Who Do You Think You’re Foolin’, Pat Toomey?
August 25th, 2010
Who Do You Think You’re Foolin’, Pat Toomey?
Toomey Actually Said “I’ve Never Said I Favor Privatizing Social Security” After Years of Cheerleading for Exactly That
Just 6 Days Earlier:
Think Progress: Toomey Says His Plan To Privatize Social Security ‘Would Be A Very Important Start’
Washington DC– Pat Toomey raised eyebrows at the Pennsylvania Press Clubon Monday with his jaw-dropping claim at that “I’ve Never Said I Favor Privatizing Social Security,” a claim which flies in the face of reality given the former Congressman’s deep and rich history of advocating for exactly that as recently as last week. As Think Progress noted, in an August 17 interview, Toomey touted a subchapter in his own book titled “Personal Accounts Lead to Personal Prosperity.”
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 Toomey to stop playing word games with Pennsylvania seniors and to be honest with them about his support for phasing out the cherished safety net that has kept millions of seniors, survivors and disabled Americans out of poverty for 75 years and replacing it with risky investment scheme on Wall Street.
Tom McMahon, Executive Director, Americans United for Change: “It’s truly remarkable that Pat Toomey was able to keep a straight facing denying that he’s ever supported privatizing Social Security when he’s literally written the book on doing just that. Pat Toomey is trying to play word games with Pennsylvania seniors, claiming he’s for ‘personal accounts,’ not ‘privatization.’ You can put lipstick on a pig, but it’s still a pig. No matter what Pat Toomey wants to call it, any plan that would divert money from the Social Security trust fund to pay for risky private accounts on Wall Street is privatization, pure and simple. Toomey wants to revive the same old Bush privatization scheme that PA seniors rejected in 2005 that would hand over our guaranteed benefits to same people on Wall Street that crashed the economy. Pat Toomey has every right to support a scheme designed to make Wall Street bankers richer while slashing guaranteed benefits and exploding the national debt by trillions of dollars. He just needs to be honest about it with Pennsylvanians.”
“\ Pat Toomey is trying to pull the same Orwellian doublespeak that President Bush tried in http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/149953.php">2002 when he and his backers in Congress realized just how unpopular their “privatization” plan was and stopped calling it by its own name, “ added McMahon.