a look’ at the details of Ryan’s plan for replacing Medicare with voucher system that won’t even cover the full cost of medical care or prescriptions? These are the pillars of Congressman Ryan’s ‘roadmap to ruin,’ and it’s time Linda McMahon to be very clear where she stands on each and every one of them. No more Washington double-speak and word games.”
Connecticutseniors and middle-class families may not want to hold their breath getting answers to these questions from Linda McMahon, who has been uncharacteristically shy about informing the people of Connecticut what she would do with Social Security and Medicare if given the chance. McMahon, who as the former CEO of the raucous World Wrestling Entertainment had no problem stepping before a national audience to participate in some of the more cringeworthy goings-on of the organization, recently told the Connecticut Mirror that when it came to Social Security and Medicare: ‘I just don't believe that the campaign trail is the right place to talk about that.”