As you know, last week Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) said that Social Security is “an absolute disgrace.” Now, I guess the McCain campaign thought it could bury the controversy over the senator’s remarks by hauling out former Sen. Phil Gramm to say that the recession is just a figment of people’s imaginations. But I’m not so easily thrown off the scent. And the substance of McCain’s comments are important because they reveal a key part of his agenda — which is to phase out Social Security in just the way President Bush tried and failed to do back in 2005.

But first to what McCain meant.

After having campaign spokesman Brian Rogers take a stab at explaining his boss’s “disgrace” remarks, McCain took a shot himself, saying that young people “are paying so much that they are paying into a system that they won’t receive benefits from on its present track that it’s on — that’s the point.”

Only that’s not what he said at all. Let’s set aside McCain’s factual claim that current payers into the system won’t receive their benefits back, since that is demonstrably false. And let’s go back to what McCain actually said, not once but multiple times — that the system, as originally designed and as it has worked for going on over 70 years, is a “disgrace.” Indeed, let’s go further and remove the inflammatory “disgrace” language and focus on McCain’s underlying argument, which is that the program itself, a pay-as-you-go retirement security program, isn’t something to be tinkered with to keep it on track but is, rather, the problem itself.

If the “disgrace” comments didn’t make this point clearly enough, McCain made the point just as clearly the following day on CNN when he told John Roberts, “Let’s describe [Social Security] for what it is. They [i.e., working Americans] pay their taxes and right now their taxes are going to pay the retirement of present-day retirees. That’s why it’s broken; that’s why we can fix it.”

Couldn’t be clearer. The “problem” with Social Security, what makes the program an “absolute disgrace,” is the design of the program itself, not something that’s gotten out of whack about it.

Now, as Mr. McCain might say, let’s have some straight talk.

What McCain believes is no different from what President Bush and others did and do believe when they wanted to phase out Social Security and replace it with a system of private investment accounts. He’s just been a bit clumsier about hiding what he’s pushing for.

The debate about Social Security is the same as it was in 2005 and in most respects the same as it was in 1965. You have one group that believes in the current system — which is an intergenerational bargain, insuring a baseline level of retirement security as well as insurance protection for dependent children and insurance against premature death and disability. It’s no accident that discussion of the topic has become the proverbial third rail of American politics. It’s an incredibly popular program and has become the sheet anchor of the modern American middle class.  

The other side — McCain’s side — thinks this is just wrong, morally and economically. And in its place they want to create a system of individual private investment accounts — similar to a lifetime 401(k). At first the idea is to carve out about a quarter of the revenues for the private accounts. But inevitably, this will create pressure to carve out more and more, since the system can only work effectively if everyone is in it.

That’s the essence of the debate. And no one should be deceived by McCain’s own efforts to twist and spin his own words retrospectively.

Marshall is editor of talkingpointsmemo.com . His column appears in The Hill each week.
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